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1. Look on him: through his dungeon-grate
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loath'd the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,

His hand upholds his drooping head;
His bloodless cheek is seam'd and hard;
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;
And o'er his bony fingers flow
His long dishevel'd locks of snow.

2. No grateful fire before him glows,

And yet the winter's breath is chill:
And o'er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague-thrill.

Silent, save ever and anon',

A sound, half-murmur and half-groan ́,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer's bearded lip.
O, sad and crushing is the fate

Of old age chain'd and desolate.

3. Just GOD! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison-bed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair ́,
Gleam on him fierce and red;

And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear;
And, or in wakefulness or sleep,
Nerve, flesh, and fiber thrill and creep,
Whene'er that ruffian's tossing limb,
Crimson'd with murder, touches him.

4. What has the gray-hair'd prisoner done?

Has murder stain'd his hands with gore?
Not so: his crime's a fouler one:
God made the ōld man pōōr!
For this, he shares a felon's cell,
The fittest earthly type of hell:
For this, the boon for which he pour'd

His young blood on the invader's sword,
And counted light the fearful cost,
His blood-gain'd liberty—is lost!

5. And so, for such a place of rest,

Old prisoner, pour'd thy blood as rain
On Concord's field, and Bunker's crest,
And Saratoga's plain?

Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon's iron bars!
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument* uprear'd to thee;
Pil'd granite and a prison-cell`!
The land repays thy service well!

6. Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out`;
Shout "Freedom!" till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout;

Let boasted eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;

Still let the poet's strain be heard,
With "glory" for each second word,
And every thing with breath agree
To praise "our glorious liberty!"

7. And when the patriot cannon jars

That prison's cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind, and fall;
Think you that prisoner's aged ear

Rejoices in the general cheer?

Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chain'd of limb,
What is your carnival to him?

8. Down with the law that binds him thus!
Unworthy freemen, let it find

No refuge from the withering curse
Of God and human kind!
Open the prisoner's living tomb`,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of GOD!
No longer dare as crime to brand
The chastening of the Almighty's hand!

*Bunker Hill Monument.

XLVIII. LA FAYETTE AND ROBERT RAIKES.

FROM GRIMKE.

THOMAS S. GRIMKE was a distinguished lawyer of Charleston, South Carolina. He was a man of great learning, pure and high toned religious sentiment, and remarkable eloquence.

LA FAYETTE was a French nobleman, who gave his services and spent his fortune in aid of America in the Revolutionary War, which terminated in 1783. In 1824 he revisited this country, and was received with an enthusiasm seldom equaled.

[Extract from an address delivered at a Sunday-School Celebration.]

1. It is but a few years, since we beheld the most singular and memorable pageant in the annals of time. It was a pageant more sublime and affecting than the progress of Elizabeth through England after the defeat of armada; than the return of Francis I. from a Spanish prison to his own beautiful France; than the daring and rapid march of the conqueror at Austerlitz from Frejus to Paris. It was a pageant, indeed, rivaled only in the elements of the grand and the pathetic, by the journey of our own Washington, through the different States. Need I say that I allude to the visit of La Fayette to America"?

2. But La Fayette returned to the land of the dead, rather than of the living'. How many who had fought with him in the war of '76, had died in arms, and lay buried in the grave of the soldier or the sailor! How many who had survived the perils of battle, on the land and the ocean, had expired on the death-bed of peace, in the arms of mother, sister ́, daughter, wife! Those who survived to celebrate with him the jubilee of 1825, were stricken in years, and hoary-headed; many of them infirm in health; many the victims of poverty, or misfortune ́, or affliction. And, how venerable that patriotic company`; how sublime, their gathering through all the land; how joyful their welcome, how affecting their farewell to that beloved stranger!

3. But the pageant has fled`, and the very materials that gave it such depth of interest, are rapidly perishing`: and a humble, perhaps a nameless grave, shall hold the last soldier of the Revolution. And shall they ever meet again? Shall the patriots and soldiers of '76; the Immortal Band, as

history styles them; meet again in the amaranthine bowers of spotless purity, of perfect bliss, of eternal glory? Shall theirs be the Christian's Heaven, the kingdom of the Redeemer? The heathen points to his fabulous Elysium as the Paradise of the soldier and the sage. But the Christian

bows down with tears and sighs, for he knows that not many of the patriots, and statesmen, and warriors of Christian lands, are the disciples of Jesus.

4. But we turn from La Fayette, the favorite of the old and the new world, to the peaceful benevolence, the unambitious achievements of Robert Raikes. Let us imagine him to have been still alive, and to have visited our land, to celebrate this day with us. No national ships would have been offered to bear him ́, a nation's guest, in the pride of the star-spangled banner, from the bright shores of the rising, to the brighter shores of the setting sun. No cannon would have hailed him ́ in the stern language of the battlefield, the fortunate champion of Freedom, in Europe and America. No martial music would have welcomed him ́ in notes of rapture, as they rolled along the Atlantic, and echoed through the valley of the Mississippi. No military procession would have heralded his way through crowded streets, thick-set with the banner and the plume, the glittering saber, and the polished bayonet. No cities would have called forth beauty and fashion, wealth and rank, to honor him in the ball-room and theater. No states would have escorted him from boundary to boundary, nor have sent their chief-magistrate to do him homage. No national liberality would have allotted to him a nobleman's domain, and princely treasure". No national gratitude would have hailed him in the capitol itself, the nation's guest, because the nation's benefactor; and have consecrated a battle-ship", in memory of his wounds and his gallantry.

5. Not such would have been the reception of Robert Raikes, in the land of the Pilgrims and of Penn, of the Catholic, the Cavalier, and the Huguenot. And who does not rejoice`, that it would be impossible thus to welcome this primitive Christian, the founder of Sunday-schools. His ́ heralds would be the preachers of the Gospel`, and the eminent in piety, benevolence, and zeal. His procession

the disciples of the white-robed scholars. be the scenes of his

would number in its ranks the messengers of the Cross and Savior', Sunday-school teachers and The temples of the Most High would triumph. Homage and gratitude to him, would be anthems of praise and thanksgiving to God.

6. Parents would honor him as more than a brother; children would reverence him as more than a father. The faltering words of age, the firm and sober voice of manhood, the silvery notes of youth, would bless him as a Christian patron. The wise and the good would acknowledge him everywhere, as a national benefactor, as a patriot even to a land of strangers. He would have come a messenger of peace to a land of peace. No images of camps, and sieges, and battles; no agonies of the dying and the wounded; no shouts of victory, or processions of triumph, would mingle with the recollections of the multitudes who welcomed him. They would mourn over no common dangers, trials, and calamities; for the road of duty has been to them the path of pleasantness, the way of peace. Their memory of the past would be rich in gratitude to God, and love to man; their enjoyment of the present would be a prelude to heavenly bliss; their prospects of the future, bright and glorious as faith and hope. *

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7. Such was the reception of La Fayette, the warrior; such would be that of Robert Raikes, the Howard of the Christian church. And which is the nobler benefactor, patriot, and philanthropist? Mankind may admire and extol La Fayette, more than the founder of the Sunday-schools`; but religion, philanthropy, and enlightened common sense, must ever esteem Robert Raikes the superior of La Fayette`. His are the virtues, the services, the sacrifices of a more enduring and exalted order of being. His counsels and triumphs belong less to time than to eternity.

8. The fame of La Fayette is of this world; the glory of Robert Raikes is of the Redeemer's everlasting kingdom. La Fayette lived chiefly for his own age, and chiefly for his and our country. But Robert Raikes has lived for all ages, and all countries. Perhaps the historian and biographer may never interweave his name in the tapestry of national or indi

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