8 VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. And trace the ramparts of Heaven's citadel On the cold flag-stones of his dungeon drear. And I have walked with Hampden and with Vane, Names once so gracious to an English ear In days that never may return again. My voice, though not the loudest, hath been heard Whenever freedom raised her cry of pain, And the faint effort of the humble bard Hath roused up thousands from their lethargy, To speak in words of thunder. What reward Was mine or theirs? It matters not; for I Am but a leaf cast on the whirling tide, Without a hope or wish, except to die. But truth, asserted once, must still abide, Unquenchable, as are those fiery springs Which day and night gush from the mountain side, Perpetual meteors, girt with lambent wings, Which the wild tempest tosses to and fro, But cannot conquer with the force it brings. Yet I, who ever felt another's wo More keenly than my own untold distress; I, who have battled with the common foe, And broke for years the bread of bitterness; Who never yet abandoned or betrayed The trust vouchsafed me, nor have ceased to bless, Am left alone to wither in the shade, A weak old man, deserted by his kindWhom none will comfort in his age, nor aid! O, let me not repine! A quiet mind, Conscious and upright, needs no other stay; Nor can I grieve for what I leave behind, In the rich promise of eternal day. Henceforth to me the world is dead and gone, Its thorns unfelt, its roses cast away, And the old pilgrim, weary and alone, Bowed down with travel, at his Master's gate Now sits, his task of life-long labor done, Thankful for rest, although it comes so late, After sore journey through this world of sin, In hope and prayer, and wistfulness to wait, Until the door shall ope and let him in. FOOT-PRINTS OF ANGELS. BY HENRY W. LONGFELEOW. It was Sunday morning; and the church bells bells were ringing together. From all the neighbouring villages came the solemn, joyful sounds, floating through the sunny air, mellow and faint and low, -all mingling into one harmonious chime, like the sound of some distant organ in heaven. Anon they ceased; and the woods, and the clouds, and the whole village, and the very air itself seemed to pray, so silent was it everywhere. The venerable old men, --high priests and patriarchs were they in the land, went up the pulpit stairs, as Moses and Aaron went up Mount Hor, in the sight of all the congregation, for the pulpit stairs were in front and very high. Paul Femming will never forget the sermon he heard that day,—no, not even if he should live to be as old as he who preached it. The text was, I know that my Redeemer liveth.' It was meant to console the pious, poor widow, who sat right before him at the foot of the pulpit stairs, all in black, and her heart breaking. He said nothing of the terrors of death, nor of the gloom of the narrow house, but, looking beyond these things, as mere circumstances to which the imagination mainly gives importance, he told his hearers of the innocence of childhood upon earth, and the holiness of childhood in heaven, and how the beautiful Lord Jesus was once a little child, and now in heaven the spirits of little children walked with him, and gathered flowers in the fields of Paradise. Good old man! In behalf of humanity, I thank thee for these benignant words! And, still more than I, the bereaved mother thanked thee, and from that hour, though she wept in secret for her child, yet. "She knew he was with Jesus, After the sermon, Paul Flemming walked forth alone into the churchyard. There was no one there, save a little boy, who was fishing with a pin hook in a grave half full of water. But a few moments afterward, through the arched gateway under the belfry, came a funeral procession. At its head walked a priest in white surplice, chanting. Peasants, old and young, followed him, with burning tapers in their hands. A young girl carried in her arms a dead child, wrapped in its little winding sheet. The grave was close under the wall, by the church door. A vase of holy water stood beside it. The sexton took the child from the girl's arms, and put it into a coffin; and, as he placed it in the grave, the girl held over it a cross, wreathed with roses, and the priest and peasants sang a funeral hymn. When this was over, the priest sprinkled the grave and the crowd with holy water; And then they all went into the church, each one stopping as he passed the grave to throw a handful of earth into it, and sprinkle it with holy water. A few moments afterwards, the voice of the priest was heard saying mass in the church, and Flemming saw the toothless old sexton treading the fresh earth into the grave of the little child, with his clouted shoes. He approached him, and asked the age of the deceased. The sexton leaned a moment on his spade, and shrugging his shoulders replied; Only an hour or two. It was born in the night, and died early this morning?' The child A brief existence,' said Flemming. seems to have been born only to be buried, and have its name recorded on a wooden tombstone.' VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. 9 The sexton went on with his work and made no reply. Flemming still lingered among the graves, gazing with wonder at the strange devices, by which man has rendered death horrible and the grave loath some. back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.' It seemed to him, as if the unknown tenant of that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he said: I will be strong!' In the Temple of Juno at Elis, Sleep and his twin-brother Death were represented as children reposing in the arms of Night. On various funeral monuments of the ancients the Genius of Death is sculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning on an inverted torch, in the attitude of repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. In such peaceful and attractive forms, did the imagination of ancient poets and sculptors represent death. And these were men in whose souls the religion of Nature was like the light of stars, beautiful, but faint and cold—longings to behold once more the faces of their deStrange, that in later days, this angel of God, which leads us with a gentle hand into the Land of the great departed, into the silent Land,' should have been transformed into a monstrous and terrific thing! Such is the spectral rider on the white horse-such the ghastly skeleton with scythe and hour glass last time into the great tomb of the Past, with pain. the Reaper, whose name is Death! One of the most popular themes of poetry and painting in the Middle ages, and continuing down even into modern times, was the Dance of Death. In almost all languages is it written,-the apparition of the grim spectre, putting a sudden stop to all business, and leading men away into the remarkable retirement' of the grave. It is written in an ancient Spanish Poem, and painted on a wooden bridge in Switzerland. The designs of Holbein are well known. The most striking among them is that, where, from a group of children sitting round a cottage hearth, Death has taken one by the hand, and is leading it out of the door. Quietly and unresisting goes the little child, and in its countenance no grief, but wonder only; while the other children are weeping and stretching forth their hands in vain towards their departing brother. A beautiful design it is, in all save the skeleton. An angel had been better, with folded wings, and torch inverted! Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful parted friends; and as they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven touches them, and the features crumble and fall together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend for the ful longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he had loved; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the Past shut behind him as the Divine Poet did the gate of Paradise, when the angel pointed him the way up the Holy Mountain; and to him likewise was it forbidden to look back. In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sudden changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming; and from that hour forth he resolved, that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of Fate, which And now the sun was growing high and warm. A we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved hence little chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to in-forward not to lean on others; but to walk self-convite Flemming to enter and enjoy the grateful cool-fident and self-possessed; no longer to waste his ness. He went in. There was no one there. The years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfillment of walls were covered with paintings and sculpture of the boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but to live rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. There in the Present wisely, alike forgetful of the past, was nothing there to move the heart to devotion and careless of what the mysterious Future might but in that hour the heart of Flemming was bring. And from that moment he was calm, and weak,-weak as a child's. He bowed his stubborn knees, and wept. And oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears, through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this singular inscrip strong; he was reconciled with himself! His thoughts turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him. Thither I will turn my wandering foostetps,' said he; and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth be mine a life 'Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not of action and reality! I will work in my own tion: 2 10 VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED. sphere, nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This alone is life; 'Life that shall send A challenge to its end, And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!" Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise resolve, sooner? Can such a simple result spring only from the long and intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till Time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life, to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that Man begins to see, that the leaves which remain are few in number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more clearly, that, upon the earlier pages of that book was written a story of happy innocence, which he would fain read over again. Then come listless irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more noble history than the child's story, with which the book began.'-Hyperion. MY SOUL IS FREE. Disguise and coward fear! away! My soul is free; and loves the day, The day who veils her blushes bright, And wails in tears the gloomy night; So bleeds my breast by sorrow torn, When'ere degenerate manhood's form Bows slave-like to a tyrant's power, Lost to himself, and heaven's high dower. Away with chains! my soul is free, And joyeth as the summer sea, When love's low tones around it play, Or friendship gilds the closing day. And as the pitying sea doth moan, So swells my heart at sorrow's tone; So echoes back each murmur'd sigh, Like ocean, when the storm is nigh. And as the tossing waves loud roar With deafening thunders on the shore; So may my soul rise in her might, And sternly battle for the right. Oh! when the righteous flight is done, And calmly sinks the weary sun, Still shall my song triumphant be; Rejoice! rejoice! my soul is free! DEMOCRACY. BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you. do ye even so to them."-Matthew vii. 12. Spirit of Truth, and Love, and Light! The foe of Wrong, and Hate, and Fraud ! Of all which pains the holy sight, Or wounds the generous ear of God! Beautiful yet thy temples rise, Though there profaning gifts are thrown; And fires unkindled of the skies Are glaring round thy altar-stone. Still sacred-though thy name be breathed By those whose hearts thy truth deride; And garlands, plucked from thee, are wreathed Around the haughty brows of Pride. O, ideal of my boyhood's time! The faith in which my father stood, For through the mists which darken there Which owns the rights of all divine- The prompt, self-sacrifice-are thine. Beneath thy broad, impartial eye, How fade the cords of caste and birth! How equal in their suffering lie The groaning multitudes of earth! Still to a stricken brother true, Whatever clime hath nurtured him; As stooped to heal the wounded Jew The worshipper on Gerizim. By misery unrepelled, unawed By pomp or power, thou see'st a MAN On man, as man, retaining yet, The immortal gift of God to him. For that frail form which mortals wear And veiled his perfect brightness there. He who of old on Syria's mount Thrilled, warmed by turns the list'ner's heart. In holy words which cannot die, In thoughts which angels lean'd to know, Proclaimed thy message from on highThy mission to a world of wo. VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED. That voice's echo hath not died! It calls a struggling world to thee. Thy name and watchward o'er this land Not to these altars of a day, The voiceless utterance of his will His pledge to Freedom and to Truth, That manhood's heart remembers still The homage of his generous youth. THE OBJECT Of life. BY JOHN TODD. 11 are glowing conceptions, but they are not the work of a depraved imagination. They will all be realized. Sin and death will long walk hand in hand on this earth, and their footsteps will not be entirely blotted out until the fires of the last day have melted the globe. But the head of the one is already bruised, and the sting is already taken from the other. They may long roar, but they walk in chains, and the eye of faith sees the hand that holds the chains. But we have visions still brighter. We look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. No sin will be there to mar the beauty, no sorrow to diminish a joy, no anxiety to corrode the heart, or cloud the brow. Our characters may be tested, in part, by our anticipations. If our thoughts and feelings are running in the channel of time, and dancing from one earthly bubble to another, though our hopes may come in angel-robes, it is a sad proof that our hearts are here also. The world, the great mass of mankind, have utterly misunderstood the real object of life on earth, Or else he misunderstands it who follows the light of the Bible. You look at men as individuals, and their object seems to be to gratify a contemptible vanity, to pervert and follow their low appetites and passions, and the dictates of selfishness, wherever they may lead. You look at men in the aggregate, and this pride and these passions terminate in wide plans of ambition, in wars and bloodshed, in strifes and the destruction of all that is virtuous or lovely. The history of mankind has its pages all stained with blood; and it is the history of a race whose ob How many beautiful visions pass before the mind in a single day, when the reins are thrown loose, and fancy feels no restraints! How curious, interesting and instructive would be the history of the workings of a single mind for a day! How many imaginary joys, how many airy castles, pass before it, which a single jostle of this rough world at once destroys! Who is there of my readers who has not imagined a summer fairer than ever bloomed,scenery in nature more perfect than was ever com-ject seemed to be, to debase their powers, and sink bined by the pencil,-abodes more beautiful than were ever reared,-honors more distinguished than were ever bestowed,-homes more peaceful than were ever enjoyed,-companions more angelic than ever walked this earth,-and bliss more complete, and joys more thrilling than were ever allotted to man ? You may call these the dreams of imagination, but they are common to the student. To the man who lives for this world alone, these visions of bliss, poor as they are, are all that ever come. But good men have their anticipations-not the paintings of fancy, but the realities which faith discovers. Good men have the most vivid conceptions. Witness those of old. As they look down the vale of time, they see a star arise,-the everlasting hills do bow, the valleys are raised, and the moon puts on the brightness of the sun. The deserts and the dry places gush with waters. Nature pauses. The serpent forgets his fangs; the lion and the lamb sleep side by side, and the hand of the child is in the mane of the tiger. Nations gaze till they forget the murderous work of war, and the garments rolled in blood. The whole earth is enlightened, and the star shines on till it brings in everlasting day. Here what was intended for immortal glory, to the deep- 12 VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED. rope to arms, down to the lowest horse-boy, how, generate a nation, in trying to build up a system of few were actuated by any spirit which Heaven, or justice, to say nothing about love could sanction!Suppose the same number of men, the millions which composed the continent which rose up to exterminate another, and who followed the man who was first a soldier and then a priest and hermit, and who has left the world in doubt whether he was a prophet, a madman, a fool, or a demagogue, had spent the same treasures of life, and of money, in trying to spread the spirit of that Saviour for whose tomb they could waste so much; and suppose this army had been enlightened and sanctified men, and had devoted their powers to do good to mankind, and to honor their God, how different would the world have been found to day! How many, think you, of all the then Christian world, acted under a spirit, and with an object before them such as the world will approve, and especially such as the pure | beings above us will approve? Look a moment at a few of the efforts which avarice has made. For about four centuries, the avarice of man, and of Christian men too, has been preying upon the vitals of Africa. It has taken the sons and daughters of Ham, and doomed soul and body to debasement, to ignorance, to slavery. And what are the results? Twenty-eight millions-more than twice the population of this country-have been kidnapped and carried away from the land of their birth. The estimate is, that the increase in the house of bondage since those times, is five-fold, or nearly one hundred and seventy millions of human, immortal beings, cut off from the rights of man, and, by legislation and p'anning, reduced far towards the scale of the brutes. This is only a single form in which avarice has been exerting its power. Suppose the same time and money, the same effort, had been spent in spreading the arts of civilization, learning and religion, over the continent of Africa, what a vast amount of good would have been accomplished! And at the day when the recording angel reads the history of the earth, how very different would be the picture, and the eternal condition of untold numbers! If the marks of humanity are not all blotted out from that race of miserable men, it is not because oppression has not been sufficiently legalized, and avarice been allowed to pursue its victims, till the grave became a sweet asylum. corrupt paganism; and when that system was built up-let the shape and form be what it might-the nation had exhausted its energies, and it sunk and fell under the effects of misapplied and perverted mind. No nation existed on the face of the earth, which was not crumbling under the use of its perverted energies, when the gospel reached it. Our ancestors were crushed under the weight of a Druidical priesthood, and the rites of that bloody system of religion. Another striking instance of the perversion of mind, and the abuse of the human intellect and heart, is the system of the Romish church. No one created mind, apparently, could ever have invented a scheme of delusion, of degradation of the soul, the intellect, the whole man, so perfect and complete as is this.— What minds must have been employed in shutting out the light of heaven, and in burying the manna, which fell in showers so extended! What a system! To gather all the books in the world, and put them all within the stone walls of the monastery and the cloister,-to crush schools, except in these same monasteries, in which they trained up men to become more and more skilful in doing the work of ruin,-to delude the world with ceremonies and fooleries, while the Bible was taken away, and religion muttered her rites in an unknown tongue,— and all this was the result of a settled plan to debase the intellect and mock poor human nature !— And, when the Reformation held up all these abominations to light, what a master piece was the last plan laid to stifle the reason forever !—the inquisition.— It was reared through the Christian world: the decree by a single blow, proscribed between sixty and seventy printing presses, and excommunicated all who shouid ever read any thing which they might produce. A philosopher, who, like Galileo, could pour light upon science, and astonish the world by his discoveries, must repeatedly fall into the cruel mercies of the inquisition. The ingenuity of hell seemed tasked to invent methods by which the human mind might be shut up in Egyptian darkness; and never has a Catholic community been known to be other than degraded, ignorant, superstitious and sunken. Let light in, and all who receive it rush to infidelity. But what a mass of mind has been, and still is, employed in upholding this system! And what a loss to the world has it produced, in quench of glorious minds which have been destroyed by it! If I could find it in my heart to anathematize any order of men,-and I hope I cannot,-it would be those who are thus taking away the key of knowledge, and preventing all within the compass of their influence from fulfilling the great object for which they were created. I am trying to lead you to look at the great amounting, in everlasting darkness, the uncounted millions of abuse and of perversion of mind, of which mankind are constantly guilty. When Christianity began her glorious career, the world had exhausted its strength in trying to debase itself, and to sink low enough to embrace paganism; and yet not so low, as not to try to exist in the shape of nations. The experiment had been repeated, times we know not how many. Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, polished Was man created for war? Did his Maker creGreece, iron-footed Rome, mystical Hindooism, had ate the eye, that he might take better aim on the all tried it. They spent each, mind enough to re-field of battle? give him skill that he might invent |