It is thus that every people is attached to its country, just in proportion as it is free. No matter if that country be in the rocky fastnesses of Switzerland, amidst the snows of Tartary, or on the most barren and lonely island-shore; no matter if that country be so poor as to force away its children to other and richer lands, for employment and sustenance; yet when the songs of those free homes chance to fall upon the exile's ear, no soft and ravishing airs that wait upon the timid feastings of Asiatic opulence ever thrilled the heart with such mingled rapture and agony as those simple tones. Sad mementos might they be of poverty and want and toil; yet it was enough that they were mementos of happy freedom. And more than once has it been necessary to forbid by military orders, in the armies of the Swiss mercenaries, the singing of their native songs.

And such an attachment, do I believe, is found in our own people, to their native country. It is the country of the free; and that single consideration compensates for the want of many advantages which other countries possess over us. And glad am I that it opens wide its hospitable gates to many a noble but persecuted citizen, from the dungeons of Austria and Italy, and the imprisoning castles and citadels of Poland. Here may they find rest, as they surely find sympathy, though it is saddened with many bitter remembrances!

Yes, let me be free; let me go and come at my own will; let me do business and make journeys, without a vexatious police or insolent soldiery to watch my steps; let me think and do and speak what I please, subject to no limit but that which is set by the common weal; subject to no law but that which conscience binds upon me; and I will bless my country, and love its most rugged rocks and its most barren soil.

I have seen my countrymen, and have been with them a fellow-wanderer, in other lands; and little did I see or feel to warrant the apprehension, sometimes expressed, that foreign travel would weaken our patriotic attachments. One sigh for home-home, arose from all hearts. And why, from palaces and courts-why, from galleries of the arts, where the marble softens into life, and painting sheds an almost living presence of beauty around it-why, from the moun

tain's awful brow, and the lovely valleys and lakes touched with the sunset hues of old romance-why, from those venerable and touching ruins to which our very heart grows— why, from all these scenes, were they looking beyond the swellings of the Atlantic wave, to a dearer and holier spot of earth their own, own country? Doubtless, it was, in part, because it is their country. But it was also, as every one's experience will testify, because they knew that there was no oppression, no pitiful exaction of petty tyranny; because that there, they knew, was no accredited and irresistible religious domination; because that there, they knew, they should not meet the odious soldier at every corner, nor swarms of imploring beggars, the victims of misrule; that there, no curse causeless did fall, and no blight, worse than plague and pestilence, did descend amidst the pure dews of heaven; because, in fine, that there, they knew, was liberty—upon all the green hills, and amidst all the peaceful valleys-liberty, the wall of fire around the humblest home,—the crown of glory, studded with her ever-blazing stars,upon the proudest mansion!

My friends, upon our own homes that blessing rests, that guardian care and glorious crown; and when we return to those homes, and so long as we dwell in them-so long as no oppressor's foot invades their thresholds, let us bless them, and hallow them as the homes of freedom! Let us make them too the homes of a nobler freedom-of freedom from vice, from evil, from passion-from every corrupting bondage of the soul.

THE QUAKER AND THE ROBBER.-SAMUEL LOVER.

A traveler wended the wilds among,

With a purse of gold and a silver tongue;

His hat it was broad, and all drab were his clothes,
For he hated high colors-except on his nose;

And he met with a lady, the story goes.

The damsel she cast him a merry blink,

And the traveler was nothing loth, I think!

Her merry black eye beamed her bonnet beneath,
And the Quaker he grinned, for he'd very good teeth;
And he asked, “Art thou going to ride on the heath?”

"I hope you'll protect me, kind sir," said the maid,
"As to ride this heath over I am sadly afraid;
For robbers, they say, here in numbers abound,
And I wouldn't for anything I should be found:
For between you and ine I have five hundred pound."

"If that is thine own, dear," the Quaker said,
"I ne'er saw a maiden I sooner would wed;
And I have another five hundred just now,
In the padding that's under my saddle-bow:
And I'll settle it all upon thee, I vow!"

The maiden she smiled, and the rein she drew,
"Your offer I'll take, though I'll not take you!"
A pistol she held to the Quaker's head-
"Now give me your gold, or I'll give you my lead:
'Tis under the saddle, I think you said."

And the damsel ripped up the saddle-bow,
And the Quaker was ne'er a quaker till now;
And he saw by the fair one he wished for a bride,
His purse drawn away with a swaggering stride,
And the eye that looked tender now only defied.

"The spirit doth move me, friend Broadbrim," quoth she,
"To take all this filthy temptation from thee;
For mammon deceives, and beauty is fleeting.
Accept from thy maiden a right loving greeting,
For much doth she profit by this happy meeting.

"And hark, jolly Quaker, so rosy and sly,
Have righteousness more than a lass in your eye;
Don't go again peeping girls' bonnets beneath,
Remember the one you met on the heath:
Her name's Jimmy Barlow-I tell to your teeth."

"Friend James," quoth the Quaker, "pray listen to me,
For thou canst confer a great favor, d'ye see?

The gold thou hast taken is not mine, my friend,
But my master's-and truly on thee I depend
To make it appear I my trust did defend.

"So fire a few shots through my coat here and there,
To make it appear 'twas a desperate affair."

So Jim he popped first through the skirts of his coat, And then through his collar, quite close to his throat; "Now once through my broadbrim," quoth Ephraim, “I vote.”

ONE HUNDRED CHOICE SELECTIONS.

"I have but a brace," said bold Jim," and they're spent,
And I won't load again for a make-believe rent."
"Then," said Ephraim, producing his pistols, "just give
My five hundred pounds back, or, as sure as you live,
I'll make of your body a riddle or sieve."

Jim Barlow was diddled-and though he was game,

He saw Ephraim's pistol, so deadly in aim,

That he gave up the gold, and he took to his scrapers;

And when the whole story got into the papers,

They said that the thieves were no match for the Quakers.

RABBONI.-M. J. PRESTON.

Of all the nights of most mysterious dread

This elded earth hath known, none matched in gloom,
That crucifixion night when Christ lay dead,—
Sealed up in Joseph's tomb!

No faith that rose sublime above the pain,
Remembered in its anguish what He said:
"After three days and I shall rise again,"--
Their hopeless hearts were dead.

Throughout the ghastly "Preparation Day,"
How had that stricken mother dragged her breath!
Like all of Adam born, her "God-given " lay
Beneath the doom of death.

The prophecy she nursed through pondering years
Of apprehension, now had found its whole
Fulfillment, infinite beyond her fears,-
The sword had pierced her soul!

The vehement tears of Peter well might flow,
Mixed with the wormwood of repentant shame;
Now would he yield his life thrice told, if so
He might confess the name

He had denied with curses. Fruitless were
The keen remorses now, the gnawing smart;

A heavier stone than sealed the sepulchre
Was rolled above his heart.

Surprise and grief and baffled hopes sufficed

To rush as seas their souls and God between; Yet none of all had mourned the buried Christ, As Mary Magdalene.

When all condemned, He bade her live again,-
When all were hard, His pity moved above
Her penitent spirit, healed it, cleansed its stain,
And made it pure with love.

And she had broken all her costliest store
O'er him whose tenderness, so new, so rare,
Stood, like a strong, white angel, evermore
"Twixt her and mad despair.

And He was dead!-Her peace had died with Him!
The demons who had fled at His control,
With sevenfold chains within their dungeons dim,
Would henceforth bind her soul.

How slowly crept the Sabbath's endless week!
What aching vigils watched the lingering day,
When she might stagger through the dark and seek
The garden where He lay!

And when she thrid her way to meet the dawn,
And found the gates unbarred,- -a grieving moan
Broke from her lips-" Who" (for her strength was gone,)
"Will roll away the stone?"

She held no other thought, no hope but this:

To look-to touch the sacred flesh once more,Handle the spices with adoring kiss

And help to wind him o'er

With the fair linen Joseph had prepared,—
Lift reverently the wounded hands and feet,
And gaze, one blinded, on the features bared,
And drink the last, most sweet

Divine illusion of his presence there,

And then, the embalming done, with one low cry Of utmost, unappeasable despair,

Seck out her home and die.

Lo, the black square that showed the opened tomb!
She sprang--she entered unafraid-and swept
Her arms outstretching, groping through the gloom,
To touch Him where he slept.