table principles of morals. The new Republic, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue, and right. The heart of Jefferson in writing the declaration, and of Congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind, and all coming generations, without any exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. As it was put forth in the name of the ascendant people of that time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world, passing every where through the despotic countries of Europe; and the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

HARD LINES.

IT'S hard to live a saint on whey,

When sinners drink the cream;

It's hard to be a middlin' man,
When a great man ye might seem.

It's hard to lift your hat to him
Ye ken to be a rogue;

It's hard to gie a doonricht "no"
To what is maist in vogue.

It's hard to speak the truth when lies Would earn you power and place; When Providence gies scanty fare, To say a hearty grace.

It's hard to be an honest man,
When rascals rule the roast;
It's hard to make self-sacrifice,
And yet to make no boast.

It's hard to hear lang-winded men.
Hold forth your ain conviction,
And not, in sheer disgust, at last,
To gie it contradiction.

It's hard to see mere money-bags
Tak' precedence of brains;
To find broadcloth will win a place
That broad sense never gains.

It's hard to hear some preachers ban 'Gainst worldliness and wine, When a' the time, ye brawly ken, They're o' anither min'.

It's hard to be a man at a',
And waur to be a woman,

But things will maybe tak' a turn,
So better days are comin'.

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP.

Found in the knapsack of a soldier of the Civil War after he had been

slain in battle.

NEA

EAR the camp-fire's flickering light,
In my blanket bed I lie,

Gazing through the shades of night
And the twinkling stars on high;
O'er me spirits in the air

Silent vigils seem to keep,

As I breathe my childhood's prayer,
"Now I lay me down to sleep."

Sadly sings the whip-poor-will
In the boughs of yonder tree;
Laughingly the dancing rill

Swells the midnight melody.
Foemen may be lurking near,

In the cañon dark and deep;
Low I breathe in Jesus' ear:

"I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep."

'Mid those stars one face I see-
One the Saviour turned away—
Mother, who in infancy

Taught my baby lips to pray;
Her sweet spirit hovers near

In this lonely mountain-brake.

Take me to her Saviour dear

"If I should die before I wake."

Fainter grows the flickering light,
As each ember slowly dies;
Plaintively the birds of night

Fill the air with sad'ning cries;
Over me they seem to cry:
"You may never more awake."
Low I lisp: "If I should die,

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take."

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.

THE INFLUENCE OF GREAT ACTIONS,

REAT actions and striking occurrences, having

GR

excited a temporary admiration, often pass away and are forgotten, because they leave no lasting results, affecting the welfare of communities. Such is frequently the fortune of the most brilliant military achievements. Of the ten thousand battles which have been fought; of all the fields fertilized with carnage; of the banners which have been bathed in blood; of the warriors who have hoped that they had risen from the field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as the stars, how few continue long to interest mankind! The victory of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of to-day; the star of military glory, rising like a meteor, like a

meteor has fallen; disgrace and disaster hang on the heels of conquest and renown; victor and vanquished presently pass away to oblivion, and the world holds on its course, with the loss only of so many lives and so much treasure.

But there are enterprises, military as well as civil, that sometimes check the current of events; that give a new turn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. We see their importance in their results, and call them great, because great things follow. There have been battles which have fixed the fate of nations. These come down to us in history with a solid and permanent influence, not created by a display of glittering armor, the rush of adverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the pursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing or retarding human knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing despotism, in extending or destroying human happiness. When the traveler pauses on the plains of Marathon, what are the emotions which strongly agitate his breast? what is that glorious recollection that thrills through his frame, and suffuses his eyes? Not, I imagine, that Grecian skill and Grecian valor were here most signally displayed, but that Greece herself was saved. It is because to this spot, and to the event which has rendered it immortal, he refers all the succeeding glories of the republic. It is because, if that day had gone otherwise, Greece had perished. It is because he perceives that her philosophers and orators, her poets and painters, her sculptors and