J

WOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, born December 17, 1807, in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He lived on a farm until he reached the age of eighteen, working a little at shoemaking and also writing poetry for the Haverhill Gazette. Later he became editor of a number of papers, and his poems in after life were full of patriotism and the love of human freedom, all of which attained a strong hold on the hearts of the people. He would have prevented war, if possible, with honor, but when war came he wrote in support of the Union cause, displaying no bitterness, and when the conflict was over he was most liberal and conciliatory. He was one of the most popular of poets. He died September 7, 1892.

THE EMANCIPATION GROUP

A

MIDST thy sacred effigies.

Of old renown give place,
O city, Freedom-loved! to his
Whose hand unchained a race.

Take the worn frame, that rested not
Save in a martyr's grave;

The care-lined face, that none forgot,
Bent to the kneeling slave.

Let man be free! The mighty word
He spoke was not his own;
An impulse from the Highest stirred
These chiseled lips alone.

The cloudy sign, the fiery guide,
Along his pathway ran,

And Nature, through his voice, denied
The ownership of man.

We rest in peace where these sad eyes
Saw peril, strife, and pain;
His was the Nation's sacrifice,
And ours the priceless gain.

O symbol of God's will on earth
As it is done above

Bear witness to the cost and worth
Of justice and of love!

Stand in thy place and testify
To coming ages long,

That truth is stronger than a lie,

And righteousness than wrong.

THE

HERON BROWN, born at Willimantic, Connecticut, April 29, 1832. Graduated at Hartford Theological Seminary in 1858; Newton Theological Institution, 1859. Ordained in Baptist Ministry, 1859; Pastor South Framingham, Massachusetts, 1859-62; Canton, Massachusetts, 1863-70; on staff Youth's Companion since 1870. Author various juvenile stories; Life Songs (poems), 1894; Nameless Women of the Bible, 1904; The Story of the Hymns' and Tunes, 1907; Under the Mulberry Tree (a novel), 1909; The Birds of God, 1911. He died February 14, 1914.

W

THE LIBERATOR

THEN, scornful of a nation's rest,
The angry horns of Discord blew
There came a giant from the West,
And found a giant's work to do.

He saw, in sorrow-and in wrath—
A mighty empire in its strait,
Torn like a planet in its path
To warring hemisphere of hate.

Between the thunder-clouds he stood;
He harked to Ruin's battle-drum,
And cried in patriot hardihood,

"Why do I wait? My hour has come!

"Was it my fate, my lot, my woe
To be the Ruler of the land,
Nor own my oath that long ago

I swore upon this heart and hand?

"That vow, like barb from bowman's string,

God grant the bloodless blow shall sting
Till brother's quarrels cease to be!

"Should once the sudden wound provoke
New strife in anger's zone

The clash may be the penal stroke
That makes a new Republic one."

He wrote his Message clear as light,
And bolder than a king's command-
And when war's whirlwinds spent their might
There was no bondman in the land.