He reared the pure ensign of Ceres Grew royal, when kissed by the sun: What rock-rooted forces must bow! Come! crown him with corn-leaf and wheat-leaf, -Paul Hamilton Hayne. Copyright, 1882, by D. Lothrop Company. Used by permission. In civic strife we have little use for men who mean well, but do so feebly. The man who makes himself a force for cleanliness, for civic righteousness, is the man who counts. First he must have honesty, then courage, for the timid good man avails little in doing the world's work. Lastly, and above all, he must have common sense. Without this he is at the mercy of those who, without his desire to do right, know only too well how to make wrong effective. -Theodore Roosevelt. To do one's next duty is to take a step towards all that is worth possessing. It is the one step which may be taken without regard to consequences; and there is no successful life which is not made up of steps thus consecutively taken. Josiah Gilbert Holland. THE STAR OF EMPIRE. Gentlemen, I came here to confer with you as friends and countrymen, to speak my own mind and hear yours; but if we all should speak, and occupy as much time as I have, we should make a late meeting. I shall detain you no longer. I have been long in public life, longer, far longer than I shall remain there. I have had some participation for more than thirty years in the councils of the nation. I profess to feel a strong attachment to the liberty of the United States, to the Constitution and free institutions of this country, to the honor, and I may say the glory, of my native land. I feel every injury inflicted upon it, almost as a personal injury. I blush for every fault which I think I see committed in its public councils, as if they were faults or mistakes of my own. I know that, at this moment, there is no object upon earth so much attracting the gaze of the intelligent and civilized nations of the earth as this great republic. All men look at us, all men examine our course, all good men are anxious for a favorable result to this great experiment of republican liberty. We are on a hill and cannot be hid. We cannot withdraw ourselves either from the commendation or the reproaches of the civilized world. They see us as that star of empire, which half a century ago was represented as making its way westward. I wish they may see it as a mild, placid, though brilliant orb, moving athwart the whole heavens to the enlightening and cheering of mankind, and not as a meteor of fire and blood, terrifying the nations. -Daniel Webster. Speech at Marshfield, 1848. ORESTES AND PYLADES BEFORE IPHIGENIA. In the land of Tauris, in distant Thrace, there stood upon the shores of the Black Sea a temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis. In this temple a beautiful Greek maiden, Iphigenia, served the goddess as priestess of the altar. She was the daughter of Agamemnon, the king of the Achaians, and a strange fate had brought her to this savage land. When her father, with all the host of Greeks, was ready to set sail against Troy, he was hindered by the goddess Artemis, who suffered no favoring wind to blow upon the ships, and her anger could only be appeased by the sacrifice of the king's own daughter. So the maiden was taken from her mother, carried to Aulis, and laid upon the altar. But just as Agamemnon was about to slay her, the goddess relented and snatched away Iphigenia, leaving a kid in her place. She bore her to the Tauric land and made her the priestess of the temple, where it was her duty to consecrate to death upon the altar all Greek men soever, who were so unfortunate as to visit that coast. One day, as Iphigenia was ministering in the temple, a herdsman entered in great excitement and reported that two strangers, both of them Greeks, had been captured among the rocks on the seashore, and that the king of the land was sending them to her to prepare them for death. As he spoke the guards entered with two youths, comely and of gentle breeding. Now, Iphigenia had a great longing to hear some news of her native land, for she had left there a mother and a young brother, Orestes by name, whom she dearly loved; and she longed beside to know the fate of Troy. So, when she looked upon the strangers and saw that they were well-favored, she motioned them to approach that she might question them. From them she learned strange tidings; how King Agamemnon was dead, slain by the hand of his own wife; and how that wife in turn had been killed in vengeance by her son Orestes; how her sister Electra was married to Pylades; and how Orestes himself wandered, homeless and unhappy, pursued by the Furies for his unnatural deed. When Iphigenia learned that Orestes was still alive, hope sprang up in her heart and she resolved to write a letter to him, describing her strange fate, and send it home by one of the strangers. And first she offered the errand to the sad-faced youth, promising him his life in return for the service, while his friend must stay and be slain a sacrifice for both. But he answered as became a prince: "Most base it is That one should in misfortune whelm his friends, And he bade her send his companion, Pylades, with her letter, for to himself death was not unwelcome. Iphigenia, although marveling at his strange "yearning unto death," consented, and presently prepared a letter which she gave to Pylades with instructions to find young Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, the king of the Achaians, and deliver it into his own hands. "An easy task," ex claimed Pylades, and straightway handed the letter to his sad young companion. Young Orestes, for it was he, was filled with joy at finding his sister, whom he had supposed long dead; but their happiness was marred by the danger in which they stood. Even if they could elude the attendants of the temple and King Thoas, how could they hope to carry away the image of Artemis which was the object for which the young Greeks had landed? Orestes had been able to find no peace from the torment of the Furies since he had taken his mother's life, and in despair he had besought Apollo for aid. The god told him there was but one way to purchase peace. He must go to Tauris, bear away the statue of Artemis, and set it up in Attica. This, then, was the fateful chance which had brought him thither in his swift-oared ship. The The quick wits of a woman were not to be baffled even by these difficulties, and Iphigenia soon arranged a plan of escape. She declared to King Thoas that the Grecian youths were polluted by murder and unfit to be laid upon the altar until they had been purified in the sea. statue, too, which had been defiled by their unholy hands, must be cleansed. In this way she gained his permission to lead the youths to the shore, bearing the statue herself. Here she feigned to perform mysterious rites while the guards, at her command, waited behind the rocks and crags along the shore. But after a long delay, the latter became alarmed, and when they reached the spot they found the three just about to embark on a large galley. After a fierce struggle the |