hear their cry and to help them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic from its mercy; venerable from its utility; uplifted, without pride; firm, without obduracy; beneficent in each preference; lovely, though in her frown! On that justice I rely; deliberate and sure, abstracted from all party purpose and political speculation, not on words, but on facts. You, my lords, who hear me, I conjure, by those rights it is your best privilege to preserve; by that fame it is your best pleasure to inherit; by all those feelings which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature-our controlling rank in the creation. This is the call on all, to administer to truth and equity, as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves with the most exalted bliss possible or perceivable for our nature, the self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world! Ex. CLXIX.-TURKISH PERFIDY. KOSSUTH. TO-DAY is the anniversary of our arrival at Kutahja! Kutahja! the tomb, where the Sublime Porte has buried us alive, whilst speaking to us of hospitality. Pursued by misfor tune we stopped before the threshold of the Mussulman, and asked from him, in the name of God, in the name of humanity: in the name of his religion, a hospitable asylum, or a free pas sage. The Turkish government had entire liberty to receive us or not. It had the right of saying: I will give you shelter in a prison, or in some distant place where you will be detained and strictly guarded. This is the hospitality which Turkey offers you. If it does not please you, hasten your departure, rid us of your embarrassing presence. This was not said to The Sublime Porte deigned to open to us its sheltering tent; it entreated us to cross the threshold, and swore by its God and its faith that it would grant us hospitality and a safe asylum. We trusted ourselves to the honor of the Turks. We eat of their bread and of their salt; we reposed under their roof. We prayed to God to bless them, and we offered them our courage, our experience matured by vicissitudes, and our everlasting gratitude. And Hungarians keep their word. Look at Bosnia, where Mussulmen, subjects of the Sublime us. Porte, are revolted against it. A handful of Hungarian soldiers are in the ranks of its army-it is but a handful, for the Porte would not accept more. Well! who are first upon the breach? who are first in the charge? who are they who never retreat, who advance in the midst of fire and grape-shot, bayonet in hand, to victory? They are this handful of exiles. They die for Turkey; the Hungarian keeps his word. They offered us hospitality, and they gave us a prison: they swore to us that we should meet with an asylum, and we have found banishment. God will judge; and God is just. We have suffered; but for the sake of not causing embarrassment, we have been silent. They begged us to have confidence. We have shown it. They begged us to wait. We have waited long. They said to us, it is only until Austria shall succeed in re-establishing that which the despots call order (the order of oppression,) that which they call tranquillity (the tranquillity of the tomb.) Well, she has re-established this order, this tranquillity, by her executions. She has re-established it so far as to dare to provoke Prussia to war; so far as to dare, trusting to the support of her master, the Czar, to encroach upon the nations of Europe, to extend her forces from the Baltic to Rome; so far as to threaten Piedmont and Switzerland; so far as to bribe the border provinces of Turkey to revolt,-she has re-established this tranquillity, she has even announced its re-establishment to the Sublime Porte; and we are still prisoners. I most solemnly protest against this act. I appeal from it to the eternal justice of God, and to the judgment of all humanity. Ex. CLXX.-THE TRIUMPH OF KUBLAI KHAN. A LEGEND OF CHINA. THE heroes were tall and terrible chaps, Two peacocks' feathers in each of their caps, BARHAM Their shoulder-guards, and breast-plates fair, Carried a terrible silken shield, Pictured whereon was a hideous face, To fright the foemen out of the field. Each at his back a banner bore; Through a hollow bamboo its staff was thrust; And of the placards, behind and before, That called him "brave," and this, "robust." The fence was framed, and the swords were drawn; All heroes of one stamp; With very deliberate tramp. When they almost met their Tartar foe, Who towards them came at a swifter pace, They stopped at once, in a fearful row, And held their shields out towards his face; Then, working secret wires within, But lo and behold! the Tartar Khan Was not prepared to take the hint; And "Ho!" said he, "you may grin and squint !" Shun-fo ran away. I know not which might soonest hie, By the current of air, so fast their flight; And they showed no feather, except the white. And as they ran, the bold placard That proclaimed them "brave," was their shield and guard. Their flight had turned it towards the Khan, Who never perceived they were brave, till they ran. The Tartar bold pursued their flight, And cleft them down from crown to heel; And his eyes gleamed bright with his grim delight, And now, And the empress spake, and said, “O, Khan, You will not be afraid of a match with us. So whet your sword on the edge of your shield, Kublai bowed with infinite grace, To slaughter men I have little care;- So the empress bowed low, with most lady-like ease, Oh! a wonderful man was the Tartar Khan, And he conquered in love whom he could n't in fight. Ex. CLXXI.-THE TRUE REFORMERS. H. GREELEY. To the rightly constituted mind, to the truly developed man, there always is, there always must be, opportunityopportunity to be and to learn, nobly to do and to endure; and what matter whether with pomp and eclat, with sound of trumpets and shout of applauding thousands, or in silence and seclusion, beneath the calm, discerning gaze of Heaven? No station can be humble on which that gaze is approvingly bent; no work can be ignoble which is performed uprightly, and not impelled by sordid and selfish aims. Not from among the children of monarchs, ushered into being with boom of cannon and shouts of reveling_millions, but from amid the sons of obscurity and toil, cradled in peril and ignominy, from the bulrushes and the manger, come forth the benefactors and saviours of mankind. So when all the babble and glare of our age shall have passed into a fitting oblivion, when those who have enjoyed rare opportunities, and swayed vast empires, and been borne through life on the shoulders of shouting multitudes, shall have been laid at last to rest in golden coffins, to molder forgotten, the stately marble their only monuments, it will be found that some humble youth, who neither inherited nor found, but hewed out his opportunities, has uttered the thought which shall render the age memorable, by extending the means of enlightenment and blessing to our race. The great struggle for human progress and elevation proceeds noiselessly,—often unnoted, often checked and apparently baffled, amid the clamorous and debasing strifes impelled by greedy selfishness and low ambition. In that struggle, maintained by the wise and good of all parties, all creeds, all climes, bear ye the part of men. Heed the lofty summons, and, with souls serene and constant, prepare to tread boldly in the path of highest duty. So shall life be to you truly exalted and heroic; so shall death be a transition neither sought nor dreaded; so shall your memory, though cherished at first but by a few humble, loving hearts, linger long and gratefully in human remembrance, a watchword to the truthful and an incitement to generous endeavor, freshened by the proud tears of admiring affection, and fragrant with the odors of heaven! |