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from those sources which belong to the whole civilized world. In knowledge and letters, in the arts of peace and war, they differ in degrees; but they bear, nevertheless, a general resemblance.

5 On the other hand, in matters of government and social institution, the nations on this continent are founded upon principles which never did prevail, in considerable extent either at any other time, or in any other place. There has never been presented, to the mind of man, a more 10 interesting subject of contemplation, than the establishment of so many nations in America, partaking in the civilization, and in the arts of the old world, but having left behind them those cumbrous institutions which had their origin in a dark and military age.

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Whatsoever European experience has developed, favorable to the freedom and the happiness of man; whatsoever European genius has invented for his improvement or gratification; whatsoever of refinement or polish, the culture of European society presents, for his adoption and 20 enjoyment, all this is offered to man in America, with the additional advantages of the full power of erecting forms of government on free and simple principles, without overturning institutions suited to times long passed, but too strongly supported, either by interests or preju25 dices, to be shaken without convulsions.

This unprecedented state of things, presents the happiest of all occasions for an attempt to establish national intercourse upon improved principles; upon principles tending to peace and the mutual prosperity of nations. 30 In this respect, America, the whole of America, has a new career before her. If we look back on the history of Europe, we see how great a portion of the last two centuries, her states have been at war, for interests connected mainly with her feudal monarchies; wars, for particular 35 dynastics; wars, to support or defeat particular successions; wars, to enlarge or curtail the dominions of particular crowns; wars, to support or to dissolve family alliances; wars, in fine, to enforce or to resist religious intolerance. What long and bloody chapters do these 40 not fill, in the history of European politics!

Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to see, that America has a glorious chance of escaping, at least, these causes of contention? Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to see, that, on this continent, under other

forms of government, we have before us the noble hope of being able, by the mere influence of civil liberty and religious toleration, to dry up these outpouring fountains of blood, and to extinguish these consuming fires of war? 5 The general opinion of the age, favors such hopes and such prospects. There is a growing disposition to treat the intercourse of nations more like the useful intercourse of friends: philosophy,-just views of national advantage, good sense, and the dictates of a common religion, and an 10 increasing conviction that war is not the interest of the human race, all concur to increase the interest created by this new accession to the list of nations.

LESSON CXXXIV.—THE TIMES, THE MANNERS, AND THE MEN.—
J. R. LOWELL.

New times demand new measures and new men
The world advances, and in, time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers' day were best;
And, doubtless, after us, some purer scheme
5 Will be shaped out by wiser men than we,
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.
We cannot bring Utopia at once;

But better almost be at work in sin,

Than in a brute inaction browse and sleep.
10 No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him; there is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil!
The busy world shoves angrily aside

15 The man who stands with arms akimbo set,
Until occasion tells him what to do;

And he who waits to have his task marked out,
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds.
20 Reason and Government, like two broad seas,
Yearn for each other, with outstretched arms
Across this narrow isthmus of the throne,
And roll their white surf higher every day.
The field lies wide before us, where to reap
25 The easy harvest of a deathless name,
Though with no better sickles than our swords.
My soul is not a palace of the past,

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Where outworn creeds, like Rome's grey senate, quake.
Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse,
That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe for change:
5 Then let it come.
I have no dread of what

Is called for by the instinct of mankind.
Nor think I that God's world will fall apart
Because we tear a parchment more or less.
Truth is eternal, but her effluence,

10 With endless change, is fitted to the hour;
Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect
The promise of the future, not the past.
I do not fear to follow out the truth,
Albeit along the precipice's edge.

15 Let us speak plain: there is more force in names
Than most men dream of; and a lie may keep
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk
Behind the shield of some fair seeming name.
Let us call tyrants tyrants, and maintain
20 That only freedom comes by grace of God,
And all that comes not by. His grace must fall;
For men in earnest have no time to waste
In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.

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LESSON CXXXV.—LIBERTY TO ATHENS.--JAMES G. PERCIVAL.

The flag of freedom floats once more
Around the lofty Parthenon;

It waves, as waved the palm of yore,
In days departed long and gone;

As bright a glory from the skies,

Pours down its light around those towers,

And once again the Greeks arise,

As in their country's noblest hours;
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause,
Minerva's sacred hill is free,-
Oh! may she keep her equal laws,

While man shall live, and time shall be!

The pride of all her shrines went down;
The Goth, the Frank, the Turk had reft
The laurel from her civic crown ;

Her helm by many a sword was cleft:

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She lay among her ruins low,

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose,
And, crushed and bruised by many a blow,
She cowered beneath her savage foes;
But now, again she springs from earth,
Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks;
She rises in a brighter birth,

And sounds redemption to the Greeks.

It is the classic jubilee,

Their servile years have rolled away;
The clouds that hovered o'er them flee,
They hail the dawn of freedom's day;
From Heaven the golden light descends,
The times of old are on the wing,
And glory there her pinion bends,

And beauty wakes a fairer spring;
The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves,
Are all in triumph's pomp arrayed;
A light that points their tyrants' graves,
Plays round each bold Athenian's blade.

LESSON CXXXVI.—THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD,
H. W. LONGFELLOW.

This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villagers with strange alarms.

5 Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the Death-Angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament and dismal Miserere

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Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

I hear, even now, the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan,-
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song,

15 And loud amid the universal clamor,

O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,
And Aztec priests, upon their teocallis,

Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin. 5 The tumult of each sacked and burning village; The shout, that every prayer for mercy drowns; The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage,

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The wail of famine in beleaguered towns!

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,

The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
With such accursed instruments as these,

15 Thou drownest nature's sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

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Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,

There were no need of arsenals and forts.

The warrior's name would be a name abhorred !
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against its brother, on its forehead

Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain !

25 Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease; And, like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

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I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals

The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals,

The holy melodies of Love arise.

LESSON CXXXVII.—IMMORTALITY.-RICHARD H. DANA, SEN.

Is this thy prison-house, thy grave, then, Love?
And doth Death cancel the great bond that holds
Commingling spirits? Are thoughts that know no bounds
But, self-inspired, rise upward, searching out

5 The Eternal Mind,-the Father of all thought,—

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