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world to the greatest. So Excalibur, the sword which in the hand of its true king could carve iron, steel, and even despotism, was hung up in Washington's cabinet in Virginia.

CHAPTER III.

"That sword he [John Brown] held in his own hand during the whole of Monday."."-COL. WASHINGTON'S TESTIMONY.

It was just one year after the above story or stories were told, that Uncle Paul again returned to Kenmore to spend the Christmas holidays-these last holidays. And scarcely were the greetings over, scarcely was the old man comfortably seated in his chair ere he began to ache for the children to ask him for another story! Now was this not strange in Uncle Paul? Were all his former evasions affectations, or was he getting garrulous, as old men sometimes will? However this might be, Uncle Paul was certainly fishing for a story-proposition, whilst the children looked askance at their parents, and steeled their tongues against asking for one. N. B.-Mamma had said in the morning, "Children, remember, now, you are to let Uncle Paul have some peace, and must not climb over him and make him tell you a story as soon as he comes. Mind, now, the first that disobeys goes to bed!"

But, ah, what proud triumph lighted up each little eye when the old gentleman, having thrown out hints in vain, at length burst out plainly with, "Arthur, wouldn't you like to hear more about EXCALIBUR ?"

A yell, a rush, and Uncle Paul's arms were folded about the youngsters, though now they were large enough to be consigned to ottomans, etc., about his feet, rather than to his somewhat failing knees. The paternal Edgarton was conservative, and suspected that Uncle Paul's story this time would not be altogether what he could desire. Uncle Paul glanced at him with a malicious artlessness, which sheathed a cunning twinkle, and proceeded. "Let's see, where did we leave Excalibur ?"

Arthur and Alfred (in chorus).-Hung up at Mount Vernon. Uncle Paul.-Ah, yes: well, it didn't stay there! Wouldn't you say, boys, that a sword which was sent into this world to fight for the weak against the strong, for the right against the wrong, a sword which could only be worthily wielded by such men as King Arthur, and Frederick the Great, and George Washington,

a sword which had twice come forth from the bottom of the sea to strike for freedom-would you not think, boys, that such a sword was a dangerous one to have in a neighborhood where innocent men and women were held in chains, their children taken from their hearts and sold, and where there were no knights to stand for them?

Yes? Well, so it turned out in this case. Washington, the Father of his country, could look with pride on that trusty Excalibur, for he loved freedom, and whilst living, treated the Africans which he had inherited with kindness; when dying, he set them all free! He thought he was leaving a nation which would follow his example; but, instead of that, they found that slaves could work well and sell well, and they stole more of them from their own land, and gave to the masters the control of our whole country. Then Excalibur began to get uneasy, and went a little way up, where it could be near and watch the meaner swords made to fasten chains, not to "carve" them asunder. The old Austrian Dragon seemed to have reäppeared in American Slavery— Arthur (interrupting).—Uncle Paul, is there no Saint George in America?

Uncle Paul.-I'm not so sure that there was not, my boy. Let me tell you. There was an old man named John Brown, whose parents had brought him up amidst the free airs and the bountiful sunlight of nature, and taught him the simple faith of love to God and man. This old man studied the Holy Bible day and night, and resolved to live up to the best law of life that he could find in it. But one can not read such great sayings as are in that Book with their eyes or lips; the very light of the sun is not clear enough to read it by; it takes a life to read it. So old John Brown lived what he knew he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and ministered to the afflicted; and as he so lived by one rule, a light shone upon the next. One day he came to ponder deeply these two sentences in that Book:

"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Remember those who are in bonds as bound with them."

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Then he called together his household, and said: "My wife, my daughters, and my sons, suppose that we were all this day held in bonds by a master who could tear us apart at any moment, who could make of us the victims of his own or others' lust, or make us servile instruments of his basest deeds: would we no

strike for freedom, and would we not long for some helping hand to free us?" Then he read them the LAWS which he had been weighing; and as in the darkest night a lantern's light is turned full upon the chasm that yawns at a traveler's feet, so did he turn their brightness upon the great crime against Humanity which cries to Heaven against this Nation. Then this old man and his sons left their guardian women to pray for them; and taking their lives in their hands, they went forth, these modern Knights of the Round Table, to strike from human hands every fetter they could reach; and many a living and immortal heart did they rescue from the Dragon's coils! When the ear heard them, then it blessed them, and when the eye saw them, it gave witness to them; because they delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

At last the old man went down into the same neighborhood where Excalibur had gone. A divine madness seized upon him; as it is written, "Oppression maketh a wise man mad"-but whether such madness be not the wisdom of God, which is foolishness with men, we are not all calm enough to judge now. Soon John Brown bore in his hand the never-failing sword Excalibur! In his hand it conquered a whole nation. Presently twenty-nine other nations came to help the one, anl this old man and his sons were taken prisoners, but not till then; such is the power of the sword which strikes for Justice and Liberty.

On the second day of December, 1859, they hung that old man by the neck until he was dead,-for loving his neighbor as himself, for stooping to heal the wounded Jew, for remembering those who are in bonds as bound with them. But as he died he was more victorious than he had ever dreamed of being; he melted a million hearts and poured them into the moulds of Freedom.

EXCALIBUR Still waits the hand of its next true King, who will be he that can conquer without it. It has made its wound, piercing beneath the scales of the Dragon; and that wound can never be healed. His fierce writhings and threatenings only tell us how the blow touched the seat of life.

Let us trust that it need never strike again! Let us pray that about it may grow up a people who know the power of the Sword of the Spirit, the LOVE which never faileth; and who may wield the weapon which is not carnal so truly that the strongholds of Evil shall fall, and the kingdom of Purity and Peace be established.

AMOR RESPICIT CELUM.

MY GOD, why should I love thee for reward?
Why should I pray thee come in golden shower?
Doth not Love tower o'er Faith and Hope by this,
That her free-giving eyes look to no end?

Through Heaven I press, for that thou art beyond:
Only sustaining, can I be sustained';

In Heaven I missed the cross which, when I bore,
Bore me.
Another and another Fall

Before fresh mandates need I-uplifting

Falls; the faithful, friendly wounds which heal me;
The fatal edge which slays to make alive.

Oh, leave me not in any Paradise,

But lead me forth to bleak and blessed paths;
And set thine angel with his Sword of Flame —
A curse divine-to hinder when I turn!

THE CATHOLIC CHAPTER.

RELIGION.

Ir is pleasant to die, if there be gods; sad to live, if there be Marcus Antoninus.

none.

To which religion do I belong? To none that thou might'st name. And why to none? For religion's own sake. Schiller.

It is not lawful in Heaven to think three and say one; because every one in Heaven speaks from thought: in Heaven there is thinking speech or speaking thought.

In Heaven, the more angels the more room.

Because the angels believe this (that all Life is from the Lord), they refuse thanks on account of the good they do. The life of every one is such as his love is.

What any man loves is to him good.

In Heaven, by loving the Lord is not meant to love him as to person, but to love the good that is from him.

Swedenborg.

Nothing which is celestial passes over; but that which is earthly passes over by the celestial.

Bettine.

Immortality must be proved, if at all, by our activity and designs, which imply an interminable future for their play.

R. W. Emerson.

Thou, O God, hast made me for Thyself; I can not rest but in Thee! St. Augustine. Intellect is a god, through a light which is more ancient than intellectual light and intellect itself.

Proclus.

All virtues, even justice itself, are merely different forms of benevolence.

Benevolence produces and constitutes the heaven or beatitude of God himself. He is no other than an infinite and eternal GOODWILL. Benevolence must, therefore, constitute the beatitude or heaven of all dependent beings. Henry Brooke.

Man must eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; otherwise he is no man, but a mere animal.

Hegel.

Let us not vail our bonnets to circumstance. If we act so because we are so; if we sin from strong bias of constitution and temper, at least we have in ourselves the measure and the curb of our aberration. But if they who are around us sway us; if we think ourselves incapable of resisting the cords by which fathers and mothers, and a host of unsuitable expectations, and duties falsely so called, seek to bind us-into what helpless discord shall we not fall! Do you remember, in the Arabian Nights, the princes who climbed the hill to bring away the singing treehow the black pebbles clamored, and the princes looked around and became black pebbles like themselves? Charles Emerson.

Firmian merely replied: "More than one Savior has already died for the earth and for man; and I am convinced that Christ will one day take many pious human beings by the hand, and say to them: Ye, too, have suffered under Pilates."

Jean Paul Richter.

Every Prophet whom I send, goeth forth to establish religion, not to root it up.

Thou wilt be asked: By what dost thou know God? Say: By what descendeth on the heart. For, could that be proved false,

souls would be utterly helpless.

There is in thy soul a certain

knowledge, before which, if thou display it to mankind, they will tremble like a branch agitated by the strong wind.

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