We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning,-simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and to self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every home. What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary than for the people to preserve what they have themselves created? Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the low lands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the North; and, moving onward to the South, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? Can it be that she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is: They were, but they are not? Forbid it, my countrymen ! Forbid it, heaven!

92.-MARMION AND DOUGLAS.
WALTER SCOTT.

Not far advanced was morning day,
When Marmion did his troop array,
To Surrey's camp to ride;
He had safe conduct for his band,
Beneath the royal seal and hand,
And Douglas gave a guide.

The train from out the castle drew,

But Marmion stopped to bid adieu:

Though something I might 'plain," he said,

"Of cold respect to stranger guest,

Sent hither by the king's behest,

While in Tantallon's towers I staid,
Part we in friendship from your land,
And, noble Earl, receive my hand."
But Douglas round him drew his cloak,
Folded his arms, and thus he spoke:
"My manors, halls, and towers shall still
Be open at my sovereign's will,
To each one whom he lists, howe'er
Unmeet to be the owner's peer.
My castles are my king's alone,
From turret to foundation stone;
The hand of Douglas is his own;

And never shall, in friendly grasp,
The hand of such as Marmion clasp."

Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,
And shook his very frame for ire;

And "This to me," he said,
"And 'twere not for thy hoary beard,
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared
To cleave the Douglas' head!
And first I tell thee, haughty peer,
He who does England's message here,
Although the meanest in her state,
May well, proud Angus, be thy mate:
And Douglas, more, I tell thee here,
Even in thy pitch of pride,

Here, in thy hold, thy vassals near,
I tell thee, thou'rt defied!
And if thou said'st that I'm not peer
To any Lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or Highland, far or near,

Lord Angus, thou-hast-lied!"

On the Earl's cheek, the flush of rage
O'ercame the ashen hue of age:

Fierce he broke forth; "And dar'st thou then
To beard the lion in his den,

The Douglas in his hall?

And hop'st thou thence unscathed to go?
No, by St. Bryde of Bothwell, no!

Up drawbridge, grooms,-what, warder, ho!
Let the portcullis fall."

Lord Marmion turned,-well was his need,-
And dashed the rowels in his steed,

Like arrow through the archway sprung;
The ponderous gate behind him rung:
To pass there was such scanty room,
The bars, descending, grazed his plume.
The steed along the drawbridge flies,
Just as it trembles on the rise:

Not lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake's level brim;

And when Lord Marmion reached his band
He halts and turns with clinched hand,

And shout of loud defiance pours,

And shakes his gauntlet at the towers.

"Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase!" But soon he reined his fury's pace:

"A royal messenger he came,

Though most unworthy of the name:
Saint Mary mend my fiery mood!
Old age ne'er cools the Douglas' blood;
I thought to slay him where he stood.
'Tis pity of him, too," he cried;
"Bold he can speak, and fairly ride;
I warrant him a warrior tried."
With this, his mandate he recalls,
And slowly seeks his castle walls.

93.-GOD KNOWETH.

MARY A. BRIDGMAN.

I know not what shall befall me,
God hangs a mist o'er my eyes,
And so, each step in my onward path,
He makes new scenes to rise,
And every joy He sends me
Comes as a sweet surprise.

I see not a step before me,
As I tread on another year;

But the past is still in God's keeping,
The future His mercy will clear;

And what looks dark in the distance
May brighten as I draw near.

For perhaps the dreariest future
Has less bitter than I think;

The Lord may sweeten the waters
Before I stoop to drink;

Or, if Marah must be Marah,

He will stand beside the brink.

It may be He has waiting

For the coming of my feet

Some gift of such rare blessedness
Some joy so strangely sweet,
That my lips shall only tremble
With the thoughts I cannot speak.

O blissful, restful ignorance!
"Tis blessed not to know,

If it keeps me so still in those arms
That will not let me go,

And hushes my soul to rest

In the bosom that loves me so.

So I go on, not knowing;

I would not if I might;

I would rather walk in the dark with God,
Than go alone in the light;

I would rather walk with Him by faith
Than walk alone by sight.

My heart shrinks back from trials
Which the future may disclose;
Yet I never have a sorrow

But what the dear Lord chose;
So I send the coming tear back,

With the whispered word, He knows!

94.-WORK.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature: the real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose: he has found it, and will follow it. How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows!— draining off the sour, festering water gradually from the root of the remotest grass blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green, fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be great or small !

Labor is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence, breathed intc him by Almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all knowledge, "self-knowledge," and much

else, so soon as work fitly begins. Knowledge! the knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that; for Nature herself accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly, thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast got by working: the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge; a thing to be argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds in endless logic vortices till we try it and fix it. "Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."

Older than all preachéd gospels was this unpreached, inarticulate, but ineradicable, for-ever-enduring gospel: work, and therein have well-being. Man, son of earth and heaven, lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active method, a force for work:-and burns like a painfully smoldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down in beneficent facts around thee! What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable, obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there is thy eternal enemy: attack him swiftly, subdue him; make order of him, the subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and thee! The thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing milk may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in place of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of man be covered.

But, above all, where thou findest ignorance, stupidity, brutemindedness-attack it, I say; smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and it lives; but smite, smite in the name of God! The highest God, as I understand it, does audibly so command thee: still audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with His unspoken voice, is fuller than any Sinai thunders, or syllabled speech of whirlwinds; for the SILENCE of deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning stars, does it not speak to thee? The unborn ages; the old graves, with their long-mouldering dust, the very tears that wetted it, now all dry-do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard? The deep death-kingdoms, the stars in their never-resting courses, all space and all time, proclaim it to thee in continual silent admonition. Thou, too, if ever man should, shalt work while it is called to-day; for the night cometh, wherein no man can work.

All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; and