should never more bestow alms on the little children. Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the iron necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, the camp bed,

all those horrors which he knew so well! If he were only young again! but to be addressed in his old age as "thou" by any one so pleased; to be searched by the convict guard; to receive the galley sergeant's cudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have to stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman who visits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be told: "That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean." Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent being, and become as monstrous as the human heart?

And, do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma which lay at the foundation of his reverie: "Should he remain in paradise and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?" Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he to hold his peace? He only felt that, to

whatever course of action he made up his mind, something in him must die; that he was entering a sepulchre on the right hand as much as on the left; that he was passing through a deathagony, the agony of his happiness or the agony of his virtue.

Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had also long thrust aside with his hand, — while the olive trees quivered in the wild wind of the infinite- the terrible cup which appeared to Him dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all studded with stars.

-HUGO.

TRUE LIBERTY

People talk of Liberty as if it meant the liberty to do just what a man likes. I call that man free who is able to rule himself. I call him free who fears doing wrong, but fears nothing else. I call that man free who has learned the most blessed of all truths that liberty consists in obedience to the power, and to the will, and to the law that his higher soul reverences and approves. He is not free because he does what he likes, but he is free because he does what he ought, and there is no protest in his soul against that doing.

Some people think there is no liberty in obedience. I tell you there is no liberty except in loyal obedience - the obedience of the unconstrained affections. Did you ever see a mother kept at home, a kind of prisoner, by her sick child, obeying its every wish and caprice? Will you call that mother a slave? Or is this the obedience of slavery? I call it the obedience of the highest liberty that of love.

We hear a great deal in these days respecting the right of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God's; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his rights. I cannot see anything manly in the ferocious struggle between rich and poor- the one to take as much, and the other to keep as much, as he can. The cry of, "my rights and your duties," we should change to something nobler. If we can say, "my duties and your rights," we shall learn what real liberty is.

- ROBERTSON.

HOROLOGUE OF LIBERTY

"The world heard: the battle of Lexington-one; the Declaration of Independence -two; the surrender of Burgoyne three; the siege of Yorktown-four; the treaty of Paris-five; the inauguration of Washington - six; and then it was the sunrise of a new day, of which we have seen yet only the glorious forenoon."

THE TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS

Casting our eyes over the history of nations, we discern with horror the succession of numerous slaughters by which their progress has been marked. Even as the hunter traces the wild beast to his lair by the drops of blood upon the earth, so do we follow man, weary and staggering with wounds, through the black path of the past which he has reddened with his gore.

Oh, let it not be in future ages as in the past! Let the grandeur of man be discerned, not in bloody victories or in ravenous conquests, but in the blessings which he has secured, in the good he has accomplished, in the triumphs of justice and benevolence, in the establishment of perpetual peace.

As the ocean washes every shore, and with all-embracing arm clasps every land, while on its heaving bosom it bears the products of various climes, so peace surrounds, protects, and upholds all other blessings. Without it commerce is vain, the ardor of industry is restrained, happiness is blasted, virtue slackens and dies. Peace has its peculiar victories, in comparison with which Marathon, Bannockburn, and Bunker Hill, fields sacred

in the history of human freedom, shall lose their lustre. Our own Washington rises to a truly heavenly stature, not when we follow him over the ice in the Delaware to the capture of Trenton; not when we behold him victorious over Cornwallis at Yorktown, but when we regard him, in noble deference to justice, refusing the crown which a faithful soldiery proffered, and at a later day upholding the peaceful neutrality of the country, while he received, unmoved, the clamor of the people wickedly crying for war.

- SUMNER.

GETTYSBURG

Of all the martial virtues, the one which is perhaps most characteristic of the truly brave is the virtue of magnanimity. That sentiment, immortalized by Scott in his musical and martial verse, will associate for all time the name of Scotland's king with those of the great spirits of the past. How grand the exhibitions of the same generous impulses that characterize this memorable battlefield! My fellow-countrymen of the North, if I may be permitted to speak for those whom I represent, let me assure you that in the profoundest depths of their nature they reciprocate that generosity with all the manliness and sincerity of which they are capable. In token of that sincerity they join in consecrating, for annual, patriotic pilgrimage, these historic heights, which drank such copious draughts of American blood, poured so freely in discharge of duty, as each conceived it — a Mecca for the North, which so grandly defended; a Mecca for the South, which so bravely and persistently stormed it. We join you in setting apart this land as an enduring monument of peace,

brotherhood, and perpetual union. I repeat the thought with emphasis, with singleness of heart and of purpose, in the name of a common country, and of universal liberty; and, by the blood of our fallen brothers, we unite in the solemn consecration of these hallowed hills as a holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity of this cherished Republic.

Shines the bright record of the past.

"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