PEOPLE'S INTELLIGENCE, NATION'S SECURITY. 49.

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When duty whispers low, Thou must;

The youth replies I can."

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

THE PEOPLE'S INTELLIGENCE, THE NATION'S
SECURITY.

Note 20.

He does not know his countrymen who distrusts their intelligent understanding of the principles of their liberty. It has cleared and widened, and still increases with every year. The source and mainspring of our growth and happiness, it keeps pace with our rising pride of citizenship. Quick, penetrating, jealous, yet calm, conservative, and resolute, the wisdom of the people has proven a safer stay of government, a surer sanction of law, a trustier guardian of rights, than any throne ever planted on the necks of men.

If we turn from intellect to character-the higher safeguard-our trust must be undiminished. The fruit of heroic labor, this people was birthmarked with the noble traits of manhood. Devotedly to stand to his duty, reckless of peril, is every free American's one religion, whether he has another or not. Look to the men who, in vast number now, serve with steam in ministry to the puissant arts of our life. Day and night, keenly conscious of their trusts, they confront death with intrepid serenity. Heroic poetry is not richer in heroism than our common life. Has the great heart of the nation lost from its birthright of character its belief in the future, its readiness to face it? This generation, now so swiftly passing, has momentously answered. All unprepared for strife, it was waked, like one attacked in sleep, to gigantic combat for life and liberty. I appeal to the illustrious captain, in whose hands were securely rested the destinies of the nation in her mortal trial :

when he bade them climb the heights of Vicksburg, or pointed to the cloud-topped ramparts of the enemy before Chattanooga, did our freemen then evade the debt of inheritance by shunning death for their posterity? Let him who thinks the virtues of the fathers faded repair to the nation's hallowed ground at Arlington. Among the "frail memorials" in that "bivouac of the dead," as he shall read the frequent inscription "Unknown," let him kneel before that self-sacrificing patriotism which no roll-call of glory can distinguish, and honor the names of the blessed who died for their country and fellow-men.

Though not by them deputed, I stand here for a kingdomful of Western Pilgrims from Old New England, whose hearts thrill with filial tenderness for the well-remembered land of youth. The peaceful home of boyhood is before their eyes again. The rugged landscape, the spring on the hillside, the vine above the door, the old hearthstone. And there again their mother: sweet as a dream of Heaven her memory. Her helpful teaching, unforgotten, swells the heart again. Sharers in your pleasing meditation, kindling with your inspiration, your brethren by birthplace join from every quarter of our common land in the honorable sentiment in which you pledge your fellow-countrymen, affirming the manly faith that posterity shall receive in bettered value our inheritance from the fathers.

WM. F. VILAS.

Note 21.

ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY.

(Abridged.)

ABOUT one hundred and twenty years ago, there happened in this country what we have always been accustomed to call a "Glorious Revolution"; a revolution which had this effect, that it put a bit into the mouth of the monarch, so that he was not able to do, and he dared no longer attempt

ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY.

51

to do, the things which his predecessors had done without fear. But if at the Revolution the Monarchy of England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the great territorial families were enthroned; and from that period until 1832 they reigned with almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the industries of the people of these kingdoms. A new policy was then adopted; for while before we had endeavored to keep ourselves free from European complications, we now began to act upon a system of constant entanglement in the affairs of foreign countries, as if there were neither property, nor honors, nor anything worth striving for, to be acquired in any other field.

We have been at war since that time, with, for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. We have been all around Europe, and across it, over and over again; and after a policy so distinguished, so pre-eminent, so long continued, and so costly, we have a fair right to ask those who are in favor of it to show us its visible result. Europe is not at this moment, speaking broadly, more free politically than it was before. And what has been the result in England? I understate the sum when I say that in pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp-"the liberties of Europe" and "the balance of power "-there has been extracted from the industry of the people of this small island no less an amount than two billion pounds sterling! The more you examine this matter, the more you will come to the conclusion, that this foreign policy, this regard for the "liberties of Europe," this excessive love for "the balance of power," is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy of England.

When I think of that vast sum of two billion pounds sterling a vision passes before my mind's eye. I see the peasant laborer delve and dig, sow and reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old before the winter's blast. I see the noble mechanic, with his manly countenance and matchless skill, toiling at his bench or forge. I see one of the workers in our factories of the north, a

woman, a girl, it may be, gentle and good, intent upon the spindle, whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye fails to detect them, or watching the alternate flight of the unresting shuttle. I turn again to another portion of our population, which, "plunged in mines forgets a sun was made," and I see the man who brings up from the chambers of the earth the elements of the greatness and riches of his country. When I see all this, I have before me a mass of produce and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend than that two billion pounds; but I behold in it the hideous error of your government, whose fatal policy consumes in some cases a half, never less than a third, of all the results of that industry which God intended should fertilize and bless every home in England; but the fruits of which are squandered in every part of the surface of the globe, without producing the smallest good to the people of England.

JOHN BRIGHT, 1858.

CONSCIENCE.

(Translated from Hugo's Legend des Siècles.)

CAIN fled before the Lord, and with him went
His children, skin-clad, all with storm besprent.
The evening fell. The sad man sought repose
Where from the desert, a great mount arose.
His wife, exhausted, and his sons, outworn,
Slept on the ground, while he, the man forlorn,
Sat thinking, sleepless, at the mountain's base.
He raised his head, and right before his face,
Staring, wide open, in the blackened sky,
He saw regarding him a moveless Eye.

"I am too near," he said, and shook with fright,
Then waked the tired flock, and in the night
He fled away into the nameless space,

And thirty days and nights, with ceaseless pace,

He marched and marched, and shivered as he went,
Furtive and dumb, on every noise intent;

No rest, no sleep. At last upon the strand
Of ancient seas, where now is Syrian land,
He stood. "Stay here. In this asylum sure,
Here let us rest. The world goes on no more."
And as he sat, there flamed upon the sky
In that same far-off spot, the changeless Eye.
Ah, how he trembled in that Horror's grip!
"Hide me," he cried; and finger on their lip,
His sons gazed sadly on their father fierce.
Cain said to Jubal, prince of those who pierce
Deep in the desert with their tents of skin,
"Pitch here thy tent, and fence me safely in."
He did. He quick outspread the floating wall,
Staying its corners with the leaden ball.
"Dost see it now?" said Zillah, fairest child,
The daughter of his son, like morning mild.
"I see the Eye again," replied her sire.

Jubal, the chief of those who strike the lyre
And beat the drum amid the crowded street,
And sound the horn, with silver note and sweet,
Cried loud and long, "I swear to bar it out.”
He made a wall of bronze, and, scorning doubt,
Placed Cain behind, who cried, "I see the Eye."
Then Enoch spake : "Let us build towns high,
So terrible that nothing will come near:
Build up a city with a donjon drear."
Then Tubal Cain, the father of the forge,
Built up a city, horrible and large.
And while he labored, in the plain beneath
His brothers hunted down the sons of Seth,
Put out the eyes of all they took in war,
And shot their arrows at the evening star.
The tents gave place to walls of solid stone,
Each block kept steady by an iron zone.
The city seemed a very pit of hell.