Smiles and frowns-a look-a flower growing by the com

mon way,

Trifles born with every hour make the sum of life's poor

- day,

And the jewels that we garner are the tears we wipe away. SCRIBNER'S MONTHLY.

WASHINGTON.

It matters very little what spot may have been the birthplace of Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the atmosphere that it cleared! How bright, on the brow of the firmament, was the planet which it revealed to us.

In the production of Washington, it seems as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some singular qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was temperate, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master.

As a general he marshalled the farmer into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his

counsels, that to the soldier and statesman he almost added

the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason, for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it.

If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to her philosophy. The temptations of earth could not seduce her patriotism.

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

LIBERTY SURRENDERED NEVER REGAINED.

Note 58.

It is a melancholy spectacle to behold a free government die. The world, it is true, is filled with the evidences of decay. All nature speaks the voice of dissolution, and the highway of history and of life is strewn with the wrecks which time, the great despoiler, has made. But hope of the future, bright visions of reviving glory are nowhere denied to the heart of man save as he gazes upon the downfall of legal liberty. He listens sorrowfully to the autumn winds as they sigh through dismantled forests, but he knows that their breath will be soft and vernal in the spring, and that the dead flowers and the withered foliage will blossom and bloom again. He sees the sky overcast with the angry frown of the tempest, but he knows that the sun will reappear, and the stars, the bright emblazonry of God, cannot perish. Man himself, strange link between dust and deity,

LIBERTY SURRENDERED NEVER REGAINED. 141

totters wearily onward under the weight of years and pain toward the gaping tomb, but how briefly his mind lingers around that dismal spot. It is filled with tears and grief, and the willow and the cypress gather around it with their loving, but mournful embrace. And is this all? Not so. If a man die shall he not live again? Beyond the grave, in the distant Aiden, hope provides an elysium of the soul where the mortal assumes immortality, and life becomes an endless splendor.

But where, in all the dreary regions of the past, filled with convulsions, wars, and crimes, can you point your finger to the tomb of a free commonwealth on which the angel of resurrection has ever descended, or from whose mouth the stone of despotism has ever been rolled away? Where, in what age and in what clime, have the ruins of constitutional freedom renewed their youth and regained their lost estate? By whose strong grip has the dead corpse of a Republic once fallen ever been raised? The merciful Master who walked upon the waters and bade the winds be still, left no ordained apostles with power to wrench apart the jaws of national death and release the victims of despotism. The wail of the heart-broken over the dead is not so sad as the realization of this fact. But all history, with a loud, unbroken voice, proclaims it. Whenever a people once possessed of liberty, with all the power in their own hands, have surrendered these great gifts of God at the command of the usurper, they have never afterward proven themselves worthy to regain their forfeited treasures. Liberty, once abandoned and surrendered by those whom she has crowned with honor and greatness, in the midst of the earth, goes forth to seek more worthy objects of her love and care.

DANIEL W. VOORHEES.

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND.

Ir has been said that for many years past we have been struggling to pass good laws for Ireland, and that we have sacrificed our time, neglected our interests, and paid our money, and we have done all this in the endeavor to give Ireland good laws. That is quite true with regard to the general course of legislation since 1849. But in order to work out the purposes of government there is something more in this world occasionally required than the passing of good laws. The passing of good laws is not enough in cases where the strong instincts of the people require not only that these laws should be good, but that they should proceed from congenial sources; and that besides being good laws they should be their own laws.

The British Parliament tried to pass good laws for the Colonies, but the Colonies said: "We don't want your good laws: we want our own good laws"; and Parliament at length admitted the reasonableness of the principle. This principle has now come home to us from across the seas; and we have now to consider whether it is applicable to the case of Ireland.

There is such a thing as local patriotism which in itself is not bad, but good. The Welshman is full of local patriotism. The Scotchman is full of local patriotism. Scotch nationality is as strong as it ever was, and if need were to arise it would be as ready to assert itself as it was in the days of Bannockburn. If I read Irish history aright, misfortune and calamity have wedded her sons to their soil with an embrace yet closer than is found elsewhere; but it does not follow that because their local patriotism is strong, they should be incapable of an imperial patriotism.

What is the answer to this? The answer is only found in the view which rests upon a basis of despair, of absolute condemnation of Ireland and Irishmen as exceptions to those beneficial provisions which have made Englishmen

THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS.

143

that justice,

and Americans capable of self-government common sense, moderation, have no meaning for them; and that all they can appreciate is strife. I am not going. to argue whether this monstrous view is a correct one. I say the Irishman is as capable of loyalty as any other man ; but if his loyalty has been checked, it is because the laws by which he is governed do not present themselves to him with a native and congenial element.

We should apply to Ireland the happy experience we have gained in England and Scotland, where a course of generations has taught us, not as a dream or theory, but as a matter of practice, that the surest foundation we can build on is the foundation afforded by the affections and will of man; and that it is thus, by a decree of the Almighty, that we may secure at once social happiness and the power and permanence of the empire.

WM. E. GLADSTONE.

Note 59.

THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS.

How often events which seem to be most insignificant become the most momentous. Can you imagine anything more unimportant than the coming of a poor woman from Moab to Judah? Can you imagine anything more trivial than the fact that this Ruth just happened to alight-as they say just happened to alight on that field of Boaz? Yet, all ages, all generations, have an interest in the fact that she was to become an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all nations and kingdoms must look at that one little incident with a thrill of unspeakable and eternal satisfaction. So it is in your history and in mine; events that you thought of no importance at all have been of very great moment. That casual conversation, that accidental meeting-you did not think of it again for a long while-but how it changed all the phases of your life. It seemed to be of no importance that Jubal invented instruments of music,