The Dawn of Redemption. See them go forth like the floods to the ocean, Rolls up to God from the bosoms of men : Hear the great multitude, mingling in chorus, Groan, as they gaze from their crimes to the sky:— "Father the midnight of death gathers o'er us, When will the dawn of redemption draw nigh ?" "Look on us, wanderers, sinful and lowly, Struggling with grief and temptation below; Gray hair and golden youth, matron and maiden, us, surges before On the broad waters the black shadows lie, Father! the midnight of death gathers o'er us, When will the dawn of redemption draw nigh ?" Lo! the vast depths of futurity's ocean Heave with Jehovah's mysterious breath; Why should we shrink from the billows' commotion? Angels are mingling with men in the chorus,- James G. Clark. The Bell. A selection of prose poetry, written during the late war. The Roman knight who rode, "all accoutred as he was," into the gulf, and the hungry forum closed upon him, and was satisfied, slew, in his own dying, that great Philistine, Oblivion, which, sooner or later, will conquer us all. We never thought, when we used to read his story, that the grand classic tragedy of patriotic devotion would be a thousand times repeated in our own day and presence; that the face of the neighbor, who had walked by our side all the while, should be transfigured, in the twinkling of an eye, like the face of an angel; that the old gods, who thundered in Greek and lightened in Latin, should stand aside while common men, of plain English speech, upon whose shoulders we had laid a familiar hand, should keep in motion the machinery of the grandest epic of the world — the war for the American Union. they But there is an old story that always charmed us more: In some strange land and time-for so the story runs were about to found a bell for a midnight tower- a hollow, starless heaven of iron. It should toll for dead monarchs, "The king is dead;" and make glad clamor for the new prince, "Long live the king." It should proclaim so great a passion or so grand a pride that either would be worship, or wanting these, forever hold its peace. Now this bell was not to be dug out of the cold mountains; it was to be made of something that had been warmed by a human touch and loved with a human love; and so the people came, like pilgrims to a shrine, and cast their offerings into the furnace, and went away. There were links of chains that bondsmen had worn bright, and fragments of swords that had broken in heroes' hands; there were crosses and rings and bracelets of fine gold; trinkets of silver and toys of poor red copper. They even brought things that were licked up in an instant by the red tongues of flame, good words they had written and flowers they had cherished, perishable things that could never be heard in the rich tone and volume of the bell. And by and by, the bell was alone in its chamber, and its four windows looked forth to the four quarters of heaven. For many a day it hung dumb. The winds came and went, but they only set it sighing; the birds came and sang under its eaves, but it was an iron horizon of dead melody still: all the meaner strifes and passions of men rippled on below it; they outgroped the ants and outwrought the bees and outwatched the shepherds of Chaldea, but the chambers of the bell were as dumb as the cave of Macpelah. At last there came a time when men grew grand for right and truth, and stood shoulder to shoulder over all the land, and went down like reapers to the harvest of death; looked in the graves of them that slept, and believed there was something grander than living; glanced on into the far future, and discovered there was something bitterer than dying; and so, standing between the quick and the dead, they acquitted themselves like men. Then the bell awoke in its chamber, and the great waves of its music rolled gloriously out and broke along the blue walls of the world like an anthem; and every tone in it was familiar as an household word to somebody, and he heard it and knew it with a solemn joy. Poured into that fiery heart together, the humblest gifts were blent in one great wealth, and accents, feeble as a sparrow's song, grew eloquent and strong; and lo! a people's stately soul heaved on the waves of a mighty voice. We thank God, in this our day, for the furnace and the fire; for the offerings of gold, and the trinkets of silver, and the broken links of iron; for the good sword and the true word; for the great triumph and the little song. We thank God for the loyal Ruths, who have taken up the words of their elder sister and said to the Naomi of a later time, "Where thou goest I will go; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." By the memory of the Ramah, into which rebellion has turned the land; for the love of the Rachels now lamenting within it; for the honor of heaven and the hope of mankind, let us who stand here past and present, clasping hands over our heads, the broad age dwindled to a line beneath our feet, and bridged with the graves of dead martyrs — let us declare before God and these witnesses We will finish the work that the fathers began; And these to their weeping, And one faith and one flag, for the Federal Union. B. F. Taylor. Declaration of Independence. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation; For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment, for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; |