Part II

Part II

Base art thou yet, oh, Rum, as when the wise man warned us of thy power and bade us flee thy enchantment. Vile art thou yet as when thou first went forth on thy unholy mission――filling earth with desolation and madness, woe and anguish. Deadly art thou yet as when thy envenomed tooth first took fast hold on human hearts, and thy serpent tongue first drank up the warm life-blood of immortal souls. Accursed art thou yet as when the bones of thy first victim rotted in a damp grave, and its shriek echoed along the gloomy caverns of hell. Yes, thou infernal spirit of rum, through all past time hast thou been, as through all coming time thou shalt be, accursed everywhere.

In the fiery fountains of the still; in the seething bubbles of the caldron; in the kingly palace and the drunkard’s hovel; in the rich man’s cellar and the poor man’s closet; in the pestilential vapors of foul dens and in the blaze of gilded saloons; in the hand of beauty and on the lip of manhood, rum is vile and deadly and accursed everywhere.

Rum, we yield not to thy unhallowed influence, and together we have met to plan thy destruction. And by what new name shall we call thee, and to what shall we liken thee when we speak of thy attributes? Others may call thee child of perdition, the base-born progeny of sin and Satan, the murderer of mankind and the destroyer of immortal souls; but I will give thee a new name among men and crown thee with a new horror, and that new name shall be the sacramental cup of the Rum-Power, and I will say to all the sons and daughters of earth――Dash it down! And thou, Rum, shalt be my text in my pilgrimage among men, and not alone shalt my tongue utter it, but the groans of orphans in their agony and the cries of widows in their desolation shall proclaim it the enemy of home, the traducer of childhood, and the destroyer of manhood, and whose only antidote is the sacramental cup of temperance, cold water!

* * * * *

THE POWER OF HABIT.

(DESCRIPTIVE, SPIRITED AND DRAMATIC.)

I REMEMBER once riding from Buffalo to the Niagara Falls. I said to a gentleman, “What river is that, sir?”

“That,” said he, “is Niagara river.”

“Well, it is a beautiful stream,” said I; “bright, and fair and glassy. How far off are the rapids?”

“Only a mile or two,” was the reply.

“Is it possible that only a mile from us we shall find the water in the turbulence which it must show near the Falls?”

“You will find it so, sir.” And so I found it; and the first sight of Niagara I shall never forget.

Now, launch your bark on that Niagara river; it is bright, smooth, beautiful, and glassy. There is a ripple at the bow; the silver wake you leave behind adds to your enjoyment. Down the stream you glide, oars, sails, and helm in proper trim, and you set out on your pleasure excursion.

Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, “Young men, ahoy!”

“What is it?”

“The rapids are below you!”

“Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids; but we are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then we shall up with the helm, and steer to the shore; we will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed to the land. Then on, boys, don’t be alarmed, there is no danger.”

“Young men, ahoy there!”

“What is it?”

“The rapids are below you!”

“Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff; all things delight us. What care we for the future! No man ever saw it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will enjoy life while we may, we will catch pleasure as it flies. This is enjoyment; time enough to steer out of danger when we are sailing swiftly with the current.”

“Young men, ahoy!”

“What is it?”

“Beware! beware! The rapids are below you!”

“Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard! Quick! quick! quick! pull for your lives! pull till the blood starts from your nostrils, and the veins stand like whip-cords upon your brow! Set the mast in the socket! hoist the sail! Ah! ah! it is too late! Shrieking, howling, blaspheming, over they go.”

Thousands go over the rapids of intemperance every year, through the power of habit, crying all the while, “When I find out that it is injuring me, I will give it up!”

* * * * *

WHAT IS A MINORITY?

WHAT is a minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in a minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. It is the minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is a minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world. You will find that each generation has been always busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation’s history. Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments――to whom?――to the Covenanters. Ah, they were in a minority. Read their history, if you can, without the blood tingling to the tips of your fingers. These were in the minority, that, through blood, and tears, and bootings and scourgings――dying the waters with their blood, and staining the heather with their gore――fought the glorious battle of religious freedom. Minority! if a man stand up for the right, though the right be on the scaffold, while the wrong sits in the seat of government; if he stand for the right, though he eat, with the right and truth, a wretched crust; if he walk with obloquy and scorn in the by-lanes and streets, while the falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire, let him remember that wherever the right and truth are there are always

“Troops of beautiful, tall angels”

gathered round him, and God Himself stands within the dim future, and keeps watch over His own! If a man stands for the right and the truth, though every man’s finger be pointed at him, though every woman’s lip be curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with him, and greater are they that are for him, than all they that be against him.

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CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW.

AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS AFTER-DINNER ORATOR.

IT is impossible in a sketch like this to do justice to the remarkable versatility of Mr. Depew. His admirable addresses would fill several bulky volumes. As an after-dinner speaker, he is without a peer, and his wit, logic and eloquence never fail him. What could be more apt than his words, when, upon entering a public hall where a number of leading men were straining themselves to prove the Christian religion a delusion and a sham, and there were instant and clamorous calls for him, he said: “Gentlemen, my mother’s Bible is good enough for me; have you anything better to offer?” And then with touching pathos and impassioned words he made an appeal for the religion which they reviled, which must have pierced the shell of more than one agnostic heart.

Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born at Peekskill, New York, April 23, 1834. His remote ancestors were French Huguenots, who founded New Rochelle, in Westchester County. His father, Isaac Depew, was a prominent and highly esteemed citizen of Peekskill, and his mother, Martha Mitchell, was a representative of the distinguished New England family, one of whose members, Roger Sherman, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Chauncey spent his boyhood in Peekskill, where he prepared for college. He was a bright student, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1856, with one of the first honors of his class. In June, 1887, Yale conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. It will be noted that Mr. Depew reached his majority at about the time of the formation of the Republican Party. Although of Democratic antecedents, he had been a close student of politics and his sympathies were with the aims of the new political organization, to which he speedily gave his allegiance.

Mr. Depew studied law in his native village, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. In the same year, he was elected as a delegate to the Republican State Convention, this being an acknowledgment of the interest he had taken in the party, and the skill and energy he had shown in advocating its policy. He began the practice of law in 1859, and was highly successful from the first. In his early manhood, his striking power as a stump speaker, his readiness at repartee, and his never-failing good humor, made him a giant in politics, to which he was literally forced to give attention. But with all these extraordinary gifts, he could launch the thunderbolts of invective against wrong and stir the profoundest depths of emotion by his appeals. He loved liberty and hated oppression, and has always believed that the United States of America is the happiest and greatest country upon which the sun ever shone. His patriotic speeches are models of eloquence and power.

In 1860 he took the stump for Abraham Lincoln and added greatly to his reputation as a ready, forceful, and brilliant pleader for that which he believed to be right. It cannot be denied that he contributed much to the success of that memorable election.

In 1861 Mr. Depew was nominated for the Assembly in the Third Westchester County District, and, although the constituency was largely Democratic, he was elected by a handsome majority. He fully met all the high expectations formed, and was re-elected in 1862. By his geniality, wit, integrity and courtesy he became as popular among his political opponents as among his friends. He was made his party’s candidate for Secretary of State, directly after the Democrats had won a notable triumph by the election of Horatio Seymour as Governor; but by his dash and brilliancy and his prodigious endurance (he spoke twice a day for six weeks), he secured a majority of 30,000. So admirably did he perform the duties of the office that he was offered a renomination, but declined.

During the administration of President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward appointed Mr. Depew Minister to Japan, but after consideration, the offer was declined. He seemed to have decided to withdraw from politics and to devote his time and energies to his profession. That shrewd railway man and financier, Commodore Vanderbilt, had watched the career of Depew, and had formed a strong admiration for him, while the eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt, became his firm friend. In 1866 Mr. Depew was appointed the attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad Company, and three years later, when that road was consolidated with the New York Central, he was made the attorney of the new organization, being afterward elected a member of the Board of Directors.

As other and extensive roads were added to the system, Mr. Depew, in 1875, was promoted to be general counsel for them all, and elected to a directorship in each of the numerous organizations. The year previous the Legislature had made him Regent of the State University, and one of the Commissioners to build the Capitol at Albany.

In 1884 the United States senatorship was tendered to Mr. Depew, but he was committed to so many business and professional trusts that he felt compelled to decline the honor. Two years before, William H. Vanderbilt had retired from the presidency of the New York Central, and in the reorganization Mr. Depew was made Second Vice-President. The President, Mr. Rutter, died in 1885, and Mr. Depew was elected to the presidency, which office he still holds.

At the National Republican Convention of 1888, New York voted solidly for Mr. Depew as its candidate for the Presidency, but he withdrew his name. At the convention at Minneapolis in 1892 he was selected to present the name of President Harrison, and made one of the best speeches of his life. When Mr. Blaine resigned as Secretary of State, President Harrison urged Mr. Depew to accept the place, but after a week’s deliberation he felt obliged to decline the honor. He has, however, continued to take an active interest in politics.

During the last ten years Mr. Depew has been frequently abroad, and some of his happiest speeches have been delivered on board steamers and in foreign banqueting halls, where he never forgets to speak in words of patriotic praise of America.

* * * * *

THE PILGRIMS.

THEY were practical statesmen, these Pilgrims. They wasted no time theorizing upon methods, but went straight at the mark. They solved the Indian problem with shotguns, and it was not General Sherman, but Miles Standish, who originated the axiom that the only good Indians are the dead ones. They were bound by neither customs nor traditions, nor committals to this or that policy. The only question with them was, Does it work? The success of their Indian experiment led them to try similar methods with witches, Quakers, and Baptists. Their failure taught them the difference between mind and matter. A dead savage was another wolf under ground, but one of themselves persecuted or killed for conscience sake sowed the seed of discontent and disbelief. The effort to wall in a creed and wall out liberty was at once abandoned, and to-day New England has more religions and not less religion, but less bigotry, than any other community in the world.

In an age when dynamite was unknown, the Pilgrim invented in the cabin of the “Mayflower” the most powerful of explosives. The declaration of the equality of all men before the law has rocked thrones and consolidated classes. It separated the colonies from Great Britain and created the United States. It pulverized the chains of the slaves and gave manhood suffrage. It devolved upon the individual the functions of government and made the people the sole source of power. It substituted the cap of liberty for the royal crown in France, and by a bloodless revolution has added to the constellation of American republics, the star of Brazil. But with the ever-varying conditions incident to free government, the Puritan’s talent as a political mathematician will never rust. Problems of the utmost importance press upon him for solution. When, in the effort to regulate the liquor traffic, he has advanced beyond the temper of the times and the sentiment of the people in the attempt to enact or enforce prohibition, and either been disastrously defeated or the flagrant evasions of the statutes have brought the law into contempt, he does not despair, but tries to find the error in his calculation.

If gubernatorial objections block the way of high license, he will bombard the executive judgment and conscience by a proposition to tax. The destruction of homes, the ruin of the young, the increase of pauperism and crime, the added burdens upon the taxpayers by the evils of intemperance, appeal with resistless force to his training and traditions. As the power of the saloon increases the difficulties of the task, he becomes more and more certain that some time or other and in some way or other he will do that sum too.

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HENRY WOODFIN GRADY.

THE BRILLIANT SOUTHERN ORATOR AND JOURNALIST.

IT is only a few times in a century that some unselfish soul, coupled with a towering genius of mind, rises in grandeur and goodness so far above his fellows as to command their almost worshipful admiration and love. Such a man was Henry W. Grady. No written memorial can indicate the strong hold he had upon the Southern people, nor portray that peerless personality which gave him his marvelous power among all men with whom he came into contact.

Grady was, perhaps, above all other prominent political leaders of his times, devoid of sectional animosities, and did more, by voice and pen, than any other man, during the decade of his prominence, to bridge the bloody chasm between the North and South, which designing politicians on both sides were endeavoring to keep open. Notwithstanding the fact that his father was a Southern slaveholder, and lost his life in fighting for the cause of secession, young Grady recognized the providence of God in the failure of that cause, and rejoiced in the liberation of the black man, though with his fallen shackles lay the wrecked fortune of himself, his widowed mother and his beloved Southland. The Union was the pride of Grady’s life. Daniel Webster was not more loyal to its Constitution or bolder in defending its principles. In writing or speaking on any subject to which he was moved by an inspiring sense of patriotism or conviction of duty, he was always eloquent, logical, aggressive and unanswerable. It was with logic, earnest honesty of conviction and a tongue of tender pathos and burning eloquence, together with a personal magnetism that always accompanies a great orator, that he literally mastered his audiences, regardless of their character, chaining them to the train of his thought, and carrying them captive to his convictions. Such a man could not be held within the narrow limits of any section. Wherever he went the power of his individuality quickly made him known, and his splendid genius needed only an opportunity to make him famous.

Like Patrick Henry, his great fame as an orator rested principally upon three speeches. One was made before the New England Society, at a banquet held in New York, in 1889, in which his theme was “The New South” and its message to the North. Another was at the State Fair at Dallas, Texas; but the most magnificent and eloquent effort of his life was delivered in Boston, December 13, 1889, just ten days before he died. The theme of this address was “The Race Problem,” and it is accorded by all who heard it, or have read it, as the most soul-stirring speech, and, withal, the fairest and most practical discussion of this vexed subject which has yet been presented by any man.

Henry Woodfin Grady was born in Atlanta, Georgia, May 17, 1851, and died there December 23, 1889. His father was a merchant in that city before the war, and Henry was the oldest of a family of three children. His mother, whose maiden name was Gartrell, was a woman of strong mind, quick intelligence, deep religious convictions, sweetness of disposition, and force of character happily blended. Grady was a boy of promise, and his youth was a fair index of his after-life. He was always brilliant, industrious, patriotic, enterprising, conscientious, and devoted to his parents to a marked degree. The tragic death of his father, when the boy was fourteen, profoundly affected him, but it, perhaps, hastened his own precocious growth by leaving him as the mainstay of his mother in providing for the family.

At the age of seventeen Henry Grady was graduated at the University of Georgia (1868); but he subsequently attended the University of Virginia, where he took his degree before he was twenty years old, and in less than a year was married to the sweetheart of his youth. His majority found him occupying the position of editor and part owner of the Rome (Georgia) “Commercial.” This failed, and cost the young editor nearly all his savings. Soon after this he removed to Atlanta, and connected himself with the Atlanta “Herald,” the columns of which he made the brightest in the South; but misfortune overtook its financial management and consumed all the remainder of Grady’s fortune. Thus, at twenty-three years of age, he had failed twice and was almost despairing when the old adage, “A friend in need is a friend indeed,” was now verified to him. Cyrus W. Field loaned the penniless young man twenty thousand dollars to buy a controlling interest in the Atlanta “Constitution.” He made it the greatest paper in the South.

Besides the editorial work on his own paper, Mr. Grady contributed much to others, among them the New York “Ledger,” to which he contributed a series of articles on “The New South,” the last of which was published only a few days before his death. When his brilliant and beneficent career was cut short at the early age of thirty-eight, the whole country had become interested in his work, and joined in common mourning over his loss. A fund of over twenty thousand dollars, contributed from all parts of the country, was quickly collected to build a monument to his memory. It was erected in Atlanta, Georgia, and unveiled with imposing ceremonies on October 21, 1891.

One who knew Henry W. Grady well thus writes of him: “He had a matchless grace of soul that made him an unfailing winner of hearts. His translucent mind pulsated with the light of truth and beautified all thought. He grew flowers in the garden of his heart and sweetened the world with the perfume of his spirit. His endowments are so superior, and his purposes so unselfish that he seemed to combine all the best elements of genius and live under the influence of an almost divine inspiration. When building an aircastle over the framework of his fancy, or when pouring out his soul in some romantic dream, or when sounding the depths of human feeling by an appeal for sweet charity’s sake, his command of language was as boundless as the realm of thought, his ideas as beautiful as pictures in the sky, and his pathos as deep as the well of tears.”

* * * * *

THE NEW SOUTH.¹

¹ Copyright, H. C. Hudgins, publisher of “Life of Grady.”

THERE was a South of secession and slavery――that South is dead. There is a South of Union and freedom――that South is living, breathing, growing every hour.

I accept the term, “The New South,” as in no sense disparaging to the Old. Dear to me is the home of my childhood and the traditions of my people. There is a New South, not through protest against the Old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments, and, if you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself. You have just heard an eloquent description of the triumphant armies of the North, and the grand review at Washington. I ask you, gentlemen, to picture, if you can, the foot-sore soldier, who, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was taken, testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades, and, lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find?――let me ask you, who went to your homes eager to find all the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for your four years’ sacrifice――what does he find, when he reaches the home he left four years before? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves freed, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone, without money, credit, employment, material, or training――and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence――the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.

What does he do――this hero in gray with a heart of gold――does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely, God, who had scourged him in his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity! As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter.

The soldiers stepped from the trenches into the furrow; the horses that had charged upon General Sherman’s line marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June. From the ashes left us in 1864, we have raised a brave and beautiful city; and, somehow or other, we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes and have builded therein not one single ignoble prejudice or memory.

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, however humble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate South――misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, and generous always. On the records of her social, industrial, and political restoration we await with confidence the verdict of the world.

* * * * *

REGARD FOR THE NEGRO RACE.

From speech on the Race Problem, at annual banquet of the Boston Merchants’ Association, Dec., 1889.

THE resolute, clear-headed, broad-minded men of the South――the men whose genius made glorious every page of the first seventy years of American history――whose courage and fortitude you tested in four years of the fiercest war――realize, as you cannot, what this race problem means――what they owe to this kindly and dependent race. Nor are they wholly to blame for the presence of slavery. The slave-ships sailed from your ports――the slaves once worked in your fields, and you sold them to the South. Neither of us now defends the traffic, nor the institution.

The love the whites of the South feel for the negro race you cannot measure nor comprehend. As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy from her home up there looks down to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals the sweet music of her croonings as thirty years ago she held me in her black arms and led me smiling into sleep. This scene vanishes as I speak, and I catch a vision of an old Southern home, with its lofty pillars, and its white pigeons fluttering down through the golden air. I see women with strained and anxious faces, and children alert yet helpless. I see night come down with its dangers and its apprehensions, and in a big homely room I feel on my tired head the touch of loving hands――now worn and wrinkled, but fairer to me yet than the hands of mortal woman, and stronger yet to lead me than the hands of mortal man――as they lay a mother’s blessing there while at her knees――the truest altar I yet have found――I thank God that she is safe in her sanctuary, because her slaves, sentinel in the silent cabin or guard at her chamber door, puts a black man’s loyalty between her and danger.

I catch another vision. The crisis of battle――a soldier struck, staggering, fallen. I see a slave, scuffling through the smoke, winding his black arms about the fallen form, reckless of the hurtling death――bending his trusty face to catch the words that tremble on the stricken lips, so wrestling meantime with agony that he would lay down his life in his master’s stead. I see him by the weary bedside, ministering with uncomplaining patience, praying with all his humble heart that God will lift his master up, until death comes in mercy and in honor to still the soldier’s agony and seal the soldier’s life. I see him by the open grave, mute, motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him when the mound is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave comes a voice saying, “Follow him! Put your arms about him in his need, even as he put his about me. Be his friend as he was mine.” And out into this new world――strange to me as to him, dazzling, bewildering both――I follow! And may God forget my people――when they forget these.

* * * * *

APPEAL FOR TEMPERANCE.¹

(In no cause in which his sympathies were enlisted was Mr. Grady more active and earnest than in that of temperance. The following extract is from one of his speeches delivered during the exciting local campaign in Georgia in 1887.)

¹ Copyright, C. H. Hudgins & Co.

MY friends, hesitate before you vote liquor back into Atlanta, now that it is shut out. Don’t trust it. It is powerful, aggressive and universal in its attacks. To-night it enters an humble home to strike the roses from a woman’s cheek, and to-morrow it challenges this Republic in the halls of Congress. To-day it strikes a crust from the lips of a starving child, and to-morrow levies tribute from the government itself. There is no cottage in this city humble enough to escape it――no palace strong enough to shut it out. It defies the law when it cannot coerce suffrage. It is flexible to cajole, but merciless in victory. It is the mortal enemy of peace and order. The despoiler of men, the terror of women, the cloud that shadows the face of children, the demon that has dug more graves and sent more souls unshrived to judgment, than all the pestilences that have wasted life since God sent the plagues to Egypt, and all the wars since Joshua stood beyond Jericho. O my countrymen! loving God and humanity, do not bring this grand old city again under the dominion of that power. It can profit no man by its return. It can uplift no industry, revive no interest, remedy no wrong. You know that it cannot. It comes to turn, and it shall profit mainly by the ruin of your sons and mine. It comes to mislead human souls and crush human hearts under its rumbling wheels. It comes to bring gray-haired mothers down in shame and sorrow to their graves. It comes to turn the wife’s love into despair and her pride into shame. It comes to still the laughter on the lips of little children. It comes to stifle all the music of the home and fill it with silence and desolation. It comes to ruin your body and mind, to wreck your home, and it knows that it must measure its prosperity by the swiftness and certainty with which it wreaks this work.

FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS

Illustration: FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD • SUSAN B. ANTHONY FRANCES WILLARD • MARY A. LIVERMORE • JULIA WARD HOWE ELIZABETH C. STANTON • ANNA DICKINSON

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JULIA WARD HOWE.

AUTHOR OF THE “BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.”

ON Beacon Street, Boston, in an old-fashioned home, lives a woman mingling the twilight of her eventful life with the evening of the closing century, who has been a potent factor in its progress and developments. In her unpretentious little home have sat and talked the greatest men of America, and many of the European celebrities who have visited this country. Even the casual visitor to the home of this aged woman feels in the atmosphere of the place, with its mementoes of great men and women, some indefinable flavor, like a lingering perfume which tells him there has been high thinking and noble speech within the walls which surround him.

This noted poet, author, and philanthropist was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her father was Samuel Ward, and she numbers among her ancestors the famous General Marion, of South Carolina; Governor Samuel Ward, of Rhode Island; and Roger Williams, the apostle of religious tolerance. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, is the son of her sister, who married Mr. Crawford, the artist. Mrs. Howe’s mother died when she was only five years of age, and her father five years later. But he had been a prosperous banker and provided to give her every advantage of a liberal education, which provision was carried out――her instructions including music, German, Greek, and French. She began to write verses while very young.

In 1843 Miss Ward was married to Doctor Samuel G. Howe. They went abroad on their wedding tour, spending a year in the Old World. Again, in 1850, she went to Europe, passing the winter in Rome with her two youngest children. The next year she returned to Boston, and in 1852 and 1853 published her first volume of poems, entitled “Passion Flowers,” which attracted much attention. At the same time her “Words for the Hour, a Drama in Blank Verse,” was produced in a leading theatre in New York and also in Boston. Her interest in the anti-slavery question began in 1851. In 1857 she visited Havana, and published her observations in a book, entitled “A Trip to Cuba,” which so vigorously attacked the degrading institutions of the Spanish rule that its sale has since been prohibited on that island. In 1861 appeared her famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the chorus “John Brown’s Body, etc.,” which was published in her third volume, entitled “Later Lyrics.” The song and chorus at once became known throughout the country and was sung everywhere. In 1867 Mrs. Howe and her husband visited Greece, and won the gratitude of that nation by aiding them in the effort they were making for national independence. Her book “From Oak to Olive” was written after her visit to Athens. In 1868 Mrs. Howe joined the Woman Suffrage Movement, and the next year, before the Legislature in Boston, made her first speech urging its principles; and from that time forward has been officially connected with the movement.

Mrs. Howe visited England in 1872, where she lectured in favor of arbitration as the means of settling national and international disputes. At the same time she held, in London, a series of Sunday-evening services, devoted to Christian missionary work. During the same year she attended, as a delegate, the Congress for Prison Reform, held in London. On her return to the United States she organized or instituted the Woman’s Peace Festival, which still meets every year on the twenty-second of June.

Since her husband’s death, in 1876, Mrs. Howe has preached, lectured and traveled much in all parts of the United States, the most popular of her lectures being “Is Polite Society, Polite?” “Greece Revisited,” and “Reminiscences of Longfellow and Emerson.” In 1878 Mrs. Howe made another journey abroad, and spent over two years in travel in England, France, Italy, and Palestine. She was one of the presiding officers of the Woman’s Rights Congress, which met at Paris, and she lectured in that city and in Athens on the work of the various women’s associations in America. She has served as President in the Association of Advancement for Women for several years, and, notwithstanding her advanced age, retains her connection with this organization, and is an earnest promoter of their interest. She has formed a number of social Women’s Clubs, having for their object, mental improvement, in which the members study Latin, French, German, literature, botany, political economy and many other branches. She has been a profound student of philosophy, and has written numerous essays on philosophical themes.

Mrs. Howe’s three living daughters, all of whom are married, have been followers of her theories concerning woman’s freedom. One of them, Mrs. Laura Richards, is a well-known writer of stories for children, some of them being classics of their kind. “Captain January” is her best-known book. Mrs. Maud Howe Elliot, the third daughter, is a successful lecturer and also a novelist. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, another daughter of Mrs. Howe, is a writer of acknowledged ability on social topics.

* * * * *

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

MINE eye hath seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored: He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in rows of burnished steel; “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;” Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.

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OUR COUNTRY.

ON primal rocks she wrote her name, Her towers were reared on holy graves, The golden seed that bore her came Swift-winged with prayer o’er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest, And open flung his sylvan doors; Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land To swell her virgin vestments grew, While Sages, strong in heart and hand, Her virtue’s fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of Kings! O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty! The refuge of divinest things, Their record must abide in thee.

First in the glories of thy front Let the crown-jewel Truth be found: Thy right hand fling with generous wont Love’s happy chain to furthest bound.

Let Justice with the faultless scales Hold fast the worship of thy sons, Thy commerce spread her shining sails Where no dark tide of rapine runs.

So link thy ways to those of God, So follow firm the heavenly laws, That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed, And storm-sped angels hail thy cause.

O Land, the measure of our prayers, Hope of the world, in grief and wrong! Be thine the blessing of the years, The gift of faith, the crown of song.

* * * * *

THE UNSPEAKABLE PANG.

(FROM “A TRIP TO CUBA, 1860.”)

WHO are these that sit by the long dinner-table in the forward cabin, with a most unusual lack of interest in the bill of fare? Their eyes are closed, mostly, their cheeks are pale, their lips are quite bloodless, and to every offer of good cheer, their “No, thank you,” is as faintly uttered as are marriage-vows by maiden lips. Can they be the same that, an hour ago, were so composed, so jovial, so full of dangerous defiance to the old man of the sea? The officer who carves the roast beef offers at the same time a slice of fat; this is too much; a panic runs through the ranks, and the rout is instantaneous and complete....

To what but to Dante’s Inferno can we liken this steamboat-cabin, with its double row of pits, and its dismal captives? What are those sighs, groans, and despairing noises, but the alti guai rehearsed by the poet? Its fiends are the stewards who rouse us from our perpetual torpor with offers of food and praises of shadowy banquets,――“Nice mutton-chop, sir? roast-turkey? plate of soup?” Cries, of “No, no!” resound, and the wretched turn again and groan. The philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,――keeled up in an upper ♦berth, convulsively embracing a blanket――what conservative more immovable than he? The great man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if like Farinata――

“averse l’inferno in gran dispetto,”

“he had a very contemptible opinion of hell.”

♦ ‘birth’ replaced with ‘berth’

Let me not forget to add, that it rains every day, that it blows every night, and that it rolls through the twenty-four hours till the whole world seems as if turned bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch away.... But all things have an end, and most things have two. After the third day, a new development manifests itself. Various shapeless masses are carried up-stairs and suffered to fall like snow-flakes on the deck, and to lie there in shivering heaps. From these larvæ gradually emerge features and voices,――the luncheon-bell at last stirs them with the thrill of returning life. They look up, they lean up, they exchange pensive smiles of recognition,――the steward comes, no fiend this time, but a ministering angel; and lo! the strong man eats broth, and the weak woman clamors for pickled oysters.

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MRS. MARY ASHTON RICE LIVERMORE.

FAMOUS SCHOLAR, TEACHER, ARMY NURSE, EDITRESS, LECTURER, ABOLITIONIST AND WOMAN’S SUFFRAGIST.

IT seems almost incredible,” says a writer, “that a woman now so famous made mud pies in her childhood, was often sent supperless to bed, and was frequently bounced down into a kitchen chair with an emphasis that caused her to see stars.” When a young girl, struggling to support herself, she took in shop-work, made shirts, and subsequently learned the trade of a dressmaker, at which she worked for twenty-five cents a day. At eighteen she ran away from home like a boy, and spent three eventful years on a Southern plantation――years full of comedy and tragedy, and packed with thrilling experiences. Here were nearly five hundred slaves, with whom, and with their white masters, she was brought face to face daily. Here she witnessed scenes as tragic as any described in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Her description of the whipping of negro Matt, the cooper; his agonizing but unavailing plea for mercy; her subsequent visit alone to his cabin, when she entreated him to “run away, Matt, I’ll help you,” and his lonely death, will bring tears to the eyes of every reader.

Mrs. Livermore was the daughter of Timothy Rice, and was born in Boston, December 19, 1821. Notwithstanding the above reference to her early experiences, Mrs. Livermore had and improved all the advantages of the time for a thorough education. She graduated from the public schools of Boston at the age of fourteen, receiving a medal for good scholarship, and afterwards completed a four years’ course in the seminary at Charleston, Mass., in two years, and was elected a member of the faculty as a teacher of Latin and French. While performing these duties she continued the study of Greek and metaphysics under private tutors, and at the age of eighteen, as above suggested, she left home and went South to take charge of a family school on a plantation in Southern Virginia, remaining there nearly thee years. Her experiences in the South made her a most radical abolitionist, and on her return North she actively seconded every movement for the freedom of the slaves. She opened a select school for young ladies from fourteen to twenty years, at Duxbury, Mass., but relinquished it in 1845 on her marriage to Dr. D. P. Livermore, a Universalist minister, in Falls River, Mass. She made a most excellent minister’s wife, organizing literary clubs among the membership, and wrote many hymns and songs for church and Sunday-school books. She was also an active temperance worker, organizing a cold-water army of 1500 boys and girls, whom she delighted with temperance stories which she wrote and read to them. These stories were published in 1844 under the title of the “Children’s Army.” In 1857 she removed with her husband to Chicago, where Mr. Livermore became the editor of the Universalist organ for the Northwest, with his wife as assistant editor. During her husband’s absence in his church work she had charge of the entire establishment, paper, printing office and publishing house included, and wrote for every department of the paper except the theological, at the same time furnishing stories and sketches to Eastern publications, and was also active and untiring in Sunday-school, church and charitable work. At the convention in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated, she was the only woman reporter who had a place among the hundred or more of men. During the Civil War she made her name famous by resigning all positions, save that on her husband’s paper, even securing a governess for her children, and devoting herself entirely to the work of relief and assistance to the soldiers through the United States Sanitary Commission. She organized Soldiers’ Aid Societies, delivered public addresses, wrote circulars, bulletins and reports, and made trips to the front with sanitary stores, giving personal attention to the distribution of the same, and bringing back numbers of invalid soldiers, accompanying many of them in person to their homes. She organized and conducted Sanitary Fairs, detailed nurses for the hospitals and accompanied them to their posts, and at the close of the war published her reminiscences, entitled “My Story of the War,” which is regarded as the most complete record of the hospital and sanitary work in the Northern army during this great fratricidal struggle.

Returning home after the war Mrs. Livermore became an ardent supporter of the Woman’s Suffrage movement as the best means not only of improving the condition of women, but with the broad, philanthropic idea of giving them a greater opportunity for doing good. Before the war she had opposed the placing of the ballot in the hands of women, but her experiences in the army taught her differently. She arranged for the first Woman’s Suffrage Convention in Chicago, elicited the aid of the leading clergymen of the city, and secured the attendance of the most prominent advocates of the cause from various parts of the country. The association was duly organized with Mrs. Livermore as its first president. “The Agitator,” a Woman’s Suffragist paper, was started by her in 1869 at her own expense and risk, in which she espoused the temperance cause, as well as woman’s suffrage. In 1870 she became the editor of the “Woman’s Journal” of Boston, and the family removed to Melrose, Massachusetts. Mrs. Livermore, however, retained the editorship but two years, resigning it, in 1872, that she might give her more undivided time to the lecture field.

During the last quarter century she has been heard in the lyceum courses of this country, visiting almost every State in the Union, and also lecturing at many points in Europe. The volume “What Shall We Do with Our Daughters and Other Lectures,” published in 1883, and a subsequent of the same character comprise her most important published discourses. The charm of Mrs. Livermore’s manner and the eloquence of her delivery have been equalled by few modern speakers. “At her feet,” writes one of her eulogists, “millions of people have sat and listened in admiration and wonder. The rich and poor, the high and low, the learned and unlearned, have been alike thrilled and moved by her burning words. She has swayed brilliant audiences of fashion; has spoken in State prisons, jails and penitentiaries; to audiences composed of outcasts; and to audiences numbering thousands of children. With untold wealth of mental resources, and a brain teeming with soul-stirring thoughts, these lectures overflow with grand principles; while the extraordinary scenes, thrilling stories, and remarkable facts given in them illustrate those principles with great clearness and force. Throughout her public speeches, whatever the theme, the listener never tires, but is rather uplifted by the ‘golden thoughts’ and ‘living truths’ that enrich them from beginning to end.”

During this period her pen was not idle. Her articles have appeared in the “North American Review,” the “Arena,” the “Chautauquan,” “Independent,” “Youth’s Companion,” “Christian Advocate,” “Woman’s Journal” and other high-class periodicals. She is identified with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, for ten years being president of the Massachusetts branch of that organization. She is also president of the American Woman’s Suffrage Association, of the Beneficent Society of the New England Conservatory of Music, and was the first president for two years of the Woman’s Congress. Mrs. Livermore, notwithstanding her advanced age, keeps steadily at work with voice, pen and influence. After she was seventy-five years of age, at the earnest request of many prominent friends and admirers throughout the United States, she wrote her autobiography, a large volume of over 700 pages, issued in 1897.

We cannot better close this article than by quoting, from Mrs. Livermore herself, a retrospective paragraph with a prospective closing which is beautiful to witness in one standing, as she now does, in the twilight of a long and eventful career: “I cannot say that I would gladly accept the permission to run my earthly race once more from beginning to end. I am afraid it would prove wearisome――‘a twice-told tale.’ And so while rejoicing in the gains of the past and in the bright outlook into the future, I prefer to go forward into the larger life that beckons me further on, where I am sure it will be better than here. And when the summons comes, although the world has dealt kindly with me, I shall not be sorry to lift the latch and step out into ‘that other chamber of the King, larger than this and lovelier.’”

* * * * *

USEFUL WOMEN.¹

(FROM “WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR DAUGHTERS,” 1883. LECTURES ON “Superfluous Women.”)

¹ Copyright, Lee & Shepard, Boston, Mass.

ROSA BONHEUR has achieved world-wide fame and pecuniary independence as one of the most skilful painters of animals; the boldness and independence of her own character inspiring her pencil, and her faithfulness to nature giving great force to her work. The whole civilized world does homage to her genius; and, during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, the Crown Prince of Prussia gave orders that her studio and residence at Fontainebleau should be spared and respected.

Florence Nightingale, well born, highly educated, and brilliantly accomplished, gave herself to the study of hospitals, and of institutions for the diseased, helpless, and infirm. Appreciating the work of the Sisters of Charity in the Catholic Church, she felt the need of an institution which should be its counterpart in the Protestant Communion. She visited civil and military hospitals all over Europe, studied with the Sisters of Charity in Paris their system of nursing and hospital management, and went into training as a nurse in the House of the Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. For ten years she served an apprenticeship, preparing for the great work of her life. Her opportunity came during the war in the Crimea, when through incompetence, and utter disregard of sanitary laws, the rate of mortality in the English hospitals surpassed that of the fiercest battles. Horror and indignation were felt throughout England. Miss Nightingale offered her services to the government with a corps of trained nurses, was accepted, and went to Constantinople.

The disorder, the want――while storehouses were bursting with the needed hospital supplies――the incompetence, the uncleanliness, the suffering and death created general dismay. Unappalled by the shocking chaos, Miss Nightingale ordered the storehouses at Scutari to be broken open, when want gave place to abundance; and soon her executive skill and rare knowledge transformed the hospitals into models of order and comfort. She spared herself no labor, sometimes standing twenty hours in succession giving directions, and refusing to leave her post, even when she broke down with hospital-fever. Sadly overworked, her patience and cheerfulness were unfailing, winning the love of the roughest soldiers; and, as she walked the wards, men too weak to speak plucked her gown with feeble fingers, or kissed her shadow as it fell athwart their pillow. She expended her own vitality in this work, and returned to England an invalid for life. But not an idle invalid, for from her sick-room there have gone plans for the improvement of hospitals and the training of nurses wrought out by her busy brain and pen.

Caroline Herschel, sister of the great astronomer, was his constant helper and faithful assistant, in this character receiving a salary from the king. In addition she found time to make her own independent observations, discovering comets, remarkable nebulæ, and clusters of stars, and receiving from the Royal Society a gold medal in recognition of her work.

Charlotte Bronté’s portion in life was pain and toil and sorrow. Her experience was a long struggle with every unkindness of fate, and she lacked every advantage supposed necessary to literary work. Her force of character and undismayed persistence triumphed over all hindrances. She put heart and conscience into books that held the literary world in fascination. In them she rent the shams of society by her keen analyses. She depicted life as she had known it, shorn of every illusion, and then beautified it by unflinching loyalty to duty, and unwavering fidelity to conscience. The publication of “Jane Eyre” marked an era in the literary world not soon to be forgotten.

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BELVA ANN LOCKWOOD.

FIRST WOMAN LAWYER BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

FOR heroic perseverance, strength of intellect, dignity and power of mind, logic and eloquence,――and withal true womanliness of character, the sisterhood of the world perhaps could present no counterpart in any single woman, of any age, to Belva A. Lockwood. Had she devoted her life to literature the profoundness of her writings must have impressed the world. The fragments of her speeches which remain are worthy to live. She has had one idea in life――to enfranchise woman――and while earning her living in a profession, for recognition in which she had to fight and conquer the United States, she has, from every advanced step, held back the helping hand to her more timid sisters. If her ideal is ever realized, she will live in future history as one of the emancipators and greatest benefactors of her sex.

Belva Ann Bennett was born in Niagara County, New York, October 24, 1830, on her father’s farm. Her early education was received at a district school and in the academy of her native town. At fourteen years of age she began to teach in summer, attending school in winter. At eighteen she married a young farmer, Uriah H. McNall, who died in 1853, leaving one daughter. The young widow entered Genesee College in Lima, New York, the same year, from which she graduated with the degree of A. B. four years later. She was immediately elected to a position in the Lockport Academy, where she manifested her progressive principles by introducing declamation and gymnastics for young ladies, conducting the classes herself. This was in addition to her duties as professor of higher mathematics, logic, rhetoric, and botany. Four years later she became proprietor of McNall Seminary in Oswego, New York, which she conducted until the close of the Civil War, at which time she removed to Washington, D. C., and in March, 1868, married Rev. Ezekiel Lockwood, a Baptist minister and chaplain during the war. Dr. Lockwood died in 1877. At this late date Mrs. Lockwood resumed her studies, entering the Syracuse University at New York, from which she graduated with the degree of A. M. She had previous to this studied law in Washington, graduating from the National University Law School with the degree of D. C. L. in May, 1873. In the same year she was admitted to practice in the highest court of the District, and in 1875 applied for admission to the Court of Claims, which was refused; first, on the ground that she was a woman, and afterwards that she was a married woman. In 1876 she applied for admission to the Supreme Court of the United States. This was denied her because there was no English precedent. It was in vain that she pleaded that Queens Eleanor and Elizabeth had both been supreme chancellors of the realm, that Countess Ann had sat with the judges on the bench at the Assizes of Appleby. Finally she drafted a bill and secured its introduction into both houses of Congress, which was passed in 1879, admitting women to the Court, by which means she accomplished her purpose, and since that time she has enjoyed an active and lucrative practice, being privileged to appear before any Court in the United States. Nine other women have since been admitted to practice in the Supreme Court under the above Act.

Among the services which Mrs. Lockwood has rendered her sex may be mentioned the bill passed by Congress in 1870, giving to the women employees of the government, of whom there are many thousands, the same pay as men receive for similar work. She also secured the passage of a bill appropriating $50,000 for the aid of sailors and mariners. She has frequently appeared before congressional committees in the cause of women, her arguments always looking to the final enfranchisement of woman. An extract from one of these addresses succeeds this article. Mrs. Lockwood is also an intense advocate of temperance and labor reform.

When President Garfield died in 1881, he was considering her application for appointment as minister to Brazil. In 1884 and again in 1888, she was nominated for President of the United States by the Equal Rights Party of San Francisco, California, and though knowing that her candidacy would only subject her to the ridicule of the masses, it afforded an opportunity for the preaching of her theory of woman suffrage, and she accepted the nomination, and made a canvass that awakened the people of the United States to no small consideration of the subject. The popularity given her by these several movements has called her largely to the lecture platform and into newspaper correspondence during the last fifteen years. She was a delegate to the International Congress of Peace in Paris, and made one of the opening speeches, and presented a paper in the French language on “International Arbitration,” which was well received. In 1890 she was again a delegate to the same convention in London, and her paper there on “Disarmament” was widely commented upon. Even at this late date her thirst for knowledge again evinced itself, for she remained in London to take a course of University Extension lectures at Oxford. In 1891 she was again a delegate to the Peace Congress at Rome, where her influence was equally as conspicuous as before.

Of late years Mrs. Lockwood, in addition to her law practice, has acted as assistant editor of the “Peacemaker,” a Philadelphia magazine, all the time pursuing her studies and contributing no small modicum of encouragement, both by her pen and lectures, to the furtherance of the University Extension idea. It may be said, however, that her interest and labor in all forward movements are mainly due to her confidence in the aid they will contribute toward the final enfranchisement of woman.

* * * * *

ADDRESS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES WASHINGTON, IN SUPPORT OF WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE.

GENTLEMEN of the Committee: We come before you to-day, not with any studied eloquence, far-fetched erudition, or new theories for the metamorphosis of our government, or the overthrow of our social economy and relations, but we come, asking for our whole commonwealth, for the fathers who begat us, and the brothers at our side――for the mothers who bore us, and the sisters who go hand in hand with us; for the orphan and the widow unprotected; for the wretched inebriate and the outcast Magdalene; for the beggars who throng our streets and the inmates of our jails and asylums――for these we ask you that we too may have a hand and a voice, a share in this matter which so nearly concerns not only our temporal but even our eternal salvation. We ask you that we may have an interest that shall awaken from its apathy fully one-half of the moral and intellectual resources of the country, fully one-half of its productive interest――an interest which contains in the germ the physical power and vital force of the whole nation. Weakness cannot beget power, ignorance cannot beget wisdom, disease cannot produce health. Look at our women of to-day, with their enfeebled bodies, dwarfed intellects, laxness of moral force, without enough of healthy stimulus to incite to action, and compare them with our grandmothers of the Revolution and the Martha Washington school. Here you find a woman who dared to control her own affairs; who superintended a farm of six hundred acres; giving personal instructions to the workmen, writing her own bills and receipts, and setting an example of industry and frugality to the neighboring women who called to see her.

I need not, gentlemen, enumerate to you to prove what I wish to prove to-day, the countless numbers of women who have participated creditably in government from the days of our Saviour until the present time. You know that Victoria rules in England; and the adoration of the English heart to-day for its Queen, found expression but a few weeks since in one of our popular lecture halls, when the audience, composed partly of Englishmen, were asked to sing “God Save the Queen.” The wisdom of the reign of Elizabeth, “good Queen Bess,” as she has been called, gave to England her prestige――the proud pre-eminence which she holds to-day among the nations of the earth. Isabella I. of Spain, the patron saint of America, without whose generosity our country to-day might have been a wilderness, was never nobler than when after Ferdinand’s refusal, after the refusal of the crowned authority of England, the disapproval of the wise men of her own kingdom, she rose in her queenly majesty, and said, “I undertake it for my own crown of Castile, and will pledge my jewels to raise the necessary funds.” Maria Theresa, of Austria, who assumed the reins of government with her kingdom divided and disturbed, found herself equal to the emergency, brought order out of chaos, and prosperity to her kingdom. Christine, of Sweden, brought that kingdom to the zenith of its power. Eugenie, Empress of the French, in the late disastrous revolution, assumed the regency of the Empire in defiance of her ministry, and, when forced to flee, covered her flight with a shrewdness that would have done credit to Napoleon himself. Florence Nightingale brought order and efficiency into the hospitals of the Crimea, and Clara Barton, with her clear head and generous heart, has lifted up the starving women of Strassburg, and made it possible for them to be self-sustaining. I need not cite to you Catharine, of Russia, Cleopatra, or the Queen of Sheba, who came to admire the wisdom of Solomon; or the Roman matrons, Zenobia, Lucretia, Tullia; or revert to the earliest forms of government when the family and the church were lawgivers; remind you of Lydia, the seller of purple and fine linen, who ruled her own household, called to the church; of Aquilla and Priscilla, whom Paul took with him and left to control the church at Ephesus, after they had been banished from Rome by the decree of Claudius; or of Phebe, the deaconess. It is a well-known fact that women have been sent as ministers and ambassadors, the latter a power fuller than our country grants, to treat on important State matters between the crowned heads of Europe. In many cases they have represented the person of the monarch or emperor himself. France, since the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., through the period of the ascendency of Napoleon I. down to the reign of Napoleon III., has employed women in diplomacy. Instances may be found recorded in a work entitled “Napoleon and His Court,” by Madame Junot, and also in our own consular works. The late Empress of France has been said to be especially gifted in this respect. It has been the custom of Russia for the past century, and still continues to be, to send women on diplomatic errands. In this empire, also, where the voting is done by households, a woman is often sent to represent the family.

Women are now writing a large proportion of the books and newspapers of the country, are editing newspapers and commanding ships. They are admitted to law schools, medical schools, and the higher order of colleges, and are knocking at Amherst and Yale. Yea, more, they are admitted to the practice of law, as in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming and Utah; admitted to the practice of medicine everywhere, and more recently to consultation. One hundred women preachers are already ordained and are preaching throughout the land. Women are elected as engrossing and enrolling clerks in Legislatures, as in Wisconsin, Missouri and Indiana; appointed as justices of the peace, as in Maine, Wyoming and Connecticut; as bankers and brokers, as in New York and St. Louis. They are filling as school teachers three-fourths of the schools of the land.

This is more than true of our own city. Shall we not then have women school trustees and superintendents? Already they are appointed in the East and in the West, and women are permitted to vote at the school elections. Who has a deeper interest in the schools than the mothers.

Look at the hundreds of women clerks in the government departments. They are all eligible, since the passage of the Arnell bill, to the highest clerkships. Look at the postmistresses throughout the land. Each one a bonded officer of the government, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the highest executive power in the land. “The power of the President to appoint, and of the Senate to confirm, has never been questioned by our highest courts. Being bonded officers, they must necessarily qualify before a judicial officer.”

And now, gentlemen of the Committee on Laws and Judiciary, whatever may be your report on these bills for justice and equality to women, committed to your trust, I hope you will bear in mind that you have mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, who will be affected by your decision. They may be amply provided for to-day, and be beggared to-morrow. Remember that “life is short and time is fleeting,” but principles never die. You hold in your hands a power and an opportunity to-day to render yourselves immortal――an opportunity that comes but once in a lifetime. Shakespeare says, “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Gentlemen, the flood-tide is with you! Shall this appeal be in vain? I hold in my hands the names of hundreds of men and women of our city pledged to this work, and they will not relax their efforts until it is accomplished.

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But ♦Error, wounded, writhes in pain And dies amid her worshippers.”

♦ ‘Errror’ replaced with ‘Error’

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SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

FOUNDER OF THE FIRST WOMEN’S TEMPERANCE ORGANIZATION.

AMONG the famous names of our time, history will, no doubt, record that of Susan B. Anthony with the greatest of reformers and progressive thinkers. Once held in derision, she now enjoys the reward of being esteemed and loved by her fellow men, while she is looked up to, by those of her own sex who believe in woman suffrage as one of the pioneers whose herculean efforts will eventually place the ballot in the hands of the women of the United States.

Miss Anthony was born in South Adams, Mass., February 15, 1820. She was brought up in New York under the most religious influence of a Baptist mother and a Quaker father. From her childhood her character has been strongly marked by individuality and native strength.

Mr. Anthony was a manufacturer and a wealthy man. He fitted his daughters and sons for teachers, and at the age of fifteen Susan began to teach in a Quaker family, her salary being one dollar per week and board. In 1837, a financial crash caused the failure of her father, who was, after this, aided in his efforts to retrieve his fortune by his children. Susan was particularly successful and progressive in her work, and identified herself actively with the New York Teachers’ Association, rendering herself conspicuous by pleading in the conventions for higher wages and equal rights for women in all the honors and responsibilities of the association. The women teachers throughout America owe her a debt of gratitude for their improved position and compensation to-day.

The subject of temperance also claimed Miss Anthony’s attention from the time of her childhood. In 1852, she organized the New York State Women’s Temperance Association, which was the first open temperance organization of women, and the foundation for the modern society known as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was president, and Miss Anthony for several years secretary, of this first organization. It was in this work that Miss Anthony discovered the impotency of women to advance the cause of temperance without the ballot, and she at once became an ardent woman suffragist. She was also a pronounced and active abolitionist; and, during the war, with her friend and co-worker, Mrs. Stanton, and others, she presented a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery, bearing nearly 400,000 signatures from all parts of the country. These petitions were so powerful in arousing the people, and also Congress, that Charles Sumner urged Miss Anthony to continue in the work. “Send on the petitions,” he wrote, “they furnish the only background for my demands.”

The most dramatic event of Miss Anthony’s life was her arrest and trial for voting at the presidential election of 1872. When asked by the judge, “You voted as a woman, did you not?” she replied, “No, sir, I voted as a citizen of the United States.” Before the date set for the trial Miss Anthony thoroughly canvassed her county and instructed the people in citizen’s rights, intending in this way to have the jurors, whoever they might be, well instructed in advance. To her chagrin change of venue was ordered to another county, setting the date three weeks ahead. Miss Anthony was equal to the emergency; in twenty-four hours dates were set and appointments made for a series of meetings in that county, and the country was thoroughly aroused in Miss Anthony’s behalf. The jury would no doubt have acquitted her, but the judge took the case out of their hands saying it was a question of law and not of fact, and pronounced Miss Anthony guilty and fined her $100.00 and costs. “I shall never pay a penny of this unjust claim,” she said. “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” She intended to take the case to the Supreme Court, and further to help her cause did not desire to give bond, preferring to be imprisoned, but her counsel gave bond and thus frustrated her purpose of carrying it to the Supreme Court. The inspectors who received the ballot from her and her friends were fined and imprisoned, but were pardoned by President Grant. Miss Anthony steadfastly adhered to her vow and never paid the fine.

Miss Anthony has always been in great demand on the platform and has lectured in almost every city and hamlet in the North. She has made constitutional arguments before congressional committees and spoken impromptu in all sorts of places. Wherever a good word in introducing a speaker, or a short speech to awaken a convention, or a closing appeal to set people to work was needed she always knew how to say the right thing, and never wearied her audience. There was no hurry, no superfluity in her discourse, and it was equally devoid of sentiment or poetry. She was remarkably self-forgetful and devoted to the noblest principles. A fine sense of humor, however, pervaded her logical arguments. She had the happy faculty of disarming and winning her opponents. She possessed a most wonderful memory, carrying in her mind the legislative history of each state, the formation and progress of political parties, and the public history of prominent men in our national life, and in fact whatever has been done the world over to ameliorate the condition of women. She is said to be a most congenial and instructive companion, and her unfailing sympathy makes her as good a listener as talker.

It must be consolingly comforting and pleasant for this ardent worker, who has stemmed a violent tide of opposition throughout a long life, to have the tide of popular esteem turn so favorably toward her last years. Once it was the fashion of the press to ridicule and jeer, but at last the best reporters were sent to interview her and to put her sentiments before the world with the most respectful and laudatory personal comment. Society, too, threw open its doors, and into many distinguished gatherings she carried a refreshing breath of sincerity and earnestness. Her seventieth birthday was celebrated by the National Woman Suffrage Association with an outburst of gratitude which is perhaps unparalleled in the history of any living woman. In 1892 she was elected president of this association, at which time, though seventy-two years of age, she was still of undiminished vigor and activity. Standing at the head of this organization, of which she was forty years before among the founders, Susan B. Anthony is one of the most heroic figures in American history.

* * * * *

WOMAN’S RIGHT TO SUFFRAGE.

After its delivery, this address was printed and distributed in Monroe and Ontario counties prior to her trial, in June, 1873, the charge against her being that she had violated the law by voting in the presidential election in November, 1872. This address is necessarily argumentative; but it contains occasional passages which exhibit the power of her oratory.

_Copied from an account of the trial published in Rochester, New York, 1874._

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I stand before you to-night, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.

* * * * *

The preamble of the federal constitution says:

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.”

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people――women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government――the ballot.

The early journals of Congress show that when the committee reported to that body the original articles of confederation, the very first article which became the subject of discussion was that respecting equality of suffrage. Article IV. said:

“The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse between the people of the different States of the Union, the free inhabitants of each of the States, (paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted,) shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the free citizens of the several States.”

Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all――in order to produce the desired result――a harmonious union and a homogeneous people.

* * * * *

B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri, in the three days’ discussion in the United States Senate in 1866, on Senator Cowan’s motion to strike male from the District of Columbia suffrage bill, said:

“Mr. President, I say here on the floor of the American Senate, I stand for universal suffrage; and as a matter of fundamental principle, do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race or sex.”

* * * * *

Charles Sumner, in his brave protests against the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, insisted that, so soon as by the thirteenth amendment the slaves became free men, the original powers of the United States Constitution guaranteed to them equal rights――the right to vote and to be voted for.

* * * * *

Article 1 of the New York State Constitution says:

“No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”

And so carefully guarded is the citizen’s right to vote that the Constitution makes special mention of all who may be excluded. It says:

“Laws may be passed excluding from the right of suffrage all persons who have been or may be convicted of bribery, larceny or any infamous crime.”

* * * * *

“The law of the land” is the United States Constitution, and there is no provision in that document that can be fairly construed into a permission to the States to deprive any class of their citizens of their right to vote. Hence, New York can get no power from that source to disfranchise one entire half of her members. Nor has “the judgment of their peers” been pronounced against women exercising their right to vote; no disfranchised person is allowed to be judge or juror, and none but disfranchised persons can be women’s peers; nor has the Legislature passed laws excluding them on account of idiocy or lunacy; nor yet the courts convicted them of bribery, larceny or any infamous crime. Clearly, then, there is no constitutional ground for the exclusion of women from the ballot-box in the State of New York. No barriers whatever stand to-day between women and the exercise of their right to vote save those of precedent and prejudice.

* * * * *

For any State to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people is to pass a bill of attainder, or an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters of every household; which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects; carries dissension, discord and rebellion into every home of the nation.

* * * * *

Webster, Worcester and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person, in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.

Prior to the adoption of the thirteenth amendment, by which slavery was forever abolished, and black men transformed from property to persons, the judicial opinions of the country had always been in harmony with these definitions. To be a person was to be a citizen, and to be a citizen was to be a voter.

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens, and no State has a right to make any new law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their ♦privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several States is to-day null and void, precisely as is every one against negroes.

♦ ‘priviliges’ replaced with ‘privileges’

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ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

FOUNDER OF THE WOMAN-SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT.

AMONG the few women who have shown themselves the polemic equals of the most trained and brilliant men of their times, the subject of this sketch stands prominently with the first. Mrs. Stanton was always a vigorous woman of commanding size with the mental force of a giant. In public debates and private arguments, she has shown herself to be an orator, forceful, logical, witty, sarcastic and eloquent. Like all great orators, she is imbued with one great idea which presses to the front in all she says or does and has been the moving force of her life. She believes that social and national safety lies alone in the purity of individuals and in the full and free bestowal upon every individual, regardless of sex, of all the rights and privileges of citizenship. In other words, whatever other excellencies or merits she may possess, she is primarily a Woman Suffragist.

Elizabeth Cady was the daughter of Judge Daniel Cady and was born in Johnstown, N. Y., November 12, 1815. She was a child of marked intelligence and was thoroughly educated by her parents and graduated in Troy, N. Y., in 1832. She was learned in Latin and Greek, was a great lover of sports and, it is said that in early life she frequently complained that she had been born a girl instead of a boy. She used to discuss law in her father’s office and always insisted that no law was just which denied to women an equal right with men. She was anxious to complete her education in Union College where her brother had been educated, and her indignation was unbounded when she was refused entrance because girls were not admitted to that institution. Thus it will be seen how she became a Woman’s Rights believer, and with her strong and cultured mind it was only natural that she should become one of its chief advocates. At the age of twenty-five, in 1840, she married Henry B. Stanton, an Anti-slavery orator, journalist and author. Thus she became an Abolitionist and entered, with her usual force and zeal, into that movement. She was a delegate to the World’s Anti-slavery Convention, which met the next year in London. With Lucretia Mott, she signed the first call for a Woman’s Rights Convention, which met in Seneca Falls, N. Y., on the 19th of July, 1848. Mrs. Stanton received and cared for the visitors, wrote the resolutions, declarations and aims of the organization, and had the satisfaction of being ridiculed throughout the United States. Even her father, Judge Cady, imagined that she had gone crazy and journeyed all the way to Seneca Falls in order to endeavor to reason her out of her position; but she remained unshaken. Since that convention, Mrs. Stanton has been one of the leaders of the movement in the United States.

In 1854, Mrs. Stanton addressed the New York Legislature, endeavoring to bring about such a change in the constitution as would enfranchise women, an extract from which, we insert in this volume. She delivered another address to the same body in 1860 and again in 1867. In Kansas and in Michigan in ’67 and ’74, when those states were submitting the question of “Woman’s Suffrage” to the people, she did heroic work by canvassing and speaking throughout both of these Commonwealths. Until the year of 1890, she was President of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. In 1868, she ventured to run as candidate for Congress and, in her speech to the electors of the district, she announced her creed to be “Free speech, free press, free men and free trade.”

The “New York Herald” ventured to support her in this effort; but of course she was defeated, as she expected, her object being only to emphasize and advertise the principle of “Woman Suffrage.”

The literary works of Mrs. Stanton consist of her contributions to “The Revolution,” a magazine published in New York City, of which she became editor in 1868, Susan B. Anthony being the publisher. She was also joint-author of the “History of Woman’s Suffrage” of which three volumes have appeared. She has, also, lectured much and contributed to the secular press.

Mrs. Stanton, with all her public works, has been a thoroughly domestic woman. She has a family of seven children, five sons and two daughters, all of whom were living up to a recent date and some of them have inherited the talents of their mother and bid fair to become famous. Mrs. Stanton possesses conversational powers of the highest order. In the light of recent developments, the retrospect of her long career must afford her unusual pleasure. She was met with bitterness, ridicule and misrepresentation at the beginning of her crusade. She has lived down all of this and has seen her cherished ambition fruited here and there, while many of the leading men of the age in all sections of the country have been brought to look upon “Woman Suffrage” as something to be desired; while in the minds of the public generally, the seed of thoughts sown by her are so fast rooting themselves and springing up, that she looks with confidence forward to the early realization of her hopes――the enfranchisement of woman.

* * * * *

A PLEA FOR EQUAL RIGHTS.

Delivered at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on the assembling of the first Woman-Suffragist Convention, July 19, 1848. Mrs. Stanton begins by saying:

I SHOULD feel exceedingly diffident to appear before you at this time, having never before spoken in public, were I not nerved by a sense of right and duty.

[After delivering a masterly and eloquent argument of nearly two hours length announcing the principles and setting forth the arguments which have since signalized the movement, Mrs. Stanton closed in the following eloquent strain:]

Our churches are multiplying on all sides, our missionary societies, Sunday Schools, and prayer meetings and innumerable charitable and reform organizations are all in operation, but still the tide of vice is swelling, and threatens the destruction of everything, and the battlements of righteousness are weak against the raging elements of sin and death. Verily the world waits the coming of some new element, some purifying power, some spirit of mercy and love. The voice of woman has been silenced in the state, the church, and the home, but man cannot fulfill his destiny alone, he cannot redeem his race unaided. There are deep and tender cords of sympathy and love in the hearts of the down-fallen and oppressed that woman can touch more skilfully than man. The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source. It is vain to look for silver and gold from the mines of copper and lead. It is the wise mother that has the wise son. So long as your women are slaves you may throw your colleges and churches to the winds. You can’t have scholars and saints so long as your mothers are ground to powder between the upper and nether millstone of tyranny and lust. How seldom, now, is a father’s pride gratified, his fond hopes realized, in the budding genius of his son. The wife is degraded, made the mere creature of caprice, and the foolish son is heaviness to his heart. Truly are the sins of the father visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. God, in his wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together, that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length, and here, too, is the law of restoration, as in woman all have fallen, so in her elevation shall the race be recreated. “Voices” were the visitors and advisers of Joan of Arc. Do not “voices” come to us daily from the haunts of poverty, sorrow, degradation and despair, already too long unheeded. Now is the time for the women of this country, if they would save our free institutions, to defend the right, to buckle on the armor that can best resist the keenest weapons of the enemy――contempt and ridicule. The same religious enthusiasm that nerved Joan of Arc to her work nerves us to ours. In every generation God calls some men and women for the utterance of the truth, a heroic action, and our work to-day is the fulfilling of what has long since been foretold by the prophet――Joel ii. 28, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” We do not expect our path will be strewn with the flowers of popular applause, but over the thorns of bigotry and prejudice will be our way, and on our banners will beat the dark storm-clouds of opposition from those who have entrenched themselves behind the stormy bulwarks of custom and authority, and who have fortified their position by every means, holy and unholy. But we will steadfastly abide the result. Unmoved we will bear it aloft. Undauntedly we will unfurl it to the gale, for we know that the storm cannot rend from it a shred, that the electric flash will but more clearly show to us the glorious words inscribed upon it, “Equality of Rights.”

“Then fear not thou to wind thy horn, Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn. Ask for the Castle’s King and Queen, Though rabble rout may rush between, Beat thee senseless to the ground, And in the dark beset thee round, Persist to ask and it will come, Seek not for rest in humbler home, So shalt thou see what few have seen; The palace home of King and Queen.”

* * * * *

MRS. STANTON’S ADDRESS TO THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK.

UNDER THE SANCTION OF THE STATE WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION. FEBRUARY 14, 1854.

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

THE tyrant, Custom, has been summoned before the bar of Common Sense. His majesty no longer awes the multitude――his sceptre is broken――his crown is trampled in the dust――the sentence of death is pronounced upon him. All nations, ranks and classes have, in turn, questioned and repudiated his authority; and now, that the monster is chained and caged, timid woman, on tiptoe, comes to look him in the face, and to demand of her brave sires and sons, who have struck stout blows for liberty, if, in this change of dynasty, she, too, shall find relief.

Yes, gentlemen, in republican America, in the nineteenth century, we, the daughters of the revolutionary heroes of ’76, demand at your hands the redress of our grievances――a revision of your state constitution――a new code of laws.... We demand the full recognition of all our rights as citizens of the Empire State. We are persons; native, free-born citizens; property-holders, tax-payers; yet we are denied the exercise of our right to the elective franchise. We support ourselves, and, in part, your schools, colleges, churches, your poor-houses, jails, prisons, the army, the navy, the whole machinery of government, and yet we have no voice in your councils. We have every qualification required by the constitution, necessary to the legal voter; but the one of sex. We are moral, virtuous and intelligent, and in all respects quite equal to the proud white man himself, and yet by your laws we are classed with idiots, lunatics and negroes;... in fact, our legal position is lower than that of either; for the negro can be raised to the dignity of a voter if he possess himself of $250; the lunatic can vote in his moments of sanity, and the idiot, too, if he be a male one, and not more than nine-tenths a fool; but we, who have guided great movements of charity, established missions, edited journals, published works on history, economy and statistics; who have governed nations, led armies, filled the professor’s chair, taught philosophy and mathematics to the savants of our age, discovered planets, piloted ships across the sea, are denied the most sacred rights of citizens, because, forsooth, we came not into this republic crowned with the dignity of manhood!... Now, gentlemen, we would fain know by what authority you have disfranchised one-half of the people of this state?... Would that the men who can sanction a constitution so opposed to the genius of this government, who can enact and execute laws so degrading to womankind, had sprung, Minerva-like, from the brains of their fathers, that the matrons of this republic need not blush to own their sons!... Again we demand in criminal cases, that most sacred of all rights, trial by a jury of our own peers. The establishment of trial by jury is of so early a date that its beginning is lost in antiquity; but the right of trial by a jury of one’s own peers is a great, progressive step of advanced civilization.... Would it not, in woman’s hour of trial at the bar, be some consolation to see that she was surrounded by the wise and virtuous of her own sex; by those who had known the depth of a mother’s love and the misery of a lover’s falsehood; to know that to these she could make her confession, and from them receive her sentence? If so, then listen to our just demands and make such a change in your laws as will secure to every woman tried in your courts, an impartial jury. At this moment among the hundreds of women who are shut up in the prisons of this state, not one has enjoyed that most sacred of all her rights――that right which you would die to defend for yourselves――trial by a jury of one’s peers.

(After referring to the law relating to woman’s inability to make contracts; to own property and to control the property of her children after her husband’s death (except by special provision in his will); the inability of the wife to protect the family property against the drunken husband; her inability to prevent her children from being bound out for a term of years against her express wishes,――Mrs. Stanton closes her address in the following words:)

For all these, then, we speak. If to this long list you add all the laboring women, who are loudly demanding remuneration for their unending toil――those women who teach in our seminaries, academies and common schools for a miserable pittance, the widows, who are taxed without mercy; the unfortunate ones in our work-houses, poor-houses and prisons; who are they that we do not now represent? But a small class of fashionable butterflies, who, through the short summer days, seek the sunshine and the flowers; but the cool breezes of autumn and the hoary frosts of winter will soon chase all these away; then; they too will need and seek protection, and through other lips demand, in their turn, justice and equity at your hands.

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FRANCES E. WILLARD.

THE ORGANIZER AND HEAD OF THE W. C. T. U.

WITH the latter years of this century a new power has made itself felt in the world――the power of organized womanhood. Fifty years ago such a body as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was not only unknown, but impossible; and fifty years ago the woman who has done more than any other to bring it into being was a bright, healthy child of five years, living at Oberlin, Ohio, whither her father and mother had moved from Monroe County, New York, where she was born in September, 1839. In 1846 there was another move westward, this time to Forest Home, near Janesville, Wisconsin. Here Miss Willard spent twelve years, in which she grew from a child to a woman. She had wise parents, who gave free rein to the romping, freedom-loving girl, and let her grow up “near to nature’s heart.” She could ride a horse or fight a prairie fire “just as well as a man.”

After twelve years of life on Wisconsin prairies, the Willard family moved to Evanston, on the shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago. Here Miss Willard began her work as a teacher, which she pursued in different institutions until 1870, when she was chosen president of Evanston College for Ladies. This place she filled until 1874, when she finally gave up teaching to enter upon a new and still larger work.

In 1873 occurred in Ohio the memorable “Women’s Crusade” against the rum shops. Bands of devoted women besieged the saloons for days and weeks together, entreating the saloon-keepers to cease selling liquor, praying and singing hymns incessantly in bar-rooms or on the sidewalks, until the men who kept them agreed to close them up, and in many cases emptied barrels of liquor into the gutters. This movement at once arrested Miss Willard’s attention. She saw in it the germ of a mighty power for good. She resigned her position as president of the college at Evanston, and threw all her energies into the anti-liquor movement. With her customary thoroughness she entered upon a systematic study of the subject of intemperance and the sale of liquor, and of the different measures which had been undertaken to abate this mighty evil. She sought the counsel of Neal Dow and other leaders in the temperance cause. She joined in the crusade against liquor-selling in Pittsburgh, kneeling in prayer on the sawdust-covered floors of the saloons, and leading the host in singing “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” and “Rock of Ages,” in strains which awed and melted the hearts of the multitude thronging the streets. The result of her work was a determination to combine in one mighty organization the many separate bands of women temperance workers which had sprung up over the country; and this was achieved in the autumn of 1874, in the organization at Cleveland of that wonderful body, the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The resolution which was adopted at that meeting, written by Miss Willard herself, beautifully expresses the spirit in which they entered upon the work. It read as follows:――

“Resolved, That, recognizing that our cause is and will be contested by mighty, determined, and relentless forces, we will, trusting in Him who is the Prince of Peace, meet argument with argument, misjudgment with patience, denunciation with kindness, and all our difficulties and dangers with prayer.”

From that time Miss Willard’s life is the history of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Like the “handful of corn in the tops of the mountains,” all over this and in other lands it has taken root and grown until the fruit does indeed “shake like Lebanon.” In almost every corner of the United States is a subordinate organization of some sort, a local union, a children’s band, a young woman’s circle, or perhaps all of these. It has built the great “Temperance Temple,” one of the largest of the immense business buildings in Chicago. It has organized a large publishing business, from whose busy presses temperance literature is constantly being circulated in all parts of the country. It has by its political power made and unmade governors, senators, and representatives; and it has done much to hasten the time when women shall take an equal share in the government of church and state. In all this work the head and guiding spirit has been Frances E. Willard.

Overwork has of late somewhat impaired her health, and made travel and rest abroad necessary. But in whatever corner of the world she may dwell, there is always a warm corner kept for her in the many thousand hearts and homes that have been cheered and brightened by her work “for God and home and native land.”

Miss Willard’s friend and co-worker, Hannah Whitall Smith, says of her: “Miss Willard has been to me the embodiment of all that is lovely and good and womanly and strong and noble and tender in human nature. She has done more to enlarge our sympathies, widen our outlook, and develop our gifts, than any man or any other woman of our time.”

* * * * *

HOME PROTECTION.

(FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN PHILADELPHIA, 1876.)

LONGER ago than I shall tell, my father returned one night to the far-off Wisconsin home where I was reared, and sitting by my mother’s chair, with a child’s attentive ear I listened to their words. He told us of the news that day had brought about Neal Dow, and the great fight for Prohibition down in Maine, and then he said: “I wonder if poor, rum-cursed Wisconsin will ever get a law like that?” And mother rocked awhile in silence, in the dear old chair I love, and then she gently said: “Yes, Josiah, there’ll be such a law all over the land some day, when women vote.”

My father had never heard her say as much before. He was a great conservative; so he looked tremendously astonished, and replied, in his keen, sarcastic voice: “And pray, how will you arrange it so that women shall vote?” Mother’s chair went to and fro a little faster for a minute, and then, looking not into his face, but into the flickering flames of the grate, she slowly answered: “Well, I say to you, as the Apostle Paul said to his jailor: ‘You have put us into prison, we being Romans, and you must come and take us out.’”

That was a seed-thought in a girl’s brain and heart. Years passed on, in which nothing more was said upon this dangerous theme. My brother grew to manhood, and soon after he was twenty-one years old he went with father to vote. Standing by the window, a girl of sixteen years, a girl of simple, homely fancies, not at all strong-minded, and altogether ignorant of the world, I looked out as they drove away, my father and brother, and as I looked I felt a strange ache in my heart, and tears sprang to my eyes. Turning to my sister Mary, who stood beside me, I saw that the dear little innocent seemed wonderfully sober, too. I said, “Don’t you wish that we could go with them when we are old enough? Don’t we love our country just as well as they do?” and her little frightened voice piped out: “Yes, of course we ought. Don’t I know that; but you mustn’t tell a soul――not mother, even; we should be called strong-minded.”

In all the years since then, I have kept those things, and many others like them, and pondered them in my heart; but two years of struggle in this temperance reform have shown me, as they have ten thousand other women, so clearly and so impressively, my duty, that I have passed the Rubicon of Silence, and am ready for any battle that shall be involved in this honest declaration of the faith that is within me. “Fight behind masked batteries a little longer,” whisper good friends and true. So I have been fighting hitherto; but it is a style of warfare altogether foreign to my temperament and mode of life. Reared on the prairies, I seemed pre-determined to join the ♦cavalry force in this great spiritual war, and I must tilt a free lance henceforth on the splendid battlefield of this reform; where the earth shall soon be shaken by the onset of contending hosts, where legions of valiant soldiers are deploying; where to the grand encounter marches to-day a great army, gentle of mien and mild of utterance, but with hearts for any fate; where there are trumpets and bugles calling strong souls onward to a victory which Heaven might envy, and

“Where, behind the dim Unknown, Standeth GOD within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.”

♦ “calvary” replaced with “cavalry”

I thought that women ought to have the ballot as I paid the hard-earned taxes upon my mother’s cottage home――but I never said as much――somehow the motive did not command my heart. For my own sake, I had not courage, but I have for thy sake, dear native land, for thy necessity is as much greater than mine as thy transcendant hope is greater than the personal interest of thy humble child. For love of you, heart-broken wives, whose tremulous lips have blessed me; for love of you, sweet mothers, who in the cradle’s shadow kneel this night, beside your infant sons; and you, sorrowful little children, who listen at this hour, with faces strangely old, for him whose footsteps frighten you; for love of you, have I thus spoken.

Ah, it is women who have given the costliest hostages to fortune. Out into the battle of life they have sent their best beloved, with fearful odds against them, with snares that men have legalized and set for them on every hand. Beyond the arms that held them long, their boys have gone forever. Oh! by the danger they have dared; by the hours of patient watching over beds where helpless children lay; by the incense of ten thousand prayers wafted from their gentle lips to Heaven, I charge you give them power to protect, along life’s treacherous highway, those whom they have so loved. Let it no longer be that they must sit back among the shadows, hopelessly mourning over their strong staff broken, and their beautiful rod; but when the sons they love shall go forth to life’s battle, still let their mothers walk beside them, sweet and serious, and clad in the garments of power.

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LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

AUTHOR OF “AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THAT CLASS OF AMERICANS CALLED AFRICANS.”

NEXT to Harriet Beecher Stowe, no woman, perhaps, has contributed more to the liberation of the black man than has the subject of this sketch. It was Lydia Maria Child who wrote the famous reply to Governor Wise, of Virginia, after the hanging of John Brown, and it was to her that the wife of the Senator from Massachusetts, the author of the “Fugitive Slave Law,” wrote, threatening her with future damnation for her activity against the operation of that law. Mrs. Child’s reply to Governor Wise, of Virginia, and Mrs. Mason was published with their letters in pamphlet form, and three hundred thousand copies were quickly distributed throughout the North. On the altars of how many thousand hearts they kindled the fires of universal liberty of person can never be known; but it is certain that after the appearance of this pamphlet, and Mrs. Stowe’s immortal book, the fate of slavery in the United States was sealed, and the rising star of the black man’s liberty and the setting sun of the accursed institution simultaneously rose and fell.

But Lydia M. Child was more than an abolitionist. She was one of the most prolific and varied writers of the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century, as subsequent reference to her books and letters will show.

Lydia M. Francis was born in Medford, Massachusetts, February 11, 1802, and was the daughter of David Francis. Her early education was received at the hands of an odd, old woman and her brother, Converse Francis, afterwards Professor of Theology in Harvard College. After leaving private instruction, she studied in public schools, and subsequently spent a year in the seminary. From 1814 to 1820 she lived with her married sister in Maine. At the age of eighteen she returned to Watertown, Massachusetts, to live with her brother. He discovered her literary ability and encouraged her to study and write. In 1823 “Hobomok,” her first story, was published. This proved to be successful, and she issued another book, under the title of “Rebels,” which was also well received. She then brought out, in rapid succession, “The Mother’s Book,” “The Girl’s Book,” “The History of Women,” and “The Frugal Housewife.” The first passed through twelve English and one German editions, while the last reached thirty-five editions. In 1826 she began to write for children, and published her “Juvenile Miscellanies.” In 1828 she became the wife of David Lee Child, a lawyer, and removed to Boston, Massachusetts, where they settled. In 1831 both wife and husband became interested in the then new “Anti-Slavery Movement.” Mr. Child became the leader of the Anti-Slavery Party; and, in 1833, Mrs. Child published her famous book, entitled “An Appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans Called Africans.” When this work appeared, Dr. Channing, it is said, was so delighted with it that he at once walked from Boston to Roxbury to see the author, though a stranger to him, and thank her for it. This was nearly twenty years before “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” appeared, and, so far as the writer is aware, was the first book ever published――in America at least――opposing the institution of slavery.

There were at this time in the North very few people who were openly opposed to slavery, and the appearance of the book cut Mrs. Child loose from the friends of her youth. Both social and literary circles, which had formerly welcomed her, now shut their doors against her entrance. She was at this time editing a magazine, which had a large subscription, and her books were selling well. Suddenly, the sale of her books fell off, subscriptions were withdrawn from her paper, and her life became one of ostracized isolation and a battle for existence. The effect of this, was, however, to stimulate rather than intimidate her zeal in the cause which she espoused. Through it all she bore her trouble with the patience and courage worthy of a heroine, and in the midst of her disappointment and labors found time to produce the “Life of Madame Roland” and “Baroness de Staël,” and also her Greek romance “Philothea.” At the same time, with her husband, she editorially supervised the “Anti-Slavery Standard,” in which was published those admirable “Letters from New York,” and, during the same troublous times, prepared her three-volumed work on “The Progress of Religious Ideas,” which evinces a depth of study and inquiry into the history of various religions from the most ancient Hindoo records to recent times that perhaps no woman in more modern times has approached. In 1840 Mr. and Mrs. Child removed to New York City, where they resided until 1844, when they removed to Wayland, Massachusetts, where she continued to reside for the next thirty-six years of her life, dying there October 20, 1880, in the seventy-eighth year of her age. She lived to see a reversal of the opinions that greeted her first plea for the personal liberty of all mankind, and became once more the honored centre of a wide circle of influential friends.

The books of Mrs. Child are numerous. We mention beside those referred to above “Flowers for Children,” three volumes (1844–1846); “Fact and Fiction” (1846); “The Power of Kindness” (1851); “A True Life of Isaac P. Hopper” (1853); “Autumnal Leaves” (1856); “Looking Toward Sunset” (1864); “The Freedman’s Book” (1865); “Maria” (1867); and “Aspirations of the World” (1878), which was the last work of the long and busy life of the grand, old woman――issued just three years before her death. In 1882, two years after her demise, a volume of her letters was published with an introduction by the Anti-Slavery poet, Whittier, and an appendix by the Anti-Slavery orator, Wendell Phillips.

* * * * *

A LITTLE WAIF.

(FROM “LETTERS FROM NEW YORK.”)

THE other day I went forth for exercise merely, without other hope of enjoyment than a farewell to the setting sun, on the now deserted Battery, and a fresh kiss from the breezes of the sea, ere they passed through the polluted city, bearing healing on their wings. I had not gone far, when I met a little ragged urchin, about four years old, with a heap of newspapers, “more big than he could carry,” under his little arm, and another clenched in his small red fist. The sweet voice of childhood was prematurely cracked into shrillness by screaming street cries, at the top of his lungs, and he looked blue, cold and disconsolate. May the angels guard him! How I wanted to warm him in my heart.

I stood looking after him as he went shivering along. Imagination followed him to the miserable cellar where he probably slept on dirty straw. I saw him flogged after his day of cheerless toil, because he had failed to bring home pence enough for his parents’ grog; I saw wicked ones come muttering, and beckoning between his young soul and heaven; they tempted him to steal to avoid the dreaded beating. I saw him years after, bewildered and frightened, in the police-office surrounded by hard faces. Their law-jargon conveyed no meaning to his ear, awakened no slumbering moral sense, taught him no clear distinction between right and wrong; but from their cold, harsh tones, and heartless merriment, he drew the inference that they were enemies; and as such he hated them. At that moment, one tone like a mother’s voice might have wholly changed his earthly destiny; one kind word of friendly counsel might have saved him――as if an angel, standing in the genial sunlight, had thrown to him one end of a garland, and gently diminishing the distance between them, had drawn him safely out of the deep and tangled labyrinth, where false echoes and winding paths conspired to make him lose his way. But watchmen and constables were around him, and they have small fellowship with angels. The strong impulses that might have become overwhelming love for his race are perverted to the bitterest hatred. He tries the universal resort of weakness against force; if they are too strong for him, he will be too cunning for them. Their cunning is roused to detect his cunning; and thus the gallows-game is played, with interludes of damnable merriment from police reports, whereat the heedless multitude laugh; while angels weep over the slow murder of a human soul. God grant the little shivering carrier-boy a brighter destiny than I have foreseen for him.

* * * * *

TO WHITTIER ON HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.

I THANK thee, friend, for words of cheer, That made the path of duty clear, When thou and I were young and strong To wrestle with a mighty wrong. And now, when lengthening shadows come, And this world’s work is nearly done, I thank thee for thy genial ray That prophesies a brighter day When we can work, with strength renewed, In clearer light, for surer good. God bless thee, friend, and give thee peace, Till thy fervent spirit finds release; And may we meet, in worlds afar, My Morning and my Evening Star!

* * * * *

POLITENESS.

IN politeness, as in many other things connected with the formation of character, people in general begin outside, when they should begin inside; instead of beginning with the heart, and trusting that to form the manners, they begin with the manners, and trust the heart to chance influences. The golden rule contains the very life and soul of politeness. Children may be taught to make a graceful courtesy or a gentlemanly bow; but unless they have likewise been taught to abhor what is selfish, and always prefer another’s comfort and pleasure to their own, their politeness will be entirely artificial, and used only when it is their interest to use it. On the other hand, a truly benevolent, kind-hearted person will always be distinguished for what is called native politeness, though entirely ignorant of the conventional forms of society.

* * * * *

FLOWERS.

HOW the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage-altar, and the tomb. The Persian in the far East delights in their perfume, and writes his love in nosegays; while the Indian child of the far West clasps his hands with glee, as he gathers the abundant blossoms,――the illuminated scripture of the prairies. The Cupid of the ancient Hindoos tipped his arrows with flowers; and orange-buds are the bridal crown with us, a nation of yesterday. Flowers garlanded the Grecian altar, and they hang in votive wreaths before the Christian shrine.

All these are appropriate uses. Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful bride; for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage. They should twine round the tomb; for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection. They should festoon the altar; for their fragrance and their beauty ascend in perpetual worship before the Most High.

* * * * *

UNSELFISHNESS.

(From: “Letters from New York.”)

I FOUND the Battery unoccupied, save by children, whom the weather made as merry as birds. Every thing seemed moving to the vernal tune of

“Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green.”――Scott’s Rokeby.

To one who was chasing her hoop, I said, smiling, “You are a nice little girl.” She stopped, looked up in my face, so rosy and happy, and, laying her hand on her brother’s shoulder, exclaimed, earnestly, “And he is a nice little boy, too!” It was a simple, childlike act, but it brought a warm gush into my heart. Blessings on all unselfishness! on all that leads us in love to prefer one another! Here lies the secret of universal harmony; this is the diapason which would bring us all into tune. Only by losing ourselves can we find ourselves. How clearly does the divine voice within us proclaim this, by the hymn of joy it sings, whenever we witness an unselfish deed or hear an unselfish thought. Blessings on that loving little one! She made the city seem a garden to me. I kissed my hand to her, as I turned off in quest of the Brooklyn ferry. The sparkling waters swarmed with boats, some of which had taken a big ship by the hand, and were leading her out to sea, as the prattle of childhood often guides wisdom into the deepest and broadest thought.

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ANNA ELIZABETH DICKINSON.

IN 1861, a young girl of nineteen years, sprang like a Minerva fully armed into the moral and political arena, and for a time stirred the hearts of those who fell under her influence, as few other speakers have done. From the day she first appeared before the public, she feared not to utter the boldest truths and most scathing rebukes of sin in high places. Whether the principle for which she strove is right or wrong the world of course will judge for itself, but that this woman was honest, logical, sincere, and eloquent in advocacy, no one who ever listened to her earnest appeals or read what she wrote could for one moment doubt.

Anna E. Dickinson was born October 28, 1842, in the city of Philadelphia. When she was two years old her father died, leaving the family in straightened circumstances. Her parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and Anna was sent in her early years to the Friends’ Free School. At the same time she had little ways of her own in earning money, which she carefully husbanded and spent for books. When fourteen years old she made her appearance before the public by writing an article on slavery, which was published in “The Liberator,” and in 1857 made her debut as a public speaker by replying to a man who had delivered a tirade against women. From that time she spoke frequently on the subjects of slavery and temperance. In 1859 and 1860 she taught a country school, and in 1861 became an employee in the Philadelphia Mint, from which position she was soon dismissed, because in a speech in West Chester she declared the battle of Ball’s Bluff had been lost through the treason of General McClellan. Thus cast upon the world she entered immediately the lecture platform. William Lloyd Garrison heard one of her addresses and named her “The Girl Orator.” He invited her to speak in Boston, Massachusetts, where she delivered a famous address on the “National Crisis” in Music Hall. From there she entered upon a lecture tour, speaking in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and until the close of the war devoted her time to lecturing. In Washington, D. C., in 1864, the proceeds of one of her lectures, amounting to a thousand dollars, she devoted to the Freedmen’s Relief Society. She was frequently called to the hospitals and the camps, where she addressed the soldiers. After the war she took up the cudgel in favor of woman’s suffrage. She visited Utah to inquire into the condition of women there, and returning delivered her famous lecture on the “Whited Sepulchres.” Other prominent lectures were entitled “Demagogues and Workingmen,” “Joan of Arc,” “Between Us Be Truth,” “Platform and Stage.”

Miss Dickinson made the mistake of her life when she deserted the platform for the stage in 1877. She wrote a play entitled “A Crown of Thorns,” in which she attempted to “star.” She next assayed Shakespearian tragic roles, including “Hamlet” and others, and afterwards gave dramatic readings. In all of these attempts she was out of her element, therefore, unsuccessful, and returned to the lecture platform, but continued to write plays. The only one of these, however, which was even moderately popular with the masses was entitled “The American Girl,” played by Fanny Davenport. The noted actor, John McCullough, was preparing to produce her “Aurelian,” when the failure of his powers came and it was never put upon the stage. Miss Dickinson also wrote a number of books. Among them we mention the novel “What Answer;” “A Paying Investment,” and “A Ragged Register of People, Places and Opinions,” the latter being a sort of diary, and perhaps the most valuable of the lot.

The last ten years added other mistakes and misfortunes which have tended to detract from the well-earned fame of her earlier life. These difficulties began with a suit brought against the Republican managers in 1888 for services rendered in the Harrison presidential campaign. Following this came family difficulties. Her health failed and she was placed by her relatives for a time in an insane asylum, from which she was eventually released, but was involved in further law-suits. Let it be said to her credit, however, that while she acquired an ample fortune from her lectures, she has given away the bulk of it to all kinds of charities, and it is from the money that she has made and her liberal disposition to dispose of it for the benefit of humanity, rather than to her relatives, which has involved her in much of the family trouble.

As an orator Miss Dickinson was a woman of singular powers. Together with a most excellent judgment, and a keen, analytic mind, enabling her to dissect theories and motives, she was a mistress of sarcasm, pathos and wit, and possessed that rare eloquence and dramatic fervor which go to make the great orator, and which can be understood only by those who have heard her on the platform. In her work she was always unique, and while as a whole her books and plays were not popular successes they contain passages of undisputed marks of genius.

* * * * *

WHY COLORED MEN SHOULD ENLIST IN THE ARMY.

Extract from speech delivered at a mass meeting held in Philadelphia, July 6, 1863, for the promotion of enlistment of colored men in the Union Army. The efficiency of colored troops having been demonstrated by recent battles in the Southwest, several hundred gentlemen of Philadelphia addressed a memorial to the Secretary of War, asking authority to raise three regiments for three years of the war, from among the colored population of Pennsylvania. Permission to this effect was promptly given. Accordingly a mass meeting was called to arouse the colored people to prompt action. Judge Kelly and Frederick Douglass spoke at the same meeting, but Miss Dickinson’s appeal was the oratorical feature of the occasion. We quote the extract below as a specimen of her eloquence.

TRUE, through the past we have advocated the use of the black man. For what end? To save ourselves. We wanted them as shields, as barriers, as walls of defence. We would not even say to them, fight beside us. We would put them in the front; their brains contracted, their souls dwarfed, their manhood stunted; mass them together; let them die! That will cover and protect us. Now we hear the voice of the people, solemn and sorrowful, saying, “We have wronged you enough; you have suffered enough; we ask no more at your hands; we stand aside, and let you fight for your own manhood, your future, your race.” (Applause.) Anglo-Africans, we need you; yet it is not because of this need that I ask you to go into the ranks of the regiments forming to fight in this war. My cheeks would crimson with shame, while my lips put the request that could be answered, “Your soldiers? why don’t you give us the same bounty, and the same pay as the rest?” I have no reply to that. (Sensation.)

But for yourselves; because, after ages of watching and agony, your day is breaking; because your hour is come; because you hold the hammer which, upheld or falling, decides your destiny for woe or weal; because you have reached the point from which you must sink, generation after generation, century after century, into deeper depths, into more absolute degradation; or mount to the heights of glory and fame.

The cause needs you. This is not our war, not a war for territory; not a war for martial power, for mere victory; it is a war of the races, of the ages; the stars and stripes is the people’s flag of the world; the world must be gathered under its folds, the black man beside the white. (Cheers and applause.)

Thirteen dollars a month and bounty are good; liberty is better. Ten dollars a month and no bounty are bad; slavery is worse. The two alternatives are put before you; you make your own future. The to be will, in a little while, do you justice. Soldiers will be proud to welcome as comrades, as brothers, the black men of Port Hudson and Milliken’s Bend. Congress, next winter, will look out through the fog and mist of Washington, and will see how, when Pennsylvania was invaded and Philadelphia threatened, while white men haggled over bounty and double pay to defend their own city, their own homes, with the tread of armed rebels almost heard in their streets; black men, without bounty, without pay, without rights or the promise of any, rushed to the ♦beleaguered capital, and were first in their offers of life or of death. (Cheers and applause.) Congress will say, “These men are soldiers; we will pay them as such; these men are marvels of loyalty, self-sacrifice, courage; we will give them a chance of promotion.” History will write, “Behold the unselfish heroes; the eager martyrs of this war.” (Applause.) You hesitate because you have not all. Your brothers and sisters of the South cry out, “Come to help us, we have nothing.” Father! you hesitate to send your boy to death; the slave father turns his face of dumb entreaty to you, to save his boy from the death in life; the bondage that crushes soul and body together. Shall your son go to his aid? Mother! you look with pride at the young manly face and figure, growing and strengthening beside you! he is yours; your own. God gave him to you. From the lacerated hearts, the wrung souls of other mothers, comes the wail, “My child, my child; give me back my child!” The slave-master heeds not; the government is tardy; mother! the prayer comes to you; will you falter?

♦ “beleagured” replaced with “beleaguered”

Young man, rejoicing in the hope, the courage, the will, the thews and muscles of young manhood――the red glare of this war falls on the faces and figures of other young men, distorted with suffering, writhing in agony, wrenching their manacles and chains――shouting with despairing voices to you for help――shall it be withheld? (Cries of No! No!)

The slave will be freed――with or without you. The conscience and heart of the people have decreed that. (Applause.) Xerxes scourging the Hellespont, Canute commanding the waves to roll back, are but types of that folly which stands up and says to this majestic wave of public opinion, “Thus far.” The black man will be a citizen, only by stamping his right to it in his blood. Now or never! You have not homes!――gain them. You have not liberty!――gain it. You have not a flag!――gain it. You have not a country!――be written down in history as the race who made one for themselves, and saved one for another. (Immense cheering.)

MISCELLANEOUS MASTERPIECES AND CHOICE GEMS

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MISCELLANEOUS MASTERPIECES,

FROM VARIOUS AMERICAN AND ANONYMOUS AUTHORS,

CHOSEN WITH A VIEW TO THEIR GENERAL POPULARITY OR ADAPTATION

FOR READING AND RECITATION

* * * * *

HOME, SWEET HOME.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE, the author of the following beautiful and perhaps most widely known song in the world, was born in New York, on the ninth of June, 1792. His remarkable career as an actor and dramatist belongs to the history of the stage. As a poet he will be known only by a single song. He died at Tunis, in 1852, where he was for some time Consul for the United States.

MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere. Home! home, sweet home! There’s no place like home!

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain, Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again; The birds singing gayly that come at my call: Give me these, and the peace of mind, dearer than all. Home! sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home.

* * * * *

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY, the author of the following patriotic poem, was born in Frederick County, Maryland, August 1, 1779. He was a very able and eloquent lawyer, and one of the most respectable gentlemen whose lives have ever adorned American society. He was a man of much literary cultivation and taste, and his religious poems are not without merit. He died very suddenly at Baltimore on January 11, 1843. In 1814, when the British fleet was at the mouth of the Potomac River, and intended to attack Baltimore, Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner were sent in a vessel with a flag of truce to obtain the release of some prisoners the English had taken in their expedition against Washington. They did not succeed, and were told that they would be detained till after the attack had been made on Baltimore. Accordingly, they went in their own vessel, strongly guarded, with the British fleet, and when they came within sight of Fort McHenry, a short distance below the city, they could see the American flag flying on the ramparts. As the day closed in, the bombardment of the fort commenced, and Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner remained on deck all night, watching with deep anxiety every shell that was fired. While the bombardment continued, it was sufficient proof that the fort had not surrendered. It suddenly ceased some time before day; but as they had no communication with any of the enemy’s ships, they did not know whether the fort had surrendered and their homes and friends were in danger, or the attack upon it had been abandoned. They paced the deck the rest of the night in painful suspense, watching with intense anxiety for the return of day. At length the light came, and they saw that “our flag was still there,” and soon they were informed that the attack had failed. In the fervor of the moment, Mr. Key took an old letter from his pocket, and on its back wrote the most of this celebrated song, finishing it as soon as he reached Baltimore. He showed it to his friend Judge Nicholson, who was so pleased with it that he placed it at once in the hands of the printer, and in an hour after it was all over the city, and hailed with enthusiasm, and took its place at once as a national song. Thus, this patriotic, impassioned ode became forever associated with the “Stars and Stripes.”

O! SAY, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there; O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep As it fitfully blows, half-conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam; Its full glory reflected now shines on the stream: ’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, Mid the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion, A home and a country they’d leave us no more? Their blood hath wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution; No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freeman shall stand Between our loved home and the war’s desolation; Bless’d with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto, “In GOD is our trust,” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

* * * * *

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

BY JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

Born in New York, August 17, 1795; died September 21, 1820.

WHEN Freedom from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there! She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then, from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle-bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land!

Majestic monarch of the cloud! Who rear’st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumping loud, And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven―― Child of the sun! to thee ’tis given To guard the banner of the free, To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle-stroke, And bid its blendings shine afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war, The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, The sign of hope and triumph high! When speaks the signal-trumpet tone, And the long line comes gleaming on, Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, Each soldier’s eye shall brightly turn To where thy sky-born glories burn, And, as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance.

And when the cannon-mouthings loud Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall Like shoots of flame on midnight’s pall, Then shall thy meteor glances glow, And cowering foes shall shrink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o’er the brave When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frighted waves rush wildly back Before the broadside’s reeling rack, Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o’er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart’s hope and home, By angel hands to valor given! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet! Where breathes the foe but falls before us! With freedom’s soil beneath our feet, And freedom’s banner streaming o’er us!

* * * * *

BLIND MAN AND THE ELEPHANT.

BY JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

Born in Vermont, June 2, 1816; died in Albany, N. Y., March 31, 1887.

IT was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind,) That each by observation Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the elephant, And, happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: “God bless me! but the elephant Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried: “Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ’tis mighty clear This wonder of an elephant Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal, And, happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand, And felt about the knee, “What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain,” quoth he; “Tis clear enough the elephant Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an elephant, Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “I see,” quoth he, “the elephant Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So, oft in theologic wars The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an elephant Not one of them has seen!

* * * * *

HAIL, COLUMBIA!

BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

Born 1770; died 1842. The following interesting story is told concerning the writing of this now famous patriotic song. “It was written in the summer of 1798, when war with France was thought to be inevitable. Congress was then in session in Philadelphia, deliberating upon that important subject, and acts of hostility had actually taken place. The contest between England and France was raging, and the people of the United States were divided into parties for the one side or the other, some thinking that policy and duty required us to espouse the cause of republican France, as she was called; while others were for connecting ourselves with England, under the belief that she was the great conservative power of good principles and safe government. The violation of our rights by both belligerents was forcing us from the just and wise policy of President WASHINGTON, which was to do equal justice to both, to take part with neither, but to preserve a strict and honest neutrality between them. The prospect of a rupture with France was exceedingly offensive to the portion of the people who espoused her cause; and the violence of the spirit of party has never risen higher, I think not so high, in our country, as it did at that time, upon that question. The theatre was then open in our city. A young man belonging to it, whose talent was as a singer, was about to take his benefit. I had known him when he was at school. On this acquaintance, he called on me one Saturday afternoon, his benefit being announced for the following Monday. His prospects were very disheartening; but he said that if he could get a patriotic song adapted to the tune of the ‘President’s March’, he did not doubt of a full house; that the poets of the theatrical corps had been trying to accomplish it, but had not succeeded. I told him I would try what I could do for him. He came the next afternoon, and the song, such as it was, was ready for him. The object of the author was to get up an American spirit, which should be independent of and above the interests, passions, and policy of both belligerents, and look and feel exclusively for our own honor and rights. No allusion is made to France or England, or the quarrel between them, or to the question which was most in fault in their treatment of us. Of course the song found favor with both parties, for both were Americans: at least, neither could disavow the sentiments and feelings it inculcated. Such is the history of this song, which has endured infinitely beyond the expectation of the author, as it is beyond any merit it can boast of, except that of being truly and exclusively patriotic in its sentiments and spirit.”

HAIL, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoy’d the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize; Let its altar reach the skies. Firm――united――let us be, Rallying round our liberty; As a band of brothers join’d, Peace and safety we shall find.

Immortal patriots! rise once more; Defend your rights, defend your shore; Let no rude foe, with impious hand, Let no rude foe with impious hand, Invade the shrine where sacred lies Of toil and blood the well-earn’d prize. While offering peace sincere and just, In Heaven we place a manly trust, That truth and justice will prevail, And every scheme of bondage fail. Firm――united, etc.

Sound, sound the trump of Fame! Let WASHINGTON’s great name Ring through the world with loud applause, Ring through the world with loud applause; Let every clime to Freedom dear Listen with a joyful ear. With equal skill and godlike power, He governs in the fearful hour Of horrid war; or guides, with ease, The happier times of honest peace. Firm――united, etc.

Behold the chief who now commands, Once more to serve his country stands,―― The rock on which the storm will beat, The rock on which the storm will beat; But, arm’d in virtue firm and true, His hopes are fix’d on Heaven and you. When Hope was sinking in dismay, And glooms obscured Columbia’s day, His steady mind, from changes free, Resolved on death or liberty. Firm――united, etc.

* * * * *

BETTY AND THE BEAR.

HUMOROUS.

IN a pioneer’s cabin out West, so they say, A great big black grizzly trotted one day, And seated himself on the hearth, and began To lap the contents of a two-gallon pan Of milk and potatoes,――an excellent meal,―― And then looked about to see what he could steal. The lord of the mansion awoke from his sleep, And, hearing a racket, he ventured to peep Just out in the kitchen, to see what was there, And was scared to behold a great grizzly bear.

So he screamed in alarm to his slumbering frow, “Thar’s a bar in the kitchen as big’s a cow!” “A what?” “Why, a bar!” “Well, murder him, then!” “Yes, Betty, I will, if you’ll first venture in.” So Betty leaped up, and the poker she seized, While her man shut the door, and against it he squeezed.

As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows, Now on his forehead, and now on his nose, Her man through the key-hole kept shouting within, “Well done, my brave Betty, now hit him agin, Now a rap on the ribs, now a knock on the snout, Now poke with the poker, and poke his eyes out.” So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone, At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as a stone.

Now when the old man saw the bear was no more, He ventured to poke his nose out of the door, And there was the grizzly stretched on the floor. Then off to the neighbors he hastened to tell All the wonderful things that that morning befell; And he published the marvelous story afar, How “me and my Betty jist slaughtered a bar! O yes, come and see, all the neighbors hev sid it, Come see what we did, ME and Betty, we did it.”

ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

Illustration: Visit of Sᵗ Nicholas

BY CLEMENT C. MOORE.

Born in New York, July 15, 1779; died in Rhode Island, July 10, 1863.

TWAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of sugar-plums danced through their heads; And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, Had settled our brains for a long winter’s nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below; When what to my wondering eyes should appear But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: “Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer! and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

Illustration: (‡ Fireplace with stockings)

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With a sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

Illustration: (‡ Santa with reindeer)

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow. And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face, and a little round belly That shook, when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. He was chubby and plump――a right jolly old elf―― And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to the sleigh, to the team gave a whistle, And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle, But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Illustration: (‡ Santa getting into chimney)

* * * * *

WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1802; died in 1864.

WOODMAN, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, And I’ll protect it now. ’Twas my forefather’s hand That placed it near his cot; There, woodman, let it stand, Thy axe shall harm it not!

That old familiar tree, Whose glory and renown Are spread o’er land and sea, And wouldst thou hew it down? Woodman, forbear thy stroke! Cut not its earth-bound ties; O, spare that aged oak, Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy I sought its grateful shade; In all their gushing joy Here too my sisters played. My mother kissed me here; My father pressed my hand―― Forgive this foolish tear, But let that old oak stand!

My heart-strings round thee cling, Close as thy bark, old friend! Here shall the wild-bird sing, And still thy branches bend. Old tree! the storm still brave! And, woodman, leave the spot; While I’ve a hand to save, Thy axe shall hurt it not.

* * * * *

SANCTITY OF TREATIES, 1796.

BY FISHER AMES.

An American Statesman and writer; born in Dedham, Massachusetts, 1758, and died July 4, 1808.

WE are either to execute this treaty or break our faith. To expatiate on the value of public faith may pass with some men for declamation: to such men I have nothing to say.

What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for a spot where a man was born? Are the very clods where we tread entitled to this ardent preference, because they are greener? No, sir; this is not the character of the virtue. It soars higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoyments of life, and twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of our country’s honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes it, not only as precious, but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defence, and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

What rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable, when a State renounces the principles that constitute their security? Or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoyments be, in a country odious in the eye of strangers, and dishonored in his own? Could he look with affection and veneration to such a country, as his parent? The sense of having one would die within him; he would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any,――and justly, for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land.

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good faith. It is the philosophy of politics, the religion of governments. It is observed by barbarians. A whiff of tobacco smoke or a string of beads gives not merely binding force, but sanctity, to treaties. Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money; but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul its obligation.

* * * * *

THE BLOOM WAS ON THE ALDER AND THE TASSEL ON THE CORN.

BY DONN PIATT.

Born in Ohio in 1819.

I HEARD the bob-white whistle in the dewy breath of morn; The bloom was on the alder and the tassel on the corn. I stood with beating heart beside the babbling Mac-o-chee, To see my love come down the glen to keep her tryst with me.

I saw her pace, with quiet grace, the shaded path along, And pause to pluck a flower or hear the thrush’s song. Denied by her proud father as a suitor to be seen, She came to me, with loving trust, my gracious little queen.

Above my station, heaven knows, that gentle maiden shone, For she was belle and wide beloved, and I a youth unknown. The rich and great about her thronged, and sought on bended knee For love this gracious princess gave, with all her heart, to me.

So like a startled fawn before my longing eyes she stood, With all the freshness of a girl in flush of womanhood. I trembled as I put my arm about her form divine, And stammered, as in awkward speech, I begged her to be mine.

’Tis sweet to hear the pattering rain, that lulls a dim-lit dream―― ’Tis sweet to hear the song of birds, and sweet the rippling stream; ’Tis sweet amid the mountain pines to hear the south winds sigh, More sweet than these and all beside was the loving, low reply.

The little hand I held in mine held all I had of life, To mould its better destiny and soothe to sleep its strife. ’Tis said that angels watch o’er men, commissioned from above; My angel walked with me on earth, and gave to me her love.

Ah! dearest wife, my heart is stirred, my eyes are dim with tears―― I think upon the loving faith of all these bygone years, For now we stand upon this spot, as in that dewy morn, With the bloom upon the alder and the tassel on the corn.

* * * * *

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

BY J. Q. ADAMS.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was born at Quincy, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767. He died at Washington in 1848.

THE Declaration of Independence! The interest which, in that paper, has survived the occasion upon which it was issued,――the interest which is of every age and every clime,――the interest which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes,――is in the principles which it proclaims. It was the first solemn declaration by a nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner-stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished, at a stroke, the lawfulness of all governments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced, in practical form to the world, the transcendent truth of the inalienable sovereignty of the people. It proved that the social compact was no figment of the imagination, but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union.

From the day of this declaration, the people of North America were no longer the fragment of a distant empire, imploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master, in another hemisphere. They were no longer children, appealing in vain to the sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects, leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises, and invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights. They were a nation, asserting as of right, and maintained by war, its own existence. A nation was born in a day.

“How many ages hence Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o’er, In States unborn, and accents yet unknown?”

It will be acted o’er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be repeated.

It stands, and must forever stand, alone; a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes, for a genial and saving light, till time shall be lost in eternity and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind. It stands forever, a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of a social nature, so long as government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression,――so long shall this declaration hold out, to the sovereign and to the subject, the extent and the boundaries of their respective rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON’S ADDRESS TO HIS SOLDIERS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, 1776.

BY GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Born 1732; died 1799.

THE time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die.

Our own, our country’s honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now upon us; and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. Upon your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country. Our wives, children and parents, expect safety from us only; and they have every reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad,――their men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works, and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire until he is sure of doing execution.

* * * * *

THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE STATES.

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

Born in Nevis, one of the West India Islands, in 1757; was killed by Aaron Burr, in a duel, in 1804.

This speech was delivered in the New York Convention, on the adoption of the Constitution, 1788.

MR. CHAIRMAN, it has been advanced as a principle, that no government but a despotism can exist in a very extensive country. This is a melancholy consideration, indeed. If it were founded on truth, we ought to dismiss the idea of a republican government, even for the State of New York. But the position has been misapprehended. Its application relates only to democracies, where the body of the people meet to transact business, and where representation is unknown. The application is wrong in respect to all representative governments, but especially in relation to a Confederacy of States, in which the Supreme Legislature has only general powers, and the civil and domestic concerns of the people are regulated by the laws of the several States. I insist that it never can be the interest or desire of the national Legislature to destroy the State Governments. The blow aimed at the members must give a fatal wound to the head, and the destruction of the States must be at once a political suicide. But imagine, for a moment, that a political frenzy should seize the government; suppose they should make the attempt. Certainly, sir, it would be forever impracticable. This has been sufficiently demonstrated by reason and experience. It has been proved that the members of republics have been, and ever will be, stronger than the head. Let us attend to one general historical example.

In the ancient feudal governments of Europe, there were, in the first place, a monarch; subordinate to him, a body of nobles; and subject to these, the vassals, or the whole body of the people. The authority of the kings was limited, and that of the barons considerably independent. The histories of the feudal wars exhibit little more than a series of successful encroachments on the prerogatives of monarchy.

Here, sir, is one great proof of the superiority which the members in limited governments possess over their head. As long as the barons enjoyed the confidence and attachment of the people, they had the strength of the country on their side, and were irresistible. I may be told in some instances the barons were overcome; but how did this happen? Sir, they took advantage of the depression of the royal authority, and the establishment of their own power, to oppress and tyrannize over their vassals. As commerce enlarged, and wealth and civilization increased, the people began to feel their own weight and consequence; they grew tired of their oppressions; united their strength with that of their prince, and threw off the yoke of aristocracy.

These very instances prove what I contend for. They prove that in whatever direction the popular weight leans, the current of power will flow; whatever the popular attachments be, there will rest the political superiority. Sir, can it be supposed that the State Governments will become the oppressors of the people? Will they forfeit their affections? Will they combine to destroy the liberties and happiness of their fellow-citizens, for the sole purpose of involving themselves in ruin? God forbid! The idea, sir, is shocking! It outrages every feeling of humanity and every dictate of common sense!

* * * * *

WHAT SAVED THE UNION.

BY GENERAL U. S. GRANT.

Born 1822; died 1885. From a speech delivered on the Fourth of July at Hamburg.

I SHARE with you in all the pleasure and gratitude which Americans so far away should feel on this anniversary. But I must dissent from one remark of our consul, to the effect that I saved the country during the recent war. If our country could be saved or ruined by the efforts of any one man, we should not have a country, and we should not now be celebrating our Fourth of July. There are many men who would have done far better than I did, under the circumstances in which I found myself during the war. If I had never held command, if I had fallen, if all our generals had fallen, there were ten thousand behind us who would have done our work just as well, who would have followed the contest to the end, and never surrendered the Union. Therefore, it is a mistake and a reflection upon the people to attribute to me, or to any number of us who hold high commands, the salvation of the Union. We did our work as well as we could, so did hundreds of thousands of others. We demand no credit for it, for we should have been unworthy of our country and of the American name if we had not made every sacrifice to save the Union. What saved the Union was the coming forward of the young men of the nation. They came from their homes and fields, as they did in the time of the Revolution, giving everything to the country. To their devotion we owe the salvation of the Union. The humblest soldier who carried a musket is entitled to as much credit for the results of the war as those who were in command. So long as our young men are animated by this spirit there will be no fear for the Union.

* * * * *

THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON.

BY RUFUS CHOATE.

Born 1799; died 1858.

THE birthday of the “Father of his Country!” May it ever be freshly remembered by American hearts! May it ever reawaken in them filial veneration for his memory; ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country he loved so well; to which he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy, during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; to which he devoted his life, in the maturity of his powers, in the field; to which again he offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as President of the Convention that framed our Constitution; which he guided and directed while in the Chair of State, and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and so grandly, and so calmly, to die. He was the first man of the time in which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our love; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of power and might.

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and towering and matchless glory of his life, which enabled him to create his country, and, at the same time, secure an undying love and regard from the whole American people. “The first in the hearts of his countrymen!” Yes, first! He has our first and most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American nation, as a nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that young America was Washington. The first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life!

Yes, others of our great men have been appreciated,――many admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements,――no sectional prejudice nor bias,――no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes, when the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country, which his words have commended, which his example has consecrated. Well did Lord Byron write:

“Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the great, Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state?―― Yes――one――the first, the last, the best, The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush, there was but one.”

* * * * *

OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?

BY WILLIAM KNOX.

A favorite poem with Abraham Lincoln, who often repeated it to his friends.

OH! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved; The mother that infant’s affection who proved; The husband that mother and infant who blessed,―― Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure,――her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne; The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn; The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven; The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven; The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, aye! they died; and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in sunshine and rain; And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,―― Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

* * * * *

COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.

BY MISS JEWSBURY.

AND this, O Spain! is thy return For the new world I gave! Chains!――this the recompense I earn! The fetters of the slave! Yon sun that sinketh ’neath the sea, Rises on realms I found for thee.

I served thee as a son would serve; I loved thee with a father’s love; It ruled my thought, and strung my nerve, To raise thee other lands above, That thou, with all thy wealth, might be The single empress of the sea.

For thee my form is bowed and worn With midnight watches on the main; For thee my soul hath calmly borne Ills worse than sorrow, more than pain; Through life, what’er my lot might be, I lived, dared, suffered, but for thee.

My guerdon!――’Tis a furrowed brow, Hair gray with grief, eyes dim with tears, And blighted hope, and broken vow, And poverty for coming years, And hate, with malice in her train:―― What other guerdon?――View my chain!

Yet say not that I weep for gold! No, let it be the robber’s spoil.―― Nor yet, that hate and malice bold Decry my triumph and my toil.―― I weep but for Spain’s lasting shame; I weep but for her blackened fame.

No more.――The sunlight leaves the sea; Farewell, thou never-dying king! Earth’s clouds and changes change not thee, And thou――and thou,――grim, giant thing, Cause of my glory and my pain,―― Farewell, unfathomable main!

* * * * *

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

BY THEODORE O’HARA.

Born in Danville, Kentucky, 1820; died in Alabama, 1867. This famous poem was written in honor of a comrade of the author, a Kentucky soldier, who fell mortally wounded in the battle of Buena Vista.

THE muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The soldier’s last tattoo; No more on life’s parade shall meet The brave and fallen few. On fame’s eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe’s advance Now swells upon the wind, No troubled thought at midnight haunts Of loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow’s strife The warrior’s dream alarms, No braying horn or screaming fife At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their plumed heads are bowed, Their haughty banner trailed in dust Is now their martial shroud―― And plenteous funeral tears have washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms by battle gashed Are free from anguish now.

The neighboring troop, the flashing blade, The bugle’s stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are passed―― Nor war’s wild note, nor glory’s peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that never more may feel The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps his great plateau, Flushed with the triumph yet to gain Came down the serried foe―― Who heard the thunder of the fray Break o’er the field beneath, Knew well the watchword of that day Was victory or death.

Full many a mother’s breath hath swept O’er Angostura’s plain, And long the pitying sky has wept Above its moldered slain. The raven’s scream, or eagle’s flight, Or shepherd’s pensive lay, Alone now wake each solemn height That frowned o’er that dread fray.

Sons of the dark and bloody ground, Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues resound Along the heedless air! Your own proud land’s heroic soil Shall be your fitter grave; She claims from war its richest spoil―― The ashes of her brave.

Thus ’neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field, Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast On many a bloody shield. The sunshine of their native sky Shines sadly on them here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by The heroes’ sepulchre.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave; No impious footstep here shall tread The herbage of your grave! Nor shall your glory be forgot While fame her record keeps, Or honor points the hallowed spot Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel’s voiceless stone In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished year hath flown, The story how ye fell; Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight, Nor time’s remorseless doom, Can dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb.

* * * * *

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY.

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Born 1809; died 1865. Mr. Lincoln always spoke briefly and to the point. The following short oration, delivered at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, is universally regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces, of brief and simple eloquence, in the realm of oratory.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, and that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

* * * * *

MEMORY.

BY JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Born 1831; died 1881. The following poem was ♦written by the late President Garfield during his senior year in Williams College, Massachusetts, and was published in the Williams “Quarterly” for March, 1856.

♦ “writen” replaced with “written”

TIS beauteous night; the stars look brightly down Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. No lights gleam at the windows, save my own, Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. And now with noiseless step, sweet memory comes And leads me gently through her twilight realms. What poet’s tuneful lyre has ever sung, Or delicatest pencil e’er portrayed The enchanted, shadowy land where memory dwells; It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear, Dark-shaded by the mournful cypress tree; And yet its sunlit mountain-tops are bathed In heaven’s own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs, Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, Are clustered joys serene of other days. Upon its gently sloping hillsides bend The weeping willows o’er the sacred dust Of dear departed ones; yet in that land, Where’er our footsteps fall upon the shore, They that were sleeping rise from out the dust Of death’s long, silent years, and round us stand As erst they did before the prison tomb Received their clay within its voiceless halls. The heavens that bend above that land are hung With clouds of various hues. Some dark and chill, Surcharged with sorrow, cast their sombre shade Upon the sunny, joyous land below. Others are floating through the dreamy air, White as the falling snow, their margins tinged With gold and crimson hues; their shadows fall Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, Soft as the shadow of an angel’s wing. When the rough battle of the day is done, And evening’s peace falls gently on the heart, I bound away, across the noisy years, Unto the utmost verge of memory’s land, Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, And memory dim with dark oblivion joins; Where woke the first remembered sounds that fell Upon the ear in childhood’s early morn; And, wandering thence along the rolling years, I see the shadow of my former self Gliding from childhood up to man’s estate; The path of youth winds down through many a vale. And on the brink of many a dread abyss, From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, Save that a phantom dances o’er the gulf And beckons toward the verge. Again the path Leads o’er the summit where the sunbeams fall; And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, Sorrow and joy this life-path leads along.

* * * * *

ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC.

BY ETHELINDA ELLIOTT BEERS.

Born in New York, 1827; died in New Jersey, 1879. The following poem first appeared in “Harper’s Weekly” in 1861, and being published anonymously its authorship was, says Mr. Stedman, “falsely claimed by several persons.”

ALL quiet along the Potomac, they say, “Except now and then a stray picket Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket. ’Tis nothing; a private or two, now and then, Will not count in the news of the battle; Not an officer lost――only one of the men, Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.”

All quiet along the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, Or the light of the watchfires, are gleaming. A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind Through the forest leaves softly is creeping; While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep guard――for the army is sleeping.

There’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain. And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother――may Heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, That night when the love yet unspoken Leaped up to his lips――when low, murmured vows Were pledged to be ever unbroken; Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes, He dashes off tears that are welling, And gathers his gun closer up to its place, As if to keep down the heart-swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree―― The footstep is lagging and weary; Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, Toward the shades of the forest so dreary. Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves? Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? It looked like a rifle: “Ha! Mary, good-by!” And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night―― No sound save the rush of the river; While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead―― The picket’s off duty forever.

* * * * *

A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE.

BY EPES SARGENT.

Born 1813; died 1880. The following beautiful and popular song, sung all over the world, like “Home, Sweet Home,” is by an American author. It is one of those bits of lyric verse which will perpetuate the name of its writer longer, perhaps, then any of the many books which he gave to the world.

A LIFE on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep; Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep! Like an angel caged I pine, On this dull, unchanging shore: O, give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest’s roar!

Once more on the deck I stand, Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land; The gale follows fair abaft. We shoot through the sparkling foam, Like an ocean-bird set free,―― Like the ocean-bird, our home We’ll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view, The clouds have begun to frown; But with a stout vessel and crew, We’ll say, “Let the storm come down!” And the song of our hearts shall be, While the winds and the waters rave, A home on the rolling sea! A life on the ocean wave!

* * * * *

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

BY F. M. FINCH.

Born in Ithaca, N. Y., 1827. Many of the women of the South, animated by noble sentiments, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They have strewn flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.

BY the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep on the ranks of the dead: Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the one, the Blue, Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet:―― Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the laurel, the Blue, Under the willow, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours, The desolate mourners go, Lovingly laden with flowers, Alike for the friend and the foe:―― Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the roses, the Blue, Under the lilies, the Gray.

So, with an equal splendor, The morning sun-rays fall, With a touch impartially tender, On the blossoms blooming for all:―― Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Broidered with gold, the Blue, Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth, On forest and field of grain With an equal murmur falleth The cooling drip of the rain:―― Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Wet with the rain, the Blue, Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding, The generous deed was done; In the storm of the years that are fading, No braver battle was won:―― Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the blossoms, the Blue, Under the garlands, the Gray.

No more shall the war-cry sever, Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray.

* * * * *

ROLL-CALL.

BY NATHANIEL P. SHEPHERD.

Born in New York, 1835; died 1869.

CORPORAL GREEN!” the orderly cried; “Here!” was the answer, loud and clear, From the lips of the soldier who stood near―― And “here!” was the word the next replied.

“Cyrus Drew!”――then a silence fell―― This time no answer followed the call; Only his rear-man had seen him fall, Killed or wounded, he could not tell.

There they stood in the failing light, These men of battle, with grave, dark looks, As plain to be read as open books, While slowly gathered the shades of night.

The fern on the hillsides was splashed with blood, And down in the corn where the poppies grew Were redder stains than the poppies knew; And crimson-dyed was the river’s flood.

For the foe had crossed from the other side That day, in the face of a murderous fire That swept them down in its terrible ire; And their life-blood went to color the tide.

“Herbert Kline!” At the call there came Two stalwart soldiers into the line Bearing between them this Herbert Kline, Wounded and bleeding, to answer his name.

“Ezra Kerr!” and a voice answered, “here!” “Hiram Kerr!”――but no man replied. They were brothers, these two; the sad winds sighed, And a shudder crept through the cornfield near.

“Ephraim Deane!”――then a soldier spoke: “Deane carried our regiment’s colors,” he said; “Where our ensign was shot, I left him dead, Just after the enemy wavered and broke.

“Close to the roadside his body lies; I paused a moment and gave him drink; He murmured his mother’s name, I think, And death came with it and closed his eyes.”

’Twas a victory; yes, but it cost us dear―― For that company’s roll, when called at night, Of a hundred men who went into the fight, Numbered but twenty that answered, “Here!”

* * * * *

THEOLOGY IN THE QUARTERS.

BY J. A. MACON.

Born in Alabama, 1851.

Author of “Uncle Gab Tucker.”

The following dialect verses are a faithful reproduction, not only of the negro dialect of the cotton sections of the South; but the genius of Mr. Macon has subtly embodied in this and other of his writings a shadowy but true picture of the peculiar and original philosophy and humor of the poor but happy black people of the section with which he is so familiar.

NOW, I’s got a notion in my head dat when you come to die, An’ stan’ de ’zamination in de Cote-house in de sky, You’ll be ’stonished at de questions dat de angel’s gwine to ax When he gits you on de witness-stan’ an’ pin you to de fac’s; ’Cause he’ll ax you mighty closely ’bout your doin’s in de night, An’ de water-milion question’s gwine to bodder you a sight! Den your eyes’ll open wider dan dey ebber done befo’ When he chats you ’bout a chicken-scrape dat happened long ago! De angels on the picket-line erlong de Milky Way Keep a-watchin’ what you’re dribin’ at, an’ hearin’ what you say; No matter what you want to do, no matter whar you’s gwine, Dey’s mighty ap’ to find it out an’ pass it ’long de line; An’ of’en at de meetin’, when you make a fuss an’ laugh, Why, dey send de news a-kitin’ by de golden telegraph; Den, de angel in de orfis, what’s a settin’ by de gate, Jes’ reads de message wid a look an’ claps it on de slate! Den you better do your juty well an’ keep your conscience clear, An’ keep a-lookin’ straight ahead an’ watchin’ whar you steer; ’Cause arter while de time’ll come to journey fum de lan’, An’ dey’ll take you way up in de a’r an’ put you on de stan’; Den you’ll hab to listen to de clerk an’ answer mighty straight, Ef you ebber’ spec’ to trabble froo de alaplaster gate!

* * * * *

RUIN WROUGHT BY RUM.

(TEMPERANCE SELECTION.)

GO, feel what I have felt, Go, bear what I have borne; Sink ’neath a blow a father dealt, And the cold, proud world’s scorn. Thus struggle on from year to year, Thy sole relief the scalding tear.

Go, weep as I have wept O’er a loved father’s fall; See every cherished promise swept, Youth’s sweetness turned to gall; Hope’s faded flowers strewed all the way That led me up to woman’s day.

Go, kneel as I have knelt; Implore, beseech and pray. Strive the besotted heart to melt, The downward course to stay; Be cast with bitter curse aside,―― Thy prayers burlesqued, thy tears defied.

Go, stand where I have stood, And see the strong man bow; With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood, And cold and livid brow; Go, catch his wandering glance, and see There mirrored his soul’s misery.

Go, hear what I have heard,―― The sobs of sad despair, As memory’s feeling fount hath stirred, And its revealings there Have told him what he might have been, Had he the drunkard’s fate foreseen.

Go to my mother’s side, And her crushed spirit cheer; Thine own deep anguish hide, Wipe from her cheek the tear; Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow, The gray that streaks her dark hair now, The toil-worn frame, the trembling limb, And trace the ruin back to him Whose plighted faith in early youth, Promised eternal love and truth, But who, forsworn, hath yielded up This promise to the deadly cup, And led her down from love and light, From all that made her pathway bright, And chained her there ’mid want and strife, That lowly thing,――a drunkard’s wife! And stamped on childhood’s brow, so mild, That withering blight,――a drunkard’s child!

Go, hear, and see, and feel, and know All that my soul hath felt and known, Then look within the wine-cup’s glow; See if its brightness can atone; Think of its flavor would you try, If all proclaimed,――’Tis drink and die.

Tell me I hate the bowl,―― Hate is a feeble word; I loathe, abhor, my very soul By strong disgust is stirred Whene’er I see, or hear, or tell Of the DARK BEVERAGE OF HELL! ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

TO A SKELETON.

The MS. of this poem was found in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, near a perfect human skeleton, and sent by the curator to the “Morning Chronicle” for publication. It excited so much attention that every effort was made to discover the author, and a responsible party went so far as to offer fifty guineas for information that would discover its origin. The author preserved his incognito, and, we believe, has never been discovered.

BEHOLD this ruin! ’Twas a skull, Once of ethereal spirit full. This narrow cell was life’s retreat, This space was thought’s mysterious seat. What beauteous visions filled this spot, What dreams of pleasure long forgot? Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear, Have left one trace of record here.

Beneath this moldering canopy Once shone the bright and busy eye; But start not at the dismal void; If social love that eye employed, If with no lawless fire it gleamed, But through the dews of kindness beamed,―― That eye shall be forever bright When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue; If falsehood’s honey it disdained, And when it could not praise was chained; If bold in virtue’s cause it spoke, Yet gentle concord never broke,―― This silent tongue shall plead for thee When time unveils eternity!

Say, did these fingers delve the mine, Or with the envied rubies shine? To hew the rock or wear a gem Can little now avail to them. But if the page of truth they sought, Or comfort to the mourner brought, These hands a richer meed shall claim Than all that wait on wealth and fame.

Avails it whether bare or shod These feet the paths of duty trod? If from the bowers of ease they fled, To seek affliction’s humble shed; If grandeur’s guilty bribe they spurned, And home to virtue’s cot returned,―― These feet with angel wings shall vie, And tread the palace of the sky!

* * * * *

PLEDGE WITH WINE.

(A TEMPERANCE SELECTION.)

PLEDGE with wine――pledge with wine!” cried the young and thoughtless Harry Wood. “Pledge with wine,” ran through the brilliant crowd.

The beautiful bride grew pale――the decisive hour had come,――she pressed her white hands together, and the leaves of her bridal wreath trembled on her pure brow; her breath came quicker, her heart beat wilder. From her childhood she had been most solemnly opposed to the use of all wines and liquors.

“Yes, Marion, lay aside your scruples for this once,” said the judge in a low tone, going towards his daughter, “the company expect it; do not so seriously infringe upon the rules of etiquette;――in your own house act as you please; but in mine, for this once please me.”

Every eye was turned towards the bridal pair. Marion’s principles were well known. Henry had been a convivialist, but of late his friends noticed the change in his manners, the difference in his habits――and to-night they watched him to see, as they sneeringly said, if he was tied down to a woman’s opinion so soon.

Pouring a brimming beaker, they held it with tempting smiles toward Marion. She was very pale, though more composed, and her hand shook not, as smiling back, she gratefully accepted the crystal tempter and raised it to her lips. But scarcely had she done so, when every hand was arrested by her piercing exclamation of “Oh, how terrible!” “What is it?” cried one and all, thronging together, for she had slowly carried the glass at arm’s length, and was fixedly regarding it as though it were some hideous object.

“Wait,” she answered, while an inspired light shone from her dark eyes, “wait and I will tell you. I see,” she added, slowly pointing one jeweled finger at the sparkling ruby liquid, “a sight that beggars all description; and yet listen; I will paint it for you if I can: It is a lonely spot; tall mountains, crowned with verdure, rise in awful sublimity around; a river runs through, and bright flowers grow to the water’s edge. There is a thick, warm mist that the sun seeks vainly to pierce; trees, lofty and beautiful, wave to the airy motion of the birds; but there, a group of Indians gather; they flit to and fro with something like sorrow upon their dark brows; and in their midst lies a manly form, but his cheek, how deathly; his eye wild with the fitful fire of fever. One friend stands beside him, nay, I should say kneels, for he is pillowing that poor head upon his breast.

“Genius in ruins. Oh! the high, holy-looking brow! Why should death mark it, and he so young? Look how he throws the damp curls! see him clasp his hands! hear his thrilling shrieks for life! mark how he clutches at the form of his companion, imploring to be saved. Oh! hear him call piteously his father’s name; see him twine his fingers together as he shrieks for his sister――his only sister――the twin of his soul――weeping for him in his distant native land.

“See!” she exclaimed, while the bridal party shrank back, the untasted wine trembling in their faltering grasp, and the judge fell, overpowered, upon his seat; “see! his arms are lifted to heaven; he prays, how wildly, for mercy! hot fever rushes through his veins. The friend beside him is weeping; awe-stricken, the dark men move silently, and leave the living and dying together.”

There was a hush in that princely parlor, broken only by what seemed a smothered sob, from some manly bosom. The bride stood yet upright, with quivering lip, and tears stealing to the outward edge of her lashes. Her beautiful arm had lost its tension, and the glass, with its little troubled red waves, came slowly towards the range of her vision. She spoke again; every lip was mute. Her voice was low, faint, yet awfully distinct: she still fixed her sorrowful glance upon the wine-cup.

“It is evening now; the great white moon is coming up, and her beams lie gently on his forehead. He moves not; his eyes are set in their sockets; dim are their piercing glances; in vain his friend whispers the name of father and sister――death is there. Death! and no soft hand, no gentle voice to bless and soothe him. His head sinks back! one convulsive shudder! he is dead!”

A groan ran through the assembly, so vivid was her description, so unearthly her look, so inspired her manner, that what she described seemed actually to have taken place then and there. They noticed also, that the bridegroom hid his face in his hands and was weeping.

“Dead!” she repeated again, her lips quivering faster and faster, and her voice more and more broken: “and there they scoop him a grave; and there, without a shroud, they lay him down in the damp, reeking earth. The only son of a proud father, the only idolized brother of a fond sister. And he sleeps to-day in that distant country, with no stone to mark the spot. There he lies――my father’s son――my own twin brother! a victim to this deadly poison. Father,” she exclaimed, turning suddenly, while the tears rained down her beautiful cheeks, “father, shall I drink it now?”

The form of the old judge was convulsed with agony. He raised his head, but in a smothered voice he faltered――“No, no, my child; in God’s name, no.”

She lifted the glittering goblet, and letting it suddenly fall to the floor it was dashed into a thousand pieces. Many a tearful eye watched her movements, and instantaneously every wine-glass was transferred to the marble table on which it had been prepared. Then, as she looked at the fragments of crystal, she turned to the company, saying: “Let no friend, hereafter, who loves me, tempt me to peril my soul for wine. Not firmer the everlasting hills than my resolve, God helping me, never to touch or taste that terrible poison. And he to whom I have given my hand; who watched over my brother’s dying form in that last solemn hour, and buried the dear wanderer there by the river in that land of gold, will, I trust, sustain me in that resolve. Will you not, my husband?”

His glistening eyes, his sad, sweet smile was her answer.

The judge left the room, and when an hour later he returned, and with a more subdued manner took part in the entertainment of the bridal guests, no one could fail to read that he, too, had determined to dash the enemy at once and forever from his princely rooms.

Those who were present at that wedding can never forget the impression so solemnly made. Many from that hour forswore the social glass.

* * * * *

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA.

BY ELIJAH KELLOG.

Born in Portland, Maine, 1813. Spartacus was a Thracian soldier, who was taken prisoner by the Romans, made a slave, and trained as a gladiator. He escaped with a number of fellow-gladiators, an incident to which this speech is supposed to refer to. He was killed in battle 71 B. C., while leading the Servile War against Rome.

IT had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrops on the corslet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of the Vulturnus with a wavy, tremulous light. No sound was heard, save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was as still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre, a band of gladiators were assembled; their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows; when Spartacus, arising in the midst of that grim assembly, thus addressed them:

“Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus,――a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd’s flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse; the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling!

“To-day I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;――the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph. I told the prætor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome’s fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the prætor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said: ‘Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans!’ And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. O, Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe;――to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!

“Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? ’Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours――and a dainty meal for him ye will be! If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher’s knife! If ye are men,――follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain-passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at Old Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master’s lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians!――if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!”

* * * * *

THE CRABBED MAN.

BY T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

(Extract from a Lecture.)

Born 1832. One of the most eminent orators of the American pulpit.

OF all the ills that flesh is heir to, a cross, crabbed, ill-contented man is the most unendurable, because the most inexcusable. No occasion, no matter how trifling, is permitted to pass without eliciting his dissent, his sneer, or his growl. His good and patient wife never yet prepared a dinner that he liked. One day she prepares a dish that she thinks will particularly please him. He comes in the front door, and says: “Whew! whew! what have you got in the house? Now, my dear, you know that I never did like codfish.” Some evening, resolving to be especially gracious, he starts with his family to a place of amusement. He scolds the most of the way. He cannot afford the time or the money, and he does not believe the entertainment will be much, after all. The music begins. The audience are thrilled. The orchestra, with polished instruments, warble and weep, and thunder and pray――all the sweet sounds of the world flowering upon the strings of the bass viol, and wreathing the flageolets, and breathing from the lips of the cornet, and shaking their flower-bells upon the tinkling tambourine.

He sits motionless and disgusted. He goes home saying: “Did you see that fat musician that got so red blowing that French horn? He looked like a stuffed toad. Did you ever hear such a voice as that lady has? Why, it was a perfect squawk! The evening was wasted.” And his companion says: “Why, my dear!” “There, you needn’t tell me――you are pleased with everything. But never ask me to go again!” He goes to church. Perhaps the sermon is didactic and argumentative. He yawns. He gapes. He twists himself in his pew, and pretends he is asleep, and says: “I could not keep awake. Did you ever hear anything so dead? Can these dry bones live?” Next Sabbath he enters a church where the minister is much given to illustration. He is still more displeased. He says: “How dare that man bring such every-day things into his pulpit? He ought to have brought his illustrations from the cedar of Lebanon and the fir-tree, instead of the hickory and sassafrass. He ought to have spoken of the Euphrates and the Jordan, and not of the Kennebec and Schuylkill. He ought to have mentioned Mount Gerizim instead of the Catskills. Why, he ought to be disciplined. Why, it is ridiculous.” Perhaps afterward he joins the church. Then the church will have its hands full. He growls and groans and whines all the way up toward the gate of heaven. He wishes that the choir would sing differently, that the minister would preach differently, that the elders would pray differently. In the morning, he said, “The church was as cold as Greenland;” in the evening, “It was hot as blazes.” They painted the church; he didn’t like the color. They carpeted the aisles; he didn’t like the figure. They put in a new furnace; he didn’t like the patent. He wriggles and squirms, and frets and stews, and worries himself. He is like a horse, that, prancing and uneasy to the bit, worries himself into a lather of foam, while the horse hitched beside him just pulls straight ahead, makes no fuss, and comes to his oats in peace. Like a hedge-hog, he is all quills. Like a crab that, you know, always goes the other way, and moves backward in order to go forward, and turns in four directions all at once, and the first you know of his whereabouts you have missed him, and when he is completely lost he has gone by the heel――so that the first thing you know you don’t know anything――and while you expected to catch the crab, the crab catches you.

So some men are crabbed――all hard-shell and obstinacy and opposition. I do not see how he is to get into heaven, unless he goes in backward, and then there will be danger that at the gate he will try to pick a quarrel with St. Peter. Once in, I fear he will not like the music, and the services will be too long, and that he will spend the first two or three years in trying to find out whether the wall of heaven is exactly plumb. Let us stand off from such tendencies. Listen for sweet notes rather than discords, picking up marigolds and harebells in preference to thistles and coloquintida, culturing thyme and anemones rather than night-shade. And in a world where God has put exquisite tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child’s cheek, and adorned the pillars of the rock by hanging tapestry of morning mist, the lark saying, “I will sing soprano,” and the cascade replying, “I will carry the bass,” let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the bear to growl, and the grumbler to find fault.

* * * * *

PUTTING UP O’ THE STOVE; OR, THE RIME OF THE ECONOMICAL HOUSEHOLDER.

THE melancholy days have come that no householder loves, Days of taking down of blinds and putting up of stoves; The lengths of pipe forgotten lie in the shadow of the shed, Dinged out of symmetry they be and all with rust are red; The husband gropes amid the mass that he placed there anon, And swears to find an elbow-joint and eke a leg are gone.

So fared it with good Mister Brown, when his spouse remarked: “Behold! Unless you wish us all to go and catch our deaths of cold, Swift be yon stove and pipes from out their storing place conveyed, And to black-lead and set them up, lo! I will lend my aid.”

This, Mr. Brown, he trembling heard, I trow his heart was sore, For he was married many years, and had been there before, And timidly he said, “My love, perchance, the better plan ’Twere to hie to the tinsmith’s shop and bid him send a man?”

His spouse replied indignantly: “So you would have me then To waste our substance upon riotous tinsmith’s journeymen? ‘A penny saved is twopence earned,’ rash prodigal of pelf, Go! false one, go! and I will black and set it up myself.”

When thus she spoke the husband knew that she had sealed his doom; “Fill high the bowl with Samian lead and gimme down that broom,” He cried; then to the outhouse marched. Apart the doors he hove And closed in deadly conflict with his enemy, the stove.

ROUND 1.

They faced each other; Brown, to get an opening sparred Adroitly. His antagonist was cautious――on its guard. Brown led off with his left to where a length of stovepipe stood, And nearly cut his fingers off. (_The stove allowed first blood._)

ROUND 2.

Brown came up swearing, in Græco-Roman style, Closed with the stove, and tugged and strove at it a weary while; At last the leg he held gave way; flat on his back fell Brown, And the stove fell on top of him and claimed the _First Knock-down_.

* * * The fight is done and Brown has won; his hands are rasped and sore, And perspiration and black-lead stream from his every pore; Sternly triumphant, as he gives his prisoner a shove, He cries, “Where, my good angel, shall I put this blessed stove?”

And calmly Mrs. Brown to him she indicates the spot, And bids him keep his temper, and remarks that he looks hot, And now comes in the sweat o’ the day; the Brown holds in his gripe And strives to fit a six-inch joint into a five-inch pipe; He hammers, dinges, bends, and shakes, while his wife scornfully Tells him how she would manage if only she were he.

At last the joints are joined, they rear a pyramid in air, A tub upon the table, and upon the tub a chair, And on chair and supporters are the stovepipe and the Brown, Like the lion and the unicorn, a-fighting for the crown; While Mistress Brown, she cheerily says to him, “I expec’ ’Twould be just like your clumsiness to fall and break your neck.”

Scarce were the piteous accents said before she was aware Of what might be called “a miscellaneous music in the air.” And in wild crash and confusion upon the floor rained down Chairs, tables, tubs, and stovepipes, anathemas, and――Brown.

There was a moment’s silence――Brown had fallen on the cat; She was too thick for a book-mark, but too thin for a mat; And he was all wounds and bruises, from his head to his foot, And seven breadths of Brussels were ruined with the soot.

“O wedded love, how beautiful, how sweet a thing thou art!” Up from her chair did Mistress Brown, as she saw him falling, start, And shrieked aloud as a sickening fear did her inmost heartstrings gripe, “Josiah Winterbotham Brown, have you gone and smashed that pipe?”

Then fiercely starts that Mr. Brown, as one that had been wode, And big his bosom swelled with wrath, and red his visage glowed; Wild rolled his eye as he made reply (and his voice was sharp and shrill), “I have not, madam, but, by――by――by the nine gods, I will!”

He swung the pipe above his head; he dashed it on the floor, And that stovepipe, as a stovepipe, it did exist no more; Then he strode up to his shrinking wife, and his face was stern and wan, And in a hoarse, changed voice he hissed: “Send for that tinsmith’s man!”

* * * * *

THE POOR INDIAN!

I KNOW him by his falcon eye, His raven tress and mien of pride; Those dingy draperies, as they fly, Tell that a great soul throbs inside!

No eagle-feathered crown he wears, Capping in pride his kingly brow; But his crownless hat in grief declares, “I am an unthroned monarch now!”

“O noble son of a royal line!” I exclaim, as I gaze into his face, “How shall I knit my soul to thine? How right the wrongs of thine injured race?

“What shall I do for thee, glorious one? To soothe thy sorrows my soul aspires. Speak! and say how the Saxon’s son May atone for the wrongs of his ruthless sires!”

He speaks, he speaks!――that noble chief! From his marble lips deep accents come; And I catch the sound of his mighty grief,―― “Ple’ gi’ me tree cent for git some rum?”

* * * * *

JENKINS GOES TO A PICNIC.

MARIA ANN recently determined to go to a picnic.

Maria Ann is my wife――unfortunately she had planned it to go alone, so far as I am concerned, on that picnic excursion; but when I heard about it, I determined to assist.

She pretended she was very glad; I don’t believe she was.

“It will do you good to get away from your work a day, poor fellow,” she said; “and we shall so much enjoy a cool morning ride on the cars, and a dinner in the woods.”

On the morning of that day, Maria Ann got up at five o’clock. About three minutes later she disturbed my slumbers, and told me to come to breakfast. I told her I wasn’t hungry, but it didn’t make a bit of difference, I had to get up. The sun was up; I had no idea that the sun began his business so early in the morning, but there he was.

“Now,” said Maria Ann, “we must fly around, for the cars start at half-past six. Eat all the breakfast you can, for you won’t get anything more before noon.”

I could not eat anything so early in the morning. There was ice to be pounded to go around the pail of ice cream, and the sandwiches to be cut, and I thought I would never get the legs of the chicken fixed so I could get the cover on the big basket. Maria Ann flew around and piled up groceries for me to pack, giving directions to the girl about taking care of the house, and putting on her dress all at once. There is a deal of energy in that woman, perhaps a trifle too much.

At twenty minutes past six I stood on the front steps, with a basket on one arm and Maria Ann’s waterproof on the other, and a pail in each hand, and a bottle of vinegar in my coat-skirt pocket. There was a camp-chair hung on me somewhere, too, but I forget just where.

“Now,” said Maria Ann, “we must run or we shall not catch the train.”

“Maria Ann,” said I, “that is a reasonable idea. How do you suppose I can run with all this freight?”

“You must, you brute. You always try to tease me. If you don’t want a scene on the street, you will start, too.”

So I ran.

I had one comfort, at least. Maria Ann fell down and broke her parasol. She called me a brute again because I laughed. She drove me all the way to the depot at a brisk trot, and we got on the cars; but neither of us could get a seat, and I could not find a place where I could set the things down, so I stood there and held them.

“Maria,” I said, “how is this for a cool morning ride?”

Said she, “You are a brute, Jenkins.”

Said I, “You have made that observation before, my love.”

I kept my courage up, yet I knew there would be an hour of wrath when we got home. While we were getting out of the cars, the bottle in my coat-pocket broke, and consequently I had one boot half-full of vinegar all day. That kept me pretty quiet, and Maria Ann ran off with a big whiskered music-teacher, and lost her fan, and got her feet wet, and tore her dress, and enjoyed herself so much, after the fashion of picnic-goers.

I thought it would never come dinner-time, and Maria Ann called me a pig because I wanted to open our basket before the rest of the baskets were opened.

At last dinner came――the “nice dinner in the woods,” you know. Over three thousand little red ants had got into our dinner, and they were worse to pick out than fish-bones. The ice-cream had melted, and there was no vinegar for the cold meat, except what was in my boot, and, of course, that was of no immediate use. The music-teacher spilled a cup of hot coffee on Maria Ann’s head, and pulled all the frizzles out trying to wipe off the coffee with his handkerchief. Then I sat on a piece of raspberry-pie, and spoiled my white pants, and concluded I didn’t want anything more. I had to stand up against a tree the rest of the afternoon. The day offered considerable variety, compared to everyday life, but there were so many drawbacks that I did not enjoy it so much as I might have done.

* * * * *

SEWING ON A BUTTON.

BY J. M. BAILEY.

IT is bad enough to see a bachelor sew on a button, but he is the embodiment of grace alongside of a married man. Necessity has compelled experience in the case of the former, but the latter has always depended upon some one else for this service, and fortunately, for the sake of society, it is rarely he is obliged to resort to the needle himself. Sometimes the patient wife scalds her right hand or runs a sliver under the nail of the index finger of that hand, and it is then the man clutches the needle around the neck, and forgetting to tie a knot in the thread commences to put on the button. It is always in the morning, and from five to twenty minutes after he is expected to be down street. He lays the button exactly on the site of its predecessor, and pushes the needle through one eye, and carefully draws the thread after, leaving about three inches of it sticking up for a leeway. He says to himself,――“Well, if women don’t have the easiest time I ever see.” Then he comes back the other way, and gets the needle through the cloth well enough, and lays himself out to find the eye, but in spite of a great deal of patient jabbing, the needle point persists in bucking against the solid parts of that button, and, finally, when he loses patience, his fingers catch the thread, and that three inches he had left to hold the button slips through the eye in a twinkling, and the button rolls leisurely across the floor. He picks it up without a single remark, out of respect to his children, and makes another attempt to fasten it. This time when coming back with the needle he keeps both the thread and button from slipping by covering them with his thumb, and it is out of regard for that part of him that he feels around for the eye in a very careful and judicious manner; but eventually losing his philosophy as the search becomes more and more hopeless, he falls to jabbing about in a loose and savage manner, and it is just then the needle finds the opening, and comes up through the button and part way through his thumb with a celerity that no human ingenuity can guard against. Then he lays down the things, with a few familiar quotations, and presses the injured hand between his knees, and then holds it under the other arm, and finally jams it into his mouth, and all the while he prances about the floor, and calls upon heaven and earth to witness that there has never been anything like it since the world was created, and howls, and whistles, and moans, and sobs. After awhile, he calms down, and puts on his pants, and fastens them together with a stick, and goes to his business a changed man.

* * * * *

CASEY AT THE BAT.

(Often recited by DeWolf Hopper, the comic opera singer, between the acts.)

THERE was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place, There was pride in Casey’s bearing, and a smile on Casey’s face; And when responding to the cheers he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt, Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt; Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance glanced in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came whirling thro’ the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there; Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped. “That ain’t my style,” said Casey, “Strike one,” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of storm waves on a stern and distant shore; “Kill him! kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand. And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone, He stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on; He signalled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew, But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered, “Fraud!” But the scornful look from Casey, and the audience was awed; They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lips, his teeth are clenched in hate, He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate; And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go. And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Mudville――mighty Casey has struck out.

* * * * *

THE MAGICAL ISLE.

THERE’S a magical isle in the River of Time, Where softest of echoes are straying; And the air is as soft as a musical chime, Or the exquisite breath of a tropical clime When June with its roses is swaying.

’Tis where memory dwells with her pure golden hue And music forever is flowing: While the low-murmured tones that come trembling through Sadly trouble the heart, yet sweeten it too, As the south wind o’er water when blowing.

There are shadowy halls in that fairy-like isle, Where pictures of beauty are gleaming; Yet the light of their eyes, and their sweet, sunny smile, Only flash round the heart with a wildering wile, And leave us to know ’tis but dreaming.

And the name of this isle is the Beautiful Past, And we bury our treasures all there: There are beings of beauty too lovely to last; There are blossoms of snow, with the dust o’er them cast; There are tresses and ringlets of hair.

There are fragments of song only memory sings, And the words of a dear mother’s prayer; There’s a harp long unsought, and a lute without strings―― Hallowed tokens that love used to wear.

E’en the dead――the bright, beautiful dead――there arise, With their soft, flowing ringlets of gold: Though their voices are hushed, and o’er their sweet eyes, The unbroken signet of silence now lies, They are with us again, as of old.

In the stillness of night, hands are beckoning there, And, with joy that is almost a pain, We delight to turn back, and in wandering there, Through the shadowy halls of the island so fair, We behold our lost treasures again.

Oh! this beautiful isle, with its phantom-like show, Is a vista exceedingly bright: And the River of Time, in its turbulent flow, Is oft soothed by the voices we heard long ago, When the years were a dream of delight.

* * * * *

STRAY BITS OF CHARACTER.

BY WILL CARLETON.

With original illustrations by Victor Perard.

Illustration: THE TOURIST.

IN art, as well as literature, there should be a vast variety of methods, for a good many kinds of people wait to be instructed and pleased. Besides, there is frequently a great diversity of moods in the same person――all of which must be ministered to, at one time and another.

Illustration: AT THE LUNCH STAND.

Some people, and perhaps all, when in certain states of mind, are fond of pictures brought out with photographic accuracy; every detail attended to; everything provided for; every incident faithfully related. Others prefer only the salient points――a mere suggestion of items is sufficient. They have no time for anything more――they want the spirit, the soul, of the scene and situation.

Victor Perard’s work upon these pages will minister most to the latter class of people and moods. As one orator can give in ten words the story that another one has struggled with much voice and many gestures for an hour to make plain, so this silent story-teller dashes his pencil across the paper a few times, and behold! you see just what you already may have noticed again and again, but never before recognized in all its possibilities. You now have before you for a steady gaze, that of which you have had only a glimpse, a sketch that supplies the place of memory, shakes hands with imagination, and enables you to enjoy the scene at leisure.

Illustration: THE STREET TO THE SEA.

Illustration: IN WAIT.

These are pictures that explain themselves, or at least permit the gazer to furnish his own explanation――and that is the most complimentary of all imaginative work, and produces a species of gratitude in the minds of the audience.

Illustration: THE OILER.

Victor Perard is one of the younger artists of our country. His name would indicate him to be of French descent; but he is, I believe, a native of the Greater America, which has thus far shown such a cheerful willingness to assimilate the best brain of the world. He has, however, lived in Paris, and contributed to some of the leading French illustrated journals. He is now living a quiet domestic life in our American metropolis, and has done much good work for its periodicals.

In “The Tourist,” one notices with every line of the solemn-looking individual an intense desire to get over the ground promptly and see everything possible on the way. There is something in the painful though unstudied diligence with which he keeps his carpet bag close to his person, that may enable a lively imagination to peep through its sides and detect notes for a forthcoming book.

Illustration: EXPECTING A CALLER.

Illustration: A VETERAN OF THE RANKS.

Illustration: A WIDE-REACHING AFFAIR.

“At the Lunch Stand” is Whittier’s “Barefoot Boy,” transferred to the city. His lips are not “redder still, kissed by strawberries on the hill;” nor may he be coated with “outward sunshine,” or full of “inner joy.” The luxurious bowl of milk and bread which our Quaker poet describes, is not his, even with the wooden dish and pewter spoon; but he seems happy for the moment with the cup of more or less hot coffee which he imbibes. His jaunty, independent attitude shows that he is bound to get all the good of his powerful and perhaps palatable beverage; that he earned it, and is entitled to it.

“The Street to the Sea” is in fact a picture of the sea, although the same is hardly in sight. Everything shows that we are approaching the great Country of the Waters. The villas in view; the wheel-harrowed road, admirably foreshortened; the deep shadows upon each side of the way; human figures looming faintly in the distance; everything, in fact, is somehow telling us a tale of the ocean, and we do not need our too sparse glimpse of the “solemn main” to tell what majestic voice will soon bring us to a halt; we almost smell the salt air.

Illustration: “WHO’S THAT COMING?”

Illustration: LEISURE.

The lazy fisherman who has hung out his latch-string and is waiting for a dinner to call upon him, is Perard with a godsend of material――of the kind he likes. There could scarcely be found a better wedding of shiftlessness and ingenuity. The primitive character of the man’s garments is apparently not due to the climate alone; he takes no thought of the morrow, and not much of the current day, so far as its temporal affairs are concerned. But the crude marks of mechanical ability are all over and around him; one suspender is induced, by its oblique trend, to do service for two; an elaborate coil of line gives opportunity of play for the largest of fin-bearers; the stick in the sand guarantees that his expected caller shall not go away without experiencing the fisherman’s peculiar hospitality; and there is considerable chance that if a “bite” occurs, the line will waken him, as it gradually warms the interstice between his toes.

Illustration: McCLELLAN SADDLE.

Illustration: SHOOTING THE STEAM ARROW.

“A Veteran of the Ranks” might almost be Kipling’s Mulvaney himself. The fatigue-cap, which in its jaunty pose seems to have vegetated and grown there; the drooping mustache; the capacious pipe; are all what might have been characteristics of that renowned Hibernian warrior of India. The picture finally centres, however, in the eyes; which contain a world, or at least two hemispheres, of shrewdness, of that sort which only gets about so far in life, but is terribly correct within its own scope. They also possess a certain humanity and generosity, which would be likely to act as winsome daughters of his regiment of martial qualities, even upon the battle-field.

Illustration: “GRACIOUS GOODNESS!”

“Miniature Men and Women” include a number of the most interesting of the genus Baby. As everyone knows, there are babies and babies, except to the parents of one. The infant is the true teacher and object-lesson combined; it shows us the grace, although not always the mercy and peace, of unconscious action. It has not been away from Heaven long enough to learn the deceit of this crooked world, is unaware that there is anything in life to conceal, and acts accordingly, until taught better, or, perhaps, worse. These babies, or this baby (for the same infant has so many different ways of acting and appearing, that these may all be pictures of the same) can be said to exhibit grace in every attitude and every position, from the symmetrical fragment of humanity on the mother’s arm, to the tot just contemplating a walking-lesson. All of them have a dignified simplicity.

Illustration: ON WINGS OF HOOFS.

“Bon Voyage” shows the different attitudes which men will take while intently gazing at the same object. It does not necessarily follow that the “she” referred to is a lady; it may be and probably is, a ship, upon which all of our captured gazers have friends. Each one takes his own peculiar posture of observation; and their characters can be read from them.

Illustration: MINIATURE MEN AND WOMEN.

“Waiting for Orders” is a faithful and almost pathetic presentation of that patient, long-suffering, but unreliable beast, whose lack of pride and hope have passed into a proverb. One is curious, seeing him standing there, how life can ever manage to wheedle him into the idea that it is worth living; but the same curiosity arises in regard to some men. We often find that these have stowed away upon their persons certain grains of comfort, concerning which we at first failed to take note. Our utterly opaque friend here has pleasanter experiences in the world than that of acting as a locomotive to a cart. The dashes of the breeze, the transports of the sun-bath, the pull at the water-bucket, the nourishment in the manger, all yield him tribute in a certain amount of pleasure; he has no responsibility upon his mind, excepting that he is to pull when told to; and although occasionally suffering maltreatment from the superior race in which he recognizes many of his own characteristics, there is no knowing how soon he may revenge it all, in the twinkling of a pair of heels.

Illustration: BON VOYAGE!

Illustration: WAITING ORDERS.

Mr. Perard discovers himself in these sketches to be a facile technician, a shrewd and sympathetic observer, and several different kinds of a man――all good kinds. Observe one thing about him: he is healthy and sound all through. His work is calm, firm, and kind. There is heart in it. There is quite as warm a corner in that heart for the ragamuffin as there is for the howling swell.

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