3. The civilized Goths, whose mission is now to contend with and humanize the wilderness of America, are the descendants of those Goths who for a time annihilated the ancient civilization of Europe; and the task of destruction which they so successfully accomplished, and which resulted, after all, in a great benefit to the human race, differed no less in its general nature from their present condition, than did the instruments by which it was effected differ from those by which the conquest of America is in the course of accom plishment. 4. The Roman state retained, in appearance, the same gi gantic proportions which belonged to it when it sat enthroned upon the whole civilized world. It was a vast but a hollow shell; outwardly imposing, but inwardly rotten to the core; and with the first stroke of the sword of Alaric, it crumbled into dust. The Goth was but the embodiment of the doom which had long impended over the empire of the Cæsars." a 5. He was but the appointed actor in the last scene of that historic destiny which had ruled the state since Romulus first watched the vulture's flight from the Palatine. For purposes inscrutable then, probably, but plain enough to every human intelligence at the present day, the civilization of Europe, after having reached and passed the highest possible point of refinement, was for the time annihilated. The Goth destroyed, but he did not rebuild. 6. Beneath the foot-print of the barbarian's war-horse, the grass withered and never revived. It was but a type of the utter exhaustion of the soil; and after the tempest had lain waste every vestige of the extraordinary culture which had, as it were, drained and impoverished the land, it lay fallow for ages before it was again susceptible of cultivation. The colonization of America was exactly the reverse of the pic ture. The race that had destroyed now came forward to civilize and humanize. a Al'-a-ric; king of the Visigoths. Cæsars; Julius Cæsar, Augustus Cæsar, &c., Roman emperors. c Rom'-u-lus; the founder of Rome. d Pal'-a-tine; one of the seven hills on which Rome was built. 7. The Goth of the fifth century, whose courser's hoof crushed every flower in his track, reäppears in the seventeenth, with his hand upon the plowshare, and cities spring up like corn-blades in every furrow which he traces through the wilderness. His task is but just begun. He has but entered upon his sublime mission; and it is to be expected that as many centuries as elapsed before the old world was ripened for his destroying scythe are again to be told, before he is to enjoy the perfected fruits of his present labors. LESSON VIII. FATE OF THE INDIANS. STORY. 1. THERE is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure extinction. Everywhere, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. 2. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. 3. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down; but they wept not. 4. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. 5. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave. 6. But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth; the sachems and the tribes; the hunters and their families? They have perished. They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No; nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores; a plague which the touch of the white man communicated; a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. 7. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already, the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still." 8. The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. 9. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which a Great Spirit; the name which the American Indians give to Deity. b Sachems Bà'chems) American Indian chiefs. It is chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them; no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel, that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of the race. LESSON IX. a THE CHEROKEE'S LAMENT. 1. O, SOFT falls the dew, in the twilight descending, And tall grows the shadowy hill on the plain; And night o'er the far distant forest is bending, Like the storm-spirit, dark, o'er the tremulous main; But midnight enshrouds my lone heart in its dwelling, A tumult of woe in my bosom is swelling, And a tear, unbefitting the warrior, is telling That Hope has abandoned the brave Cherokee! 2. Can a tree that is torn from its root by the fountain, b Though Vesper be kind her sweet dews in bestowing, 3. Loved graves of my sires! have I left you forever? As flies the fleet deer when the bloodhound is started, a Cherokee (Cher-o-kee' ;) one of a tribe of Indians recently living in Georgia, but now transferred to the Indian Territory. b Ves'per; the goddess of evening. O, could she have turned, ere forever departed, Whose wampum" of peace is the bow in the sky, LESSON X. TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. MELLEN. 1. WAKE your harp's music! - louder, — higher. And smite again each quivering wire, Shout like those god-like men' of old, On this blest soil their anthem rolled, 2. From native shore by tempest driven, And found, beneath a milder heaven, An altar rose, and prayers; a ray 3. They clung around that symbol, too, Wam'pum; strings of shells, used as money by the Indians. * England's shores b The Pilgrims |