THE

THE POWER OF FREE IDEAS.

HE American Revolution was not the struggle of a class, but of a people. A two-penny tax on tea or paper was not the cause, it was only the occasion of the Revolution. The spirit which fought the desperate and disastrous battle on Long Island was not a spirit which could be guided by the promise of sugar gratis. The chance of success was slight; the penalty of failure was sure; but they believed in God; they kissed wife and child, left them in His hand, and kept their powder dry.

Then to Valley Forge, the valley of the shadow of death, with feet bleeding upon the sharp ground, with hunger, thirst, and cold dogging their steps; with ghastly death waiting for them in the snow, they bore that faith in ideas which brought their fathers over a pitiless sea to a pitiless shore. Ideas were their food; ideas were their coats and camp-fires. They knew that their ranks were thin and raw, and the enemy trained and many; but they knew, also, that the only difficulty with the proverb that "God fights upon the side of the strongest," is that it is not true. If you load your muskets with bullets only, the result is simply a question of numbers; but one gun loaded with an idea is more fatal than the muskets of a whole regiment. A bullet kills a tyrant, but an idea kills tyranny.

What chance have a thousand men fighting for a sixpence a day against a hundred fighting for life and liberty, for home and native land? In such hands the weapons themselves feel and think. And so the family firelocks and rusty swords, the horse-pistols and old scythes of our fathers thought terribly at Lexington and Monmouth, at Saratoga and Eutaw Springs. The old Continental muskets thought out the whole Revolution. The English and Hessian arms were better and brighter than ours, but they

were charged with saltpetre; ours were loaded and rammed home with ideas.

Why is it that of late years there is a disposition to smile at the great faith of our fathers, to excuse it, to explain it away, or even to sneer at it as an abstraction or a glittering generality? Have modern rhetoricians found something surer than moral principles? Have they discovered a force in politics subtler and more powerful than the Divine law? or a loftier object of human government than universal justice? You may pluck the lightning harmless from the clouds, but there is no conductor for the divine rage of a people demanding its national rights.

What are your spears, O Xerxes? what are your slings, proud Persian, with your two million soldiers sheeting the plains of Greece with splendor and roaring, like the jubilant sea, along the Pass of Thermopyla? There stands Leonidas with his three hundred, rock-like; and they beat you back with an idea.

Bourbon of Naples! You may extinguish Etna, but the fire that burns in the Sicilian heart is immortal, inextinguishable.

Yes! it is an idea, invisible, abstract, but it has molded all human history to this hour. Liberty is justified of her children. Whom does the world at this moment fold to its heart? Who are held up before our eyes by Providence, like bullets plainly displayed before they are dropped into the barrel and shot home to the mark of God's purpose? Who now walk through the world, each step giving life and liberty and hope to the people? By the blessing of God, the contest has changed from the sword to the ballot; and the hope of liberty secured by law was never in the history of man so bright as it is today.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

"Whither away, O miller of Dee?
Whither away so late?"

Asked the tollman old, with cough and sneeze,
As he passed the big toll-gate.

But the miller answered him never a word,
Never a word spake he.

He paid his toll, and he spurred his horse,
And rode on with his children three.

"He's afraid to tell!" quoth the old tollman, "He's ashamed to tell!" quoth he.

"But I'll follow you up and find out where You are going, O miller of Dee!"

The moon was afloat,

Like a golden boat

Nearing the shore of the sky,

When, with cough and wheeze,

And hands on his knees,

The old tollman passed by.

"Whither away, O tollman old?

Whither away so fast?"

Cried the milkmaid who stood at the farm-yard bars,

When the tollman old swept past.

The tollman answered her never a word;
Never a word spake he.

Scant breath had he at the best to chase
After the miller of Dee.

แ "He won't tell where!"
Said the milkmaid fair,
"But I'll find out!" cried she.
And away from the farm,
With her pail on her arm,

She followed the miller of Dee.

The parson stood in his cap and gown,

Under the old oak tree.

"And whither away with your pail of milk,
My pretty milkmaid ?" said he;

But she hurried on with her brimming pail,
And never a word spake she.

"She won't tell where!" the parson cried. "It's my duty to know," said he.

And he followed the maid who followed the man, Who followed the miller of Dee.

After the parson, came his wife,
The sexton he came next.
After the sexton the constable came,
Troubled and sore perplext.

After the constable, two ragged boys,

To see what the fun would be;

And a little black dog, with only one eye,

Was the last of the nine who, with groan and sigh,

Followed the miller of Dee.

Night had anchored the moon,

Not a moment too soon,

Under the lee of the sky;

For the wind it blew,

And the rain fell, too,

And the river of Dee ran high.

He forded the river, he climbed the hill,
He and his children three;

But wherever he went they followed him still,
That wicked miller of Dee!

Just as the clock struck the hour of twelve
The miller reached home again;

And when he dismounted and turned-behold!
Those who had followed him over the wold
Came up in the pouring rain.

Splashed and spattered from head to foot,

Muddy and wet and draggled,

Over the hill and up to the mill,
That wet company straggled.

They all stopped short; and then out spake
The parson, and thus spake he:
"What do you mean by your conduct to-night,
You wretched miller of Dee?"

"I went for a ride, a nice cool ride,

I and my children three;

For I took them along, as I always do,"

Answered the miller of Dee.

"But you, my friends, I would like to know Why you followed me all the way?"

They looked at each other-" We were out for a walk, A nice cool walk !" said they.

EVA L. OGDEN.