Lo! from the regions of the North Fastens on the Olynthian towers. Where rests the sword ?-where sleep the brave? Awake! Cecropia's ally save From the fury of the blast. Bursts the storm on Phocis' walls. Up! or Freedom breathes her last. The jarring States, obsequious now, Borne by the tide of words along, Let us conquer him, or die." Ah, Eloquence, thou wast undone, And blotted out the stars of heaven. When Liberty from Greece withdrew, To where the Tiber pours his urn, Now, shining forth, thou mad'st compliant Sinking fast in Slavery's arms. I see thee stand by Freedom's fane, First-born of Liberty divine, Put on Religion's bright array ; Rise, kindling with the orient beam; Unfold the garments rolled in blood. ANONYMOUS. THE PATRIOTIC DEAD. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By fairy hands their knell is rung, WILLIAM COLLINS. PART VII. AMERICA SURVIVES THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS. INTRODUCTION. ON the Fourth of July, 1888, the battle-field of Gettysburg was made memorial of the prediction uttered by President Lincoln at its dedication as a national cemetery in 1864, that "The nation shall, under God, have a new birth of power; and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The contest of 1861-65 removed from the national life that serious element of danger which the fathers left for their posterity to settle. The rights of all sections rested upon one charter. The moral law of abstract right did not harmonize with the possessory rights of a well-accepted legal status, and only a charity and wisdom more than human could bring a full accord without the crucial test of arms. The more powerful North bent its vast energies of numbers and wealth to preserve the Union of the States. The South, inferior in numbers and resources, affirmed with equal spirit its right of withdrawal, unless the legal tolerations of the Constitution should have their fullest effect. The issue joined, satisfied all interests, after marvellous sacrifice; and the Union is clothed with fresh strength and more permanent beauty. Already a sense of relief from the estrangement of brethren which harassed the original colonies, and worried the nation to the verge of ruin, inspires poets and orators with enlarged faith in the national future. Already the republic, purified by fire and by blood, looks backward, to honor with fresh enthusiasm each recurring anniversary of the nation's birth, and then, in the glory of a second birth, turns forward, to 304 concentrate its vision, as through the perspective glass of Bunyan, upon the development of an "indestructible Union of indestructible States." The ordeal of arms came to an end! The lingering ordeal of cooling passion has entered upon a fraternal solution. Impartial history softens the hardness of old-time antagonisms, and mag nifies the patriotism of a people which can conquer self to bless the many. Mr. Curtis, the orator of Gettysburg, only voiced the sentiment of all "good-willing men on earth" as he said, "If there be joy in heaven this day, it is in the heart of Abraham Lincoln as he looks down upon the field of Gettysburg." To General Gordon, the very ground seemed holy, as if the union of the Blue and the Gray, in dust, only typified a spiritual union above, and their benediction on the survivors who gain a more enduring fellowship through their mingled blood. "No conflict now!" was the breathing of General Devens when he welcomed the visiting soldiers of the South at the Bunker Hill celebration in Charlestown, Massachusetts, June 17, 1875. "The moral sentiment of the nineteenth century has ended slavery!" was the great utterance of Justice Lamar, as he unveiled the statue of John C. Calhoun, at Charleston, South Carolina, April 26, 1888. The heart-longing of Alexander H. Stephens, as he watched the unveiling of Carpenter's picture of the Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, "Separate as billows, but one as the sea!" finds responsive prayer in every loyal American soul. "Again brethren and equals !" rings out, in the voice of ex-Senator Patterson, while he assists to dedicate a monument to the sons of New Hampshire who fell in the great contest. "Under the same banner now, its folds unrent, and its bright stars unobscured," is the sentiment through which Governor Ross, of Texas, calls upon the veterans of Hood's Texas brigade, July 4, 1887, to welcome their brethren of the North into a full identity of interest, State and national. "Let us rejoice together!" is the jubilant refrain of General George A. Sheridan in his apotheosis to" Immortal Heroes," when, with outstretched arm, he swings out the banner of our love, that all shall see in its clustered constellation the full roster of all the planets present. Oliver Perry Morton, in his last speech made in his own State, Indiana, on Decoration Day, 1877, thus spoke: "We will let by-gones be by-gones. We cannot forget the past, we ought not to forget it. True reconciliation does not require us to forget these dead, does not require us to forget the living soldier, and to cease to do him justice. We say to those who were on the other side of that great contest, that while we shall forever cherish the lessons that were taught us by that great struggle, all we ask of them is, that they shall hereafter stand upon these principles: the great doctrine of equal liberty, and of equal rights to all, and equal protection to all, and, let us go forward, hand in hand, and as Americans and bretheren, through all the future pages of our country's history. In like spirit, William H. Fleming, on a Memorial Day, at Augusta, Georgia, April 28, 1885, thus spoke: Without abating one jot or tittle of loyal devotion to the memory of our Confederate dead, we can here, in the presence of their graves, turn our eyes to heaven and exclaim, Thank God! slavery, that material curse and moral incubus, has been lifted from our sky! Yes! even though it could spend its fury only in the lightning and thunder of war. No State will ever again resort to secession from the Union, as a remedy for wrongs present or prospective. Mr. Webster's prayer is answered; for the sun will never again shine upon "the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; upon States discordant, dissevered, belligerent." The motto upon the ensign of the republic, now full high and advanced, is, by universal consent, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." The dream of the Massachusetts poet, Duganne, had its marvellous realization; but the soldiers and statesmen of all sections now sympathize with all bereaved ones, and recognize the valor of all who passed under the flail of discipline which his enthusiasm invoked. HARVEST AND VINTAGE. I DREAMED of a wonderful harvest,— All bound in sheaves, like corn in the leaves, |