down these western slopes, till they met and mingled with the waves of the Pacific-the full unison echoing here through all your streets and homes, Rally round the Flag, boys! Rally once again! How well they followed the flag through four fateful years; how high they lifted it amid the tempest of battle; how often they baptized it with brave young blood and blessed it dying; how they bore it on to full and final victory, and planted it where we think no hand of man shall ever assail it again, is a story we need not tell to-day. It has been blackened and torn on many a field and in many a hurtling storm, but never dishonored. It is all the dearer and more sacred for its rents and its wounds. And though so mangled and torn, it is still one whole flag. All the stars are there. Some of them, with mad centrifugal movement, sought to break from their orbit and dismember the glorious constellation. But the centripetal force was mightier yet, and held them fast in that indivisible stellar Union. And coming through such peril of loss, and waving above us to-day so restored and complete, it has for us and mankind lessons of warning and of hope, of fidelity and duty, which are the war's legacy to the nation and to history and which we shall do well to learn and to remember. LOYALTY.-HORACE BUSHNELL. LOYALTY, then, is no subject of law or legal definition. It belongs entirely to the moral department of life. It is what a man thinks and feels and contrives, not as being commanded, but of his own accord, for his country and his country's honor-his great sentiment, his deep and high devotion, the fire of his habitual or inborn homage to his country's welfare. It goes before all constitutions, and by the letter of all statutes, to do and suffer, out of the spontaneous liberties of right feeling, what the petty constructions and laggard judgments of the State cannot find how to compel. It does not measure itself by what the Constitution or the laws prescribe. It has no art of contriving, for itself and others, how to hide from the country behind the Constitution. Why the supreme law requires not one of the duties that are so genuinely great and true in loyalty; to volunteer body and life for the country; to stand fast where leaders are incompetent and armies reel away in panic before the foe; to send off to the field, as bravely consenting women do, husbands, sons, and brothers, the props and protectors of home; to wrestle day and night in prayer, as Christian souls are wont, bearing the nation as their secret burden, where, for sex, or age, or infirmity, they cannot do more; to come forward as protectors and helpers of the children made fatherless; to give money and work and prepare expeditions of love to mitigate the hardships of the wounded in their hospitals; to vote with religious fidelity for what will help and save the country, rising wholly above the mercenary motives and selfish trammels of party-why the supreme law requires not one of these, nor, in fact, any thing else that belongs to a loyal and great soul's devotion; how then is it the measure and bound of loyalty? PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LAST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:-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 avert it. While the Inaugural Address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in this city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide 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 localized over 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 EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 91 the Union, even by war: while the Government claimed no right to do more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamentai 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 men could dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses 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 offense 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 bond man'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 with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward 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 wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. ANNIVERSARY OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. FLING the flags out, grand and glorious, Red with blood of battles won, Over rebel bands victorious, Let them greet the rising sun. On the land and on the ocean Gone the gloom of wrong and error, Fills the land from sea to sea: On the mountain, in the valley, Raise aloft the stripes and stars; Let the sons of labor rally. Mightier in their strength than Mars! Labor is the only king, Working out in lowly station Nobler deeds than poets sing. THE SOLDIER'S RETURN. "THREE years! I wonder if she'll know me! "The darling! how I long to see her! My heart outruns this feeble soldier pace; But I remember, after I had left, A little Charlie came to take my place; Ah! how the laughing three-year-old brown eyes (His mother's eyes) will stare with pleased surprise! COMPANY K. "Sure, they'll be at the corner watching! I sent them word that I should come to-night; Twittering their welcome with a wild delight; "Three years-perhaps I am but dreaming, For, like the pilgrim of the long ago, I've tugged a weary burden at my back, Through summer's heat and winter's blinding snow, Till now I reach my home, my darling's breast, There I can roll my burden off—and rest.” When morning came the early rising sun Over two lowly mounds was lightly creeping, COMPANY K. THERE is a cap in the closet, O very slight value It may be to you: But a crown, jewel-studded, Brave "Co. K." The head that it sheltered Needs shelter no more: Dead heroes make holy The trifles they wore. 93 |