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The farmer's calling is full of moral grandeur. He supports the world, is the partner of Nature, and peculiarly "a co-worker with God." The sun, the atmosphere, the dews, the rains, day and night, the seasons all the natural agents are his ministers in the spacious temple of the firmament.

Health is the attendant of his toils. The philosophy of Nature exercises and exalts the intellect of the intelligent farmer. His moral powers are ennobled by the manifestations of supreme love and wisdom in everything around himin the genial air, the opening bud, the delicate flower, the growing and ripening fruit, the stately trees-in vegetable life and beauty, springing out of death and decay; and in the wonderful succession and harmony of the seasons.

"These, as they change, Almighty Father! these

Are but the varied God. The rolling year

Is full of Thee."

We are now beholding a mighty moral revolution. Hitherto, glory has been sought in the destruction rather than the preservation of man. The history of our race is a history of wars. A better age is rising upon us, in which renown will be found in usefulness. Justice will yet be fully done to the benefactors of mankind. We trust that those who have labored in the cause in which we are now engaged-Young, and Watson, and Clinton, and Buel, and many others, both of the dead and the living, who have laid society under enduring obligations-will receive their share of the public gratitude. How dim, how fleeting, is the fame of the mere warrior, when contrasted with that of the civilian and the philanthropist ! What wasting battles, what fields enriched with carnage, what spoils of victory, or what splendid triumphs, could confer the lasting glory of De Witt Clinton!

CIV.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN MARCH 4, 1865,

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing to take the zath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended

address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have constantly been called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city, seeking to destroy it without war seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation.

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves--not distributed generally over the Union, but located in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected the magnitude or duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease, even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing his bread from the sweat of other men's faces.

But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer

of both should not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago; so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wound; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

ov.

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Oh for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,
Than reign a gray-beard king!

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
Away with learning's crown!
Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood's fount of flame!
Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame!

My listening angel heard the prayer, And calmly smiling, said,

If I but touch thy silvered hair,

Thy hasty wish hath sped.

"But is there nothing in thy track To bid thee fondly stay,

While the swift seasons hurry back To find the wished-for day?”

Ah, truest soul of womankind, Without thee, what were life? One bliss I cannot leave behind: I'll take-my-precious-wife!

The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,
“The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband too!"

"And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years!

Why, yes; for memory would recall My fond paternal joys;

I could not bear to leave them all: I'll take-my-girl-and-boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen, "Why, this will never do;

The man would be a boy again,

And be a father, too!"

And so I laughed, my laughter woke

The household with its noise,

And wrote my dream, when morning broke,

To please the gray-haired boys.

CVI.

ALL VALUE CENTERS IN MIND.

RICHARD EDWARDS.

Universal education the culture of every mind born into the world—is necessary: First, because the end of life, and of all things which concern it, is to minister to the needs of mind; and the greatest need that mind has is education. We have said that, as compared with communities, the individual is an end. But a further analysis shows that only the immortal part of him is so. Of all things in any degree entrusted to human management, the human mind is, beyond expression, of most worth, because it is the only thing which is valuable in and of itself. All other forms of existence are only means, to be used and valued so long as they contribute to the development, exaltation, or dignifying of mind, and then to be thrown aside like a worn-out implement, or a cast-off garment. Farms and houses, railroads and shipping, earth and stars, powers and principalities, things present and things to come, have just this one use, or they have none-- -to minister, in their feeble way, to the illimitable, eternal, infinite, necessities of mind. If anything in the range of human knowledge can be pointed to, of which it may be said that it does not contribute to the perfecting, in some way, of mind, then we say that that thing, whatever it may be, has no right to existence, and ought to be abolished.

How shall we test the usefulness of some material interest or possession? As, for an example, of a railroad or a farm? Are we told that a railroad is useful in increasing the facilities for intercourse between different portions of the country, in developing the

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