muskets, and doffed their uniforms. The bugles that of old sounded the charge, and the drums that beat to battle, are now silent. The blades that flashed, and the bayonets that gleamed above their surging columns, no longer catch the sunlight. Grass grows in the fields whereon they struggled, and the rustle of ripened grain is heard where, but a while ago, the ring of steel made music that set men's blood aflame. What was our war? How should it be looked upon? It was not the result of men's ambition, North or South. It was not a contest for territory. It could not have been prevented, although it might have been postponed, by the action of any political party. Our war was simply fighting out, upon a new field, and under more enlightened auspices, a contest that had been waged for centuries among the people from whose loins we sprung. It was the clash of two civilizations, so antagonistic in their conceptions, so antipodal in their means and methods of development, as to make impossible harmony of action, or peaceful growth side by side. The North and South were in direct opposition, as to the best methods of governing and perpetuating the heritage left them by their fathers. Their conceptions were so radically different, that peaceful measures could not adjust or reconcile them. One or the other must yield. War came! The land that had known but peace echoed to the tread of armed men! Up from the land of the orange and the myrtle came mighty hosts, harnessed for conflict, chanting songs of battle, eager for the fight, sweeping with as fiery courage and as dauntless bearing to the onset as of old the men from out whose loins they sprung charged Saracenic hosts, or closed in deadly grapple with the knightly sons of France. From the land of the fir and the pine, down from its mountains and out from its valleys, glittering with steel, and bright with countless banners, steady and strong, the men of the North marched to the conflict. A hush as of death filled the land, as the mighty hosts confronted each other. An instant,—and the heavens seemed rent asunder, and the solid globe to reel. North and South had met in the shock of war! Blood deluged the land; the ear of pity deaf; the springs of love dried up; the throb of mighty guns; the gleam of myriad blades; the savage shouts of men grap pling each other in relentless clutch; Death, pale, pitiless, tireless, thrusting his awful sickle into harvest-fields where the grain was human life; bells from every steeple in the land tolling out their solemn notes of sorrow for the slain; fathers, mothers, wives, and little ones smiting their palms in agony together, as they looked upon the features of their loved ones marbled in the eternal sleep! For four long bitter years the mighty tide of war rolled through the land, engulfing in its crimson flood the best and bravest of the North and South, bearing their souls outwards, with resistless sweep, to that dread sea whose shores, to human eyes, are viewless, whose sombre waves are ever chanting solemn requiems for the dead! In this wild storm of war the banners of the South went down. The bells of liberty through all the land rang out a joyous peal of welcome, and guns from fortress, field, and citadel thundered greeting to the hour that proclaimed America one and indivisible. From southern gulf to northern lakes, from northern lakes to Atlantic and Pacific coasts, we were ONE. The Mississippi flowed not along the borders of a dozen empires; the blue waters of the lakes beat not upon the shores of rival governments; the mountains of the land frowned not down upon hostile territories; the ocean bore not upon its bosom the fleets of contending States; but over all the land a single flag threw out its folds, symbol of victory, index of a reunited people. We recall the glories and the triumphs of the Union, not for the purpose of humiliating the gallant souls that battled against us. In the providence of God, the struggle they made to rend us asunder has but strengthened the bonds of our union. Those who fought against us are now of us, and enjoy the countless blessings that have come from the triumph of the Union, and with us they should bow their heads and reverently acknowledge that above all the desires of men move the majestic laws of God, evolving, alike from victory or defeat of nations, substantial good for all His children. GEORGE AUGUSTUS SHERIDAN. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. (Written in 1867, when the women of Columbus, Mississippi, strewed flowers impartially on the graves of Confederate and Federal soldiers, and by the courtesy of Ivison, Blakeman & Co., of New York, adopted from "Swinton's Fifth Reader.") By the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, These, in the robings of glory; Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours, Lovingly laden with flowers, Alike for the friend and the foe,- So, with an equal splendor, Waiting the judgment-day: Broidered with gold, the Blue; Mellowed with gold, the Gray. So, when the summer calleth, Sadly, but not with upbraiding, No more shall the war-cry sever, When they laurel the graves of our dead,- FRANCIS MILES FINCH PART VIII. NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. CENTENNIAL OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. AT a World's Fair, or Exposition, held at Philadelphia, during the year 1876, commencing May 10, and opened with prayer by Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the following patriotic hymn, composed by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, was sung: CENTENNIAL HYMN. Our fathers' God, from out whose hand Here, where of old, by Thy design, Be with us while the New World greets |