From him we may learn how to be patriots, and how patriotsm, like all other virtues, has its true root in piety. He did not miss the recompense of reward. He enjoys its heaven. He had it on earth-accomplishing the grand object of his life when, with victory and thanksgiving on his lips, his last gaze, ere he ascended to the heavenly Canaan, was fixed in dying raptures on the promised land; and though no nation with the tears of bitter grief and the pomp of public funeral followed their great leader to his grave, he was buried with higher honors-as some poet thus finely sings: "By Nebo's lonely mountain, On this side Jordan's wave, For the angels of God upturned the sod, "That was the grandest funeral Or voice of them that wept, "Perchance the bald old eagle, On gray Beth peor's height, Out of his rocky eyrie Looked on the wondrous sight: Still shuns that hallowed spot, For beast and bird have seen and heard That which man knoweth not. "But when the warrior dieth. His comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drum, They show the banners taken, And after him lead his masterless steed While peals the minute-gun. "Amid the noblest of the land Men lay the sage to rest, And give the bard an honored place, With costly marbles drest, In the great minster transept Where lights like glories fall, And the choir sings, and the organ rings "This was the bravest warrior That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word; And never earth's philosopher Traced with his golden pen, On the deathless page, truths half so sage "And had he not high honors ?The hillside for his pall, To lie in state while angels wait With stars for tapers tall; And the dark rock pines with tossing plumes Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand in that mountain land To lay him in the grave? "In that deep grave without a name, Whence his uncoffined clay Shall break again-most wondrous thought! Before the judgment-day; And stand with glory wrapped around On the hills he never trod, And speak of the strife that won our life "Oh, lonely tomb in Moab's land! Oh, dark Bethpeor's hill! Speak to these anxious hearts of ours God hath his mysteries of grace, Ways that we cannot tell; He hides them deep, like the secret sleep Of him he loved so well." MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER. W X. JOSHU A. HETHER descending from the snowy Alps, where flowers bloom on its margin, to melt away before the summer heat and pour from its icy cavern a turbid, roaring torrent, or descending through the drear desolation of Arctic regions to topple over the sea-cliff, and form the icebergs, the dread of mariners, that come floating like glittering castles and cathedrals into southern seas, the glacier is a river of ice-not of fluid, but of solid, water. Tossed into waves of many a fantastic form, and cracked with fissures that gape to swallow up the unwary traveler and bury him in their profound blue depths, this remarkable object, as may be seen in the Mer de Glace, possesses a wonderfully firm texture. Its ice rings to a blow, yet it climbs up slopes, turns the edge of opposing rocks, forces its way through narrow gorges, and, accommodating itself to the curves of the valley, advances with a slow but regular rate of progress. How this vast, continuous mass of ice, many miles. in length and hundreds of feet in thickness, is displaced and thrust forward and downward into the plains, was long, but is no longer, a mystery. It happens thus: Each succeeding winter covers the mountain-tops with fresh accumulations of snow; these, with their enormous weight pressing from above and behind on the partially plastic glacier which the frost forms out of their Enow, force it from its birthplace to seek room elsewhere. It de scends, it melts, and, changed into flowing streams, carries beauty to smiling valleys and fertility to far distant plains. By an analogous process, men, who naturally cling to their birthplace, and often, like trees that spread their roots on a naked rock, cling to it the closer the poorer it is, are constrained to obey the original command of God, and even against their will, "replenish the earth." Those Alpine valleys which have furnished us with a figure furnish a remarkable example of that fact. Walled in by stupendous mountains, whose heads are crowned with eternal snows and whose precipitous sides afford little else than footing for pines and food for wild goats, it is a very limited number of families they are able to support. Supplying to their stated inhabitants but the bare necessaries of life, they afford no room for increase of population. In consequence of this, as the birth exceeds the death rate, and numbers thereby accumulate, their pressure, like that of the snows on the glacier, forces the population outward, compelling them, though with bleeding hearts and tender memories of their dear mountainhome, to seek relief in emigration-room and bread elsewhere. Hence, whether born in Swiss or Italian valleys, the natives of the Alps are met with over the whole Continent. The pressure of population on the ordinary means of subsistence is as much felt in a small country hemmed in by the sea as in one hemmed in by mountains. Unlike trees, whose bark expands with their growth, the people cooped up in such a country are like a man sheathed in unelastic, iron armor. Destitute of energy, they remain at home, almost always on the borders, and frequently suffering the horrors, of famine. Educated and enterprising, they seek an outlet. They go abroad; and encountering alike the dangers of the sea and the hardships of the emigrant, they may be found in huts scattered on foreign and savage shores laying the foundations of future commonwealths. "The latter part scems to be specially assigned of God," says Dr. Guthrie, of Scotland, "to our country and our countrymen. |