THE IDEA OF A STATE.

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THE IDEA OF A STATE.

"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."-Proverbs xiv. 34.

WHAT Constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound,

Thick wall, or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride;
No-men, high-minded men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued,

In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude:

Men, who their duties know,

But know their rights; and, knowing, dare maintain;

Prevent the long-aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain.

These constitute a State;

And sovereign Law, that State's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

Smit by her sacred frown,

The fiend Dissension like a vapour sinks;

And e'en the all-dazzling Crown

Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.

THE PATRIOT AND THE MARTYR.

PATRIOTS have toiled, and in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds as they deserve, Receive proud recompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic muse, Proud of the treasure, marches with it down

To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass
To guard them, and to immortalize her trust :
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,
To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth,

THE PATRIOT AND THE MARTYR.

Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood,
Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed,
And for a time ensure to his loved land,

The sweets of liberty and equal laws;
But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize,

And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed

In confirmation of the noblest claim

Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,

To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar and to anticipate the skies.

Yet few remember them.

They lived unknown

Till Persecution dragged them into fame,

And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew
-No marble tells us whither. With their names

No bard embalms and sanctifies his song.

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He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,

Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth
Of no mean city; planned or ere the hills
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea
With all his roaring multitude of waves.
His freedom is the same in every state;
And no condition of this changeful life,
So manifold in cares, whose every day
Brings its own evil with it, makes it less:
For he has wings that neither sickness, pain,
Nor penury, can cripple or confine;

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there
With ease, and is at large.

CONTENTMENT.

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CONTENTMENT.

"Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."-Proverbs xv. 16, 17.

THINK'ST thou the steed that restless roves
O'er rocks and mountains, fields and groves,
With wild, unbridled bound,

Finds fresher pasture than the bee
On thymy bank, or vernal tree,
Intent to store her industry

Within her waxen round?

Think'st thou the fountain, forced to turn
Through marble vase, or sculptured urn,
Affords a sweeter draught

Than that which, in its native sphere

Perennial, undisturbed, and clear,

Flows, the lone traveller's thirst to cheer,
And wake his grateful thought?

Think'st thou the man whose mansions hold
The worldling's pomp, and miser's gold,
Obtains a richer prize

Than he who in his cot, at rest,
Finds heavenly peace a willing guest,
And bears the promise in his breast

Of treasure in the skies?