W

LIBERTY AND UNION.

HILE the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and for our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!

When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards," but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,-LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!

L'

LILY'S BALL.

ILY gave a party,

And her little playmates all, Gayly drest, came in their best

To dance at Lily's ball.

Little Quaker Primrose

Sat and never stirred, And, except in whispers, Never spoke a word.

Tulip fine and Dahlia

Shone in silk and satin; Learned old Convolvulus

Was tiresome with his Latin.

Snowdrop nearly fainted,

Because the room was hot, And went away, before the rest, With sweet Forget-me-not.

Pansy danced with Daffodil,

Rose with Violet; Silly Daisy fell in love

With pretty Mignonette.

And when the dance was over,

They went down stairs to sup,
And each had a taste of honey-cake,
With dew in a Buttercup.

And all were dressed to go away
Before the set of sun;

And Lily said "Good-by!" and gave

A kiss to every one.

And before the moon, or a single star,

Was shining overhead,

Lily and all her little friends

Were fast asleep in bed.

SOLDIERS' NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG. Dedicatory Speech by President Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought

forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so conceived and so dedicatedcan long endure.

We are

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a large sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that, from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

HEAVEN.

THE

HE rose is sweet, but it is surrounded with thorns; the spring is pleasant, but it is soon past; the rainbow is glorious, but it vanisheth away; life is good, but it is quickly swallowed up in death!

3*

There is a place of rest for the righteous; in that land there is light without any cloud, and flowers that never fade. Myriads of happy souls are there, singing praises to God.

This country is Heaven; it is the country of those that are good; and nothing that is wicked must inhabit there. This earth is pleasant, for it is God's earth, and it is filled with delightful things.

But that country is better; there we shall not grieve any more, nor be sick any more, nor do wrong any more. In that country there are no quarrels; all love one another with dear love.

When our friends die, and are laid in the cold grave, we see them here no more; but there we shall embrace them, and never be parted from them again. There we shall see all the good men whom we read of. Jesus, who is gone before us to that happy place; there we shall behold the glory of that high God.

There we shall see

OUR COUNTRY.

E cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence;

vent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent.

And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages, and her harvest-home; with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-seas and her inland isles; with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn; with her beautiful Ohio and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister-families of one greater, better, holier family, - OUR COUNTRY?