From "Harper's Weekly." Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers. LINCOLN DELIVERING HIS ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG

to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

A MESSAGE

A message from the Sacred Heart!

What may Its message be?

"My child, my child, give Me thy heart -
My Heart has bled for thee."

This is the message Jesus sends
To my poor heart to-day,

And eager from His throne He bends.

To hear what I shall say.

-FATHER RUSSELL, S.J.

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN EARLY TIMES

France formerly possessed in North America a vast empire, extending from Labrador to the Floridas, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the shores of the most distant lakes of Upper Canada.

Four great rivers, deriving their sources from the same mountains, divided these immense regions: the river St. Lawrence, which is lost to the east in the gulf of that name, the Western River, whose waters flow on to seas unknown, the river Bourbon, which runs from south to north into Hudson's Bay; and the Mississippi, whose waters fall from north to south into the Gulf of Mexico.

The last-named river, in its course of more than a thousand leagues, waters a delicious country, called by the inhabitants of the United States the new Eden, to which the French left the pretty appellation of Louisiana. A thousand other rivers, tributaries of the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Illinois, the Arkansas, the Wabash, the Tennessee, enrich it with their mud and fertilize it with their waters. When all these rivers have been swollen by the deluges of winter, uprooted trees, forming large portions of forest torn by tempests, crowd about their sources. In a short time the mud cements the torn trees together, and they become enchained by creepers, which, taking root

in every direction, bind and consolidate the débris. Carried away by the foaming waves, the rafts descend to the Mississippi, which, taking possession of them, hurries them down toward the Gulf of Mexico, throws them upon sand banks, and so increases the number of its mouths. At intervals the swollen river raises its voice while passing over the resistless heaps, and spreads its overflowing waters around the colonnades of the forest, and the pyramids of the Indian tombs: and so the Mississippi is the Nile of these deserts.

But grace is always united to splendor in the scenes of nature; while the midstream bears away toward the sea the dead trunks of pine trees and oaks, the lateral currents on either side convey along the shores floating islands of pistias and nenuphars, whose yellow roses stand out like little pavilions. Green serpents, blue herons, pink flamingoes, and baby crocodiles embark as passengers on these rafts of flowers; and the brilliant colony, unfolding to the wind its golden sails, glides along slumberingly till it arrives at some retired creek in the river.

The two shores of the Mississippi present the most extraordinary picture. On the western border vast savannahs spread away farther than the eye can reach, and their waves of verdure, as they recede, appear to rise gradually into the azure sky, where they fade away. In these limitless meadows herds of three or four thou

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sand wild buffaloes wander at random. Sometimes, cleaving the waters as it swims, a bison, laden with years, comes to repose among the high grass on an island of the Mississippi, its forehead ornamented with two crescents, and its ancient and slimy beard giving it the appearance of a god of the river throwing an eye of satisfaction upon the grandeur of its waters, and the wild abundance of its shores.

Such is the scene upon the western border; but it changes on the opposite side, which forms an admirable contrast with the other shore. Suspended along the course of the waters, grouped upon the rocks and upon the mountains, and dispersed in the valleys, trees of every form, of every color, and of every perfume, throng and grow together, stretching up into the air to heights that weary the eye to follow.

Wild vines intertwine each other at the foot of these trees, escalade their trunks, and creep along to the extremity of their branches, stretching from the maple to the tulip tree, from the tulip tree to the hollyhock, thus forming thousands of grottoes, arches, and porticoes. Often, in their wanderings from tree to tree, these creepers cross the arm of a river, over which they throw a bridge of flowers. Out of the midst of these masses, the magnolia, raising its motionless cone surmounted by large white buds, commands all the forest, where it has no other rival than the palm