the foremost party, led by Pitcairn, a major of marines, was discovered, advancing quickly and in silence. Alarm guns were fired, and drums beat not a call to village husbandmen only, but the reveillé to humanity. Less than seventy, perhaps less than sixty, obeyed the summons, and, in sight of half as many boys and unarmed men, were paraded in two ranks, a few rods north of the meeting-house.

6. How often in that building had they, with renewed professions of their faith, looked up to God as the stay of their fathers and the protector of their privileges! How often on that village green, hard by the burial-place of their forefathers, had they pledged themselves to each other to combat manfully for their birthright inheritance of liberty! There they now stood, side by side, under the provincial banner, with arms in their hands, silent and fearless, willing to fight for their privileges, scrupulous not to begin civil war, and as yet unsuspicious of immediate danger. The ground on which they trod was the altar of freedom, and they were to furnish its victims.

7. The British van, hearing the drum and the alarm guns, halted to load; the remaining companies came up; and at half an hour before sunrise, the advance party hurried forward at double-quick time, almost upon a run, closely followed by the grenadiers. Pitcairn rode in front, and when within five or six rods of the minute-men, cried out, "Disperse, ye villains; ye rebels, disperse; lay down your arms; why don't you lay down your arms and disperse?" The main part of the countrymen stood motionless in the ranks, witnesses against aggression; too few to resist, too brave to fly. At this, Pitcairn discharged a pistol,

and with a loud voice cried, "Fire!" The order was instantly followed, first by a few guns, which did no execution, and then by a heavy, close, and deadly discharge of musketry. In the disparity of numbers, the Common was a field of murder, not of battle; Parker therefore ordered his men to disperse. Then, and not till then, did a few of them, on their own impulse, return the British fire.

8. Day came in all the beauty of an early spring; but distress and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town. There, on the green, lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the grassy field was red "with the innocent blood of their brethren slain," crying unto God for vengeance, from the ground. Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded, — a quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green. These are the village heroes, who were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of a race divine. They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of mankind. Their names are had in grateful remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation.

LXXXIV. - THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

[This noble poem was written by Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, wife of a clergymau resident at Strabane, in Ireland.]

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.". - Deut. xxxiv. 6.

1. By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,

There lies a lonely grave.

And no man dug that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er;

For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.

Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun,

3. Noiselessly as the Spring time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves, -
So, without sound of music,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain crown,
The great procession swept.

4. Perchance the bald old eagle,
On gray Beth peor's height,
Out of his rocky eyrie

Looked on the wondrous sight.
Perchance the lion, stalking,1

Still shuns that hallowed spot;
For beast and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.

5. But when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled 2 drum,

Follow the funeral car.

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute gun.

6. Amid the noblest of the land

Men lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place
With costly marble dressed.

In the great minster transept,3

Where lights like glories fall,

And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings,
Along the emblazoned 5 wall.

7. This was the bravest warrior
That ever buckled sword;

This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage,
As he wrote down for men.

8. And had he not high honor,
The hill-side for his pall;

To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave? -

9. In that deep grave, without a name, Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again - most wondrous thought!

Before the judgment day,

And stand with glory wrapped around

On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life

With the Incarnate 6 Son of God.