Through battle and strife,

Through blood and through deathı,
Came a glorious life,-

'Twas Liberty's birth!

Through the smoke of that conflict pervading the skies, Behold the day-star of Liberty rise!

2. In the gathering gloom
Of that perilous hour,
When our fathers o'erturned
The mad tyrant's power;
Through darkness and storm,
By night and by day,
The pure light of freedom
Illumined the way:

'Twas then, O Columbia! 'mid carnage and war,
First dawned on the world thy bright natal star!

3. On Lexington's sward,

Down Bunker's steep side,

From the breasts of the slain
Ran the crimson life-tide;
Across Delaware's stream,

Through bleak Valley Forge,
Where blood marked their steps

In that wild mountain gorge;

Still Freedom's blest hope those heroes led on
To battle and death, till triumph was won.

4. On Camden's hot plains,

By Brandywine's wave,

The cohorts of foemen

Found many a grave;

And Yorktown's proud rampart
In vain raised its side

'Gainst the wild rushing surge
Of Liberty's tide;

In a halo of glory, o'er land and o'er sea,
Now floats in glad triumph the flag of the free!

5. From hill-top and mountain,
From valley and plain,
Ring glad shouts from millions
For Liberty's reign ;
The forest and prairie,

The ocean and stream,

In the sunlight of freedom
With new luster gleam;

While our bright starry banner, wherever unfurled,
Is humanity's beacon, the hope of the world!

6. Say, sons of the martyrs

In Freedom's cause slain,
Shall the strong hand of tyrants
This land rend in twain?
By the blood of those martyrs
For you freely given,

By the prayers of the millions

Ascending to heaven,

Go, kneel at the graves of your fathers, and swear
That our flag shall still float in Freedom's pure air!

LESSON CXXVI.

1 XERX' ES, (Zerks' es,) the celebrated King of Persia, was the son of Darius. He succeeded his father, 485 B.C., and raised an army of 1,700,000 foot and 80,000 horse, besides camels, chariots, and ships of war. While the Pass of Thermopyla was defended by Leonidas and

his Spartans, Themistocles rallied his countrymen, and defeated Xerxes at the battle of Salamis, 480 B.C. (Refer to note in Fourth Reader.) GRAC' CHUS, Tiberius and Caius, two brothers, Roman tribunes, who having urged the revival of the agrarian laws, which required a division of the public lands among the people, were successively slain in a tumult raised by the senators and nobles. The mother of the Gracchi was Cornelia, the daughter of the famous Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal in the battle of Zama, and humbled the pride of Carthage, at the close of the Second Punic War, 202 B.C.

'HER' MANN, or Arminius, a brave German patriot and soldier, who for some time supported a bloody war against Rome, but was at last defeated by Germanicus, and subsequently poisoned through the treachery of one of his friends, A.D. 19.

*TELL, WILLIAM, was a peasant, born near Altorf, in Switzerland, and celebrated for his resistance to the tyranny of Gesler, an Austrian governor. He was compelled to shoot an apple from his son's head for refusing to bow to Gesler's hat elevated on a pole. Being a skillful archer, he cleft the apple without injury to his son.

5 SPARTA CUS, a native of Thrace, became a soldier in the Roman army, and, having deserted, was sold as a slave, and finally numbered with the gladiators condemned to destroy each other for the amusement of the people. Having made his escape, he collected a band of desperadoes, and, for a long time, bade defiance to the whole power of Rome. He was at last, however, defeated by the Romans under Crassus, 71 B.C.

'WAT THE TYLER. In the reign of Richard II., King of England, a polltax of three groats was levied on each male and female above the age of fifteen. The proceedings of the collectors of these taxes were of the most inquisitorial character; and their insults to the young women became so odious, that they were resisted by the people. One Walter the Tyler, having knocked a tax-gatherer on the head for insulting his daughter, was made chief of the insurgents; and hence the popular rising of the people is known as Wat the Tyler's Rebellion.

Of the atoms in the whirlwind,
Of the seed beneath the ground,
Of each living thing in Nature
That is bound.

'Twas the cry that led from Egypt,
Through the desert wilds of Edom,—
Out of darkness, out of bondage,
"On to Freedom! on to Freedom!"

2. O thou stony-hearted Pharaoh,
Vainly warrest thou with God!
Moveless at thy palace-portals,
Moses waits with lifted rod!
O thou poor barbarian Xerxes,1
Vainly o'er the Pontic main
Flingest thou to curb its utterance
Scourge or chain!

For the cry that led from Egypt,

Over desert wilds of Edom,

Speaks alike through Greek and Hebrew,"On to Freedom! on to Freedom!"

3. In the Roman streets, from Gracchus,2
Hark! I hear that cry out-swell;
In the German woods, from Hermann ;3
And on Switzer hills, from Tell1!
Up from Spartacus,5 the bondman,
When his tyrant's yoke he clave;
And from stalwart Wat the Tyler,
Saxon slave!

6

Still the old, old cry of Egypt,
Struggling out from wilds of Edom,
Sounding down through all the ages,-
"On to Freedom! on to Freedom!"

4. God's own mandate, "On to Freedom!"

Gospel-cry of laboring Time,

Uttering still, through seers and heroes,
Words of hope and faith sublime!
From our Sidneys, and our Hampdens,
And our Washingtons, they come ;
And we can not, and we dare not,
Make them dumb!

Out of all the shames of Egypt,
Out of all the snares of Edom,

Out of darkness, out of bondage,
"On to Freedom! on to Freedom!"

LESSON CXXVII.

ADDRESS TO THE RETURNED SOLDIERS.

REV. J. M. MANNING.

SOLDIERS from the army and navy, once soldiers, but

now again citizens, we hail you to-day as our benefactors and deliverers. We welcome you home from the fatigues of the march, the wearisome camp, and the awful ecstasy of battle. Through four terrible years you have looked without quailing on the ghastly visage of war. You have patiently borne the heats of summer and the frosts of winter. You have cheerfully exchanged the delights of home for the hardships of the campaign or blockade. Not only the armed foe, but the wasting malaria, has lurked along your resistless advance.

2. You know the agony and the transport of the deadly encounter. How many times, standing each man at his post, in the long line of gleaming sabers and bayonets,