with my saddle-bags by my side. As I lay in the dust of the road my old gray mare run up the hill, and as she turned the top she waved her tail back at me, seemingly to say-fare ye well, brother Watkins ah! I tell you, my brethering, it is affecting times to part with a congregation you have been with for over thirty years ah!" JOHN B. GOUGH. UNION AND LIBERTY. FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame! Up with our banner bright, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry Union and Liberty! One evermore! Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation, Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee, Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, Then with the arms to thy millions united, Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law! No more thy glassy brook reflects the day; The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, A breath can make them, as a breath has made: weu, oroiner Watkins-ah! Behind them sot the boys and girls that I had baptized and gathered into the Sabbathschool. Many times had they been rude and boisterous, but now their merry laugh was hushed, and in the silence I could hear-fare ye well, brother Watkins - ah! Around, on the back seats, and in the aisles, stood and sot the colored brethering, with their black faces and honest hearts, and as I looked upon them I could see a-fare ye well, brother Watkins -ah! When I had finished my discourse and shaken hands with the brethering-ah! I passed out to take a last look at the old church- ah! the broken steps, the flopping blinds, and moss-covered roof, suggested only -fare ye well, brother Watkins-ah! I mounted my old gray mare, with my earthly possessions in my saddlebags, and as I passed down the street the servant-girls stood in the doors, and with their brooms waved me a fare ye -- And keep the flame from wasting by repose: I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return, and die at home, at last. - O blessed retirement! friend to life's decline, A youth of labor with an age of ease; Who quits a world where strong temptations try,, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly! So on he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue's friend; Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, GOLDSMITH. UNION AND LIBERTY. FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, Borne through their battlefields' thunder and flame, Blazoned in song and illumined in story, Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame! Up with our banner bright, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry Union and Liberty! One evermore! Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation, Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee, Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, Then with the arms to thy millions united, Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law! Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us, Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun! Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry Union and Liberty! One evermore! O. W. HOLMES. TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE.* If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts, — you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his country. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated him because he had beaten them in battle. * Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has been pronounced one of the greatest statesmen and generals of the nineteenth century, saved his master and family by hurrying them on board a vessel at the insurrection of the negroes of Hayti. He then joined the negro army, and soon found himself at their head. Napoleon sent a fleet with French veterans, with orders to bring him to France at all hazards. But all the skill of the French soldiers could not subdue the negro army; and they finally made a treaty, placing Toussaint L'Ouverture governor of the island. The negroes no sooner disbanded their army, than a squad of soldiers seized Toussaint by night, and taking him on board a vessel, hurried him to France. There he was placed in a dungeon, and finally starved to death. Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army- out of what? Englishmen, the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen, the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen,—their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. Now, blue-eyed Saxon, proud of your race, go back with me to the commencement of the century, and select what statesman you please. Let him be either American or European; let him have a brain the result of six generations of culture; let him have the ripest training of university routine; let him add to it the better education of practical life; crown his temples with the silver locks of seventy years, and show me the man of Saxon lineage for whom his most sanguine admirer will wreathe a laurel, rich as embittered foes have placed on the brow of this negro, — rare military skill, profound knowledge of human nature, content to blót out all party distinctions, and trust a state to the blood of its sons, anticipating Sir Robert Peel fifty years, and taking his station by the side of Roger Williams, before any Englishman or American had won the right; and yet this is the record which the history of rival States makes up for this inspired black of St. Domingo. |