GENIUS.

Far out at sea the wave was high,While veered the wind and flapped the sail;We saw a snow-white butterflyDancing before the fitful gale,Far out at sea!The little creature, which had lostIts mate, of danger little knew;Settled awhile upon the mast,Then fluttered o'er the waters blue,Far out at sea!Away it danced with shimmering glee,Now dim, distinct, now seen, now gone:Night comes, with wind and rain, but heNo more shall dance before the morn,Far out at sea!He dies unlike his mates, I ween,Perhaps not sooner or more crossed;But he has known, and felt, and seen,A wider, larger hope, though lostFar out at sea!

The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-'64: Its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to Exhibit especially its Moral and Political Phases, with the Drift and Progress of American Opinion respecting Human Slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. ByHorace Greeley. Illustrated by Portraits on Steel of Generals, Statesmen, and other Eminent Men; Views of Places of Historical Interest; Maps, Diagrams of Battle Fields, Naval Actions, etc., from official sources. Vol. I. Hartford: Published by O. D. Case & Co. Chicago; Geo. & E. W. Sherwood. 1864.

It is not our intention here to enter into any critical analysis of the volume before us, but rather to give the reader an idea of what he may find within it, in the words of Mr. Greeley himself. It is inscribed to Mr. Bright, under the following dedication: 'To John Bright, British Commoner and Christian Statesman, the Friend of my Country, because the Friend of Mankind, this Record of a Nation's Struggle up from Darkness and Bondage to Light and Liberty, is regardfully, gratefully inscribed by the Author.'

Mr. Greeley says in his preface: 'No one can realize more fully than I do that the History through whose pages our great-grandchildren will contemplate the momentous struggle whereof this country has recently been and still is the arena, will not and cannotnowbe written; and that its author must give to the patient, careful, critical study of innumerable documents and letters, an amount of time and thought which I could not have commanded, unless I had been able to devote years, instead of months only, to the preparation of this volume. I know, at least, what History is, and how it must be made; I know how very far this work must fall short of the lofty ideal.' ... 'What I have aimed to do, is so to arrange the material facts, and so to embody the more essential documents, or parts of documents, illustrating those facts, that the attentive, intelligent reader may learn from this work, not only what were the leading incidents of our civil war, but its causes, incidents, and the inevitable sequence whereby ideas proved the germ of events.' ... 'My subject naturally divides itself into two parts: I.How we got into the war for the Union; and II.How we got out of it. I have respected this division in my cast of the present work, and submit this volume as a clear elucidation of the former of these problems, hoping to be at least equally satisfactory in my treatment of the latter.' ... 'I shall labor constantly to guard against Mr. Pollard's chief error—that of supposing that all the heroism, devotedness, humanity, chivalry, evinced in the contest, were displayed on one side; all the cowardice, ferocity, cruelty, rapacity, and general depravity, on the other. I believe it to be the truth, and as such I shall endeavor to show, that, while this war has been signalized by some deeds disgraceful to human nature, the general behavior of the combatants on either side has been calculated to do honor even to the men who, though fearfully misguided, are still our countrymen, and to exalt the prestige of the American name.'

The sale of the work before us has been immense. Such has been the demand for Vol. I. of 'The American Conflict,' that the publishers have found it impossible to supply the demand, even with regard to agents and subscribers. The subscription list already numbers 60,000, although but one fourth of the Free States have been canvassed.

Leading heads of chapters are: I. Our Country in 1782 and in 1860. II. Slavery in America prior to 1776. III. Slavery in the American Revolution. IV. Slavery Under the Confederation. V. The Convention of 1787 and the Federal Constitution, VI. Slavery after 1787. VII. Missouri—The Struggle for Restriction. VIII. State Rights—Resolutions of '98. IX. Abolition—Its Rise and Progress. X. The Churches on Slavery and Abolition. XI. The Pro-Slavery Reaction—Riots. XII. Texas and her Annexation to the United States. XIII. The Mission of Samuel Hoar to South Carolina.XIV. War with Mexico—Wilmot Proviso. XV. The Struggle for Compromise in 1850. XVI. The Era of Slave Hunting—1850-'60. XVII. The Nebraska-Kansas Struggle. XVIII. Case of Dred Scott in the Supreme Court. XIX. Our Foreign Policy—Monroe—Cuba. XX. John Brown and his Raid. XXI. The Presidential Canvass of 1860. XXII. Secession Inaugurated in South Carolina. XXIII. The Press and the People of the North Deprecate Civil War. XXIV. Attempts at Conciliation in Congress. XXV. Peace Democracy at the North and Peace Conference at Washington. XXVI. The Union versus the Confederacy. XXVII. The Pause before the Shock. XXVIII. Siege and Reduction of Fort Sumter. XXIX. The Nation Called to Arms—and Responds. XXX. Secession Resumes its March. XXXI. The Opposing Forces in Conflict. XXXII. West Virginia Clings to the Union. XXXIII. The War in Old Virginia. XXXIV. First Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress. XXXV. The Rebellion and War in Missouri. XXXVI. War on the Seaboard and the Ocean. XXXVII. Kentucky Adheres to the Union. XXXVIII. The Potomac—Ball's Bluff. Notes and Analytical Index.

This work demands an extended review, and the readers ofThe Continentalmay again hear of it. Meantime the most varied estimates will be formed of its merits; as various as the political tenets held by its readers.

It is illustrated, containing Heads of President and Cabinet, Eminent Opponents of the Slave Power, Confederate Chieftains, Union Generals, Confederate Generals, Union Naval Officers, Plans of Battles, etc., etc.

Down in Tennessee, and Back by Way of Richmond. ByEdmund Kirke, Author of 'Among the Pines,' 'My Southern Friends,' etc. New York: Carleton, publisher, 413 Broadway. 1864.

The author of this work, having been familiar with the South in days more tranquil, had 'a desire to study the undercurrents of popular sentiment, and to renew his acquaintance with former friends and Union prisoners,' and so visited the Southwest in May last: the present volume thus originated. We cannot very readily discern how much of this work is fact, how much fiction. We have the Union scout, the poor white, the negro, and other elements belonging both to the romance and reality of Southern life in these days of struggle. Are the exquisitely simple and heart-touching thoughts and expressions which fall from the lips of the poor white or scout, actually true, or are they the coinage of Mr. Kirke's own vivid fancy? Notwithstanding the hideous jargon in which they occur, if real they evince a high soul, even in the midst of ignorance, and are the gems of the work. The book ends with a detailed account of the author's introduction to Colonel Jaques, and their subsequent visit to Richmond, an episode in our history quite as curious as the Sanders and Greeley conference at Clifton House, and one which has excited quite as wide an interest. Mr. Kirke says of the poor whites: 'I have endeavored to sketch their characters faithfully—extenuating nothing and setting nothing down in malice—that the reader may believe what Iknow, that there is not in the whole North a more worthy, industrious, loving class of people than the great body of poor Southern Whites. Take the heel of the man-buying and woman-whipping aristocrat from off their necks, give them free schools, and a chance to rise, and they will make the South, with its prolific soil, its immense water power, and its vast mineral wealth, such a country as the sun never yet looked upon, and this Union such a Union as will be the light of nations and the glory of the earth!'

Poems of the War. ByGeorge H. Boker. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864. New York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Boker has attained, what his more elaborate efforts sometimes lack, fire, concentration, and energy, in these 'Poems of the War.' We thank him heartily that he has taken the glories of our country and the sufferings and deeds of our dauntless soldiers as his theme. Patriotism has inspired him, and the ever well-tuned chords of his lyre ring out with bolder and more soul-stirring melody than of old. 'On Board the Cumberland,' 'The Sword Bearer,' 'The Ballad of New Orleans,' 'Crossing at Fredericksburg,' 'The Black Regiment,' 'In the Wilderness,' are truly national poems, and should be read at every hearthstone in our land. We quote the closing lines from 'Upon the Hill before Centreville':

'Oh, let me not outlive the blowThat seals my country's overthrow!And, lest this woful end come true,Men of the North, I turn to you.Display your vaunted flag once more,Southward your eager columns pour!Sound trump and fife and rallying drum;From every hill and valley come!Old men, yield up your treasured gold;Can liberty be priced and sold?Fair matrons, maids, and tender brides,Gird weapons to your lovers' sides;And, though your hearts break at the deed,Give them your blessing and God-speed;Then point them to the field of fame,With words like those of Sparta's dame!And when the ranks are full and strong,And the whole army moves along,A vast result of care and skill,Obedient to the master will,And our young hero draws the sword,And gives the last commanding wordThat hurls your strength upon the foe—Oh, let them need no second blow!Strike, as your fathers struck of old,Through summer's heat and winter's cold;Through pain, disaster, and defeat;Through marches tracked with bloody feet;Through every ill that could befallThe holy cause that bound them all!Strike as they struck for liberty!Strike as they struck to make you free!Strike for the crown of victory!'

While we honor our brave soldiers and their glorious deeds, let us also honor their bards,

'Nor suffer them to steal,Unthanked, away, to weep beside the harp,Dejected, prayerful, while the fields are won.'

Broken Lights: An Inquiry into the Present Condition and Future Prospects of Religious Faith. ByFrances Power Cobbe. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 1864.

A book of decided ability, however much we may regret the conclusions arrived at by its author. Contents of Part I. are: The Present Condition of Religious Faith. Chapter I. The Great Problem. II. The Solutions of the Problem, Historical and Rational, Palæologian and Neologian. Under the head of Palæologian we have The High Church Solution, the Low Church Solution; under Neologian we have the First Broad Church Solution, the Second Broad Church Solution. We have then the Solutions of the Parties Outside the Church, Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch, and Renan's 'Vie de Jesus.' Part II. gives us 'The Future Prospects of Religious Faith.' Under the head of Rational, we have the Rationalist Solution of the Problems, The Faith of the Future, Theoretic Theism, and Practical Theism.

Our author is of the school of Theodore Parker, a Theist. 'Three great principles—the absolute goodness of God; the final salvation of every created soul; and the divine authority of conscience—are the obvious fundamental canons of the Faith of the Future.' We continue our quotations: 'God will not leave us when all our puny theologies have failed us, and all our little systems shall have had their day and ceased to be. We shall yet praise Him who is the light of life, even though the darkness may seem to gather round us now. Christianity may fail us, and we may watch it with straining eyes going slowly down from the zenith where once it shone; but we need neither regret that it should pass away, nor dread lest we be left in gloom.Let it pass away—that grand and wonderful faith! Let it go down, calmly and slowly, like an orb which has brightened half our heaven through the night of the ages, and sets at last in glory, leaving its train of light long gleaming in the sky, and mingling with the dawn. Already up the East there climbs another Sun.' Again: 'The faith, then, for which we must contend—the faith which we believe shall be the religion of future ages—must be one founded on the Original Revelation of Consciousness, not on the Traditional Revelation of Church or Book—a faith, not resting for its sole support on the peculiar History of one nation, but rated by the whole history of humanity.' ... 'The view which seems to be the sole fitting one for our estimate of the character of Christ, is that which regards him as the great REGENERATOR of Humanity.His coming was to the life of humanity what Regeneration is to the life of the individual.He has transformed the Law into the Gospel. He has changed the bondage of the alien for the liberty of the sons of God. He has glorified Virtue into Holiness, Religion into Piety, and Duty into Love.'

What a perpetual stumbling block in the way of all unbelief is the marvellous character of Christ! We may strive to throw away the record, but He remains a living forcewithin the soul forever. The Theist would miss Him even in his certain heaven!

We think we have given, in the few short extracts above, enough to enable our readers to perceive the standpoint from which this work is written. It is a clear statement of the dogmas held, the reasons for their adoption, and the hopes of what is styled the Church of the Future. Of the ability of many of its adherents there can be no doubt. The contest is upon the children of Faith. Let them meet it with candor, fairness, prayer, love, profound biblical and scientific erudition, and may God comfort us with His eternal truth!

Dramatis Personæ. ByRobert Browning. Boston: Ticknor & Field. New York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

This book has been already reviewed by the English critics, who are always appreciative of Browning's merits, and tender to his faults. It is as wilful as its predecessors, as unintelligible, as fragmentary, its rhythm as distorted and broken, its diction as peculiar, its sequences as disconnected. Yet we think it shows gleams of higher poetic talent than anything he has yet published. It contains eighteen poems. 'A Death in the Desert' is an imaginary portrayal of the death of St. John in his old age in a cave, to which he had been taken by some faithful adherents to save him from persecution. It is a sketch of power and originality. St. John is supposed to speak:

'If I live yet, it is for good, more loveThrough me to men: be nought but ashes hereThat keeps awhile my semblance, who was John—Still when they scatter, there is left on earthNo one alive whoknew(consider this!)—Saw with his eyes and handled with his handsThat which was from the first the Word of Life.How will it be when none more saith 'I saw?''

Very original and very disagreeable in its highly wrought and subtile Realism is 'Caliban upon Setebos, or Natural Theology in the Island,' a study from Shakspeare's 'Tempest.' It is a curious exposition of the philosophy of such a being. At the close, when Caliban, who speaks in the third person, is beginning to think of Setebos, 'his dam's god,' as not so formidable after all, a great storm awakes, which upsets all his reasoning, and makes him fall flat on his face with fright:

'What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes,There scuds His raven that hath told Him all!It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The windShoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,And fast invading fires begin! White blaze—A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there,His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,Will let those quails fly, will not eat this mouthOne little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!'

'Mr. Sludge, the Medium,' one of the longer poems, is intended, according to rumor, to demolish Mr. Home, and includes some sharp thrusts at various persons who still patronize him after having found him guilty of fraud.

The story runs that a lady and gentleman of eminence, devout spiritualists, residing at Rome, confessed to Mr. Browning that during Mr. Home's stay at their house they once forbade his putting his hand under the table, and the spirits wouldn't rap, and Home burst into tears, and confessed thaton that occasion onlyhe had deceived them; that on one other occasion he had put phosphorus on the tips of wires and stretched them from the roof of their house to represent certain spiritual apparitions. 'And what did you say, how did you act, upon the discovery?' asked Mr. Browning. 'Oh,' replied the lady, 'I rebuked him severely; told him plainly how shameful it was that one who had been so supernaturally gifted should act so, and told him that he ought to repent.' 'And he still remained with you, and—' 'Oh, yes, we are perfectly sure that everything was genuine afterward.' Upon which the poet was so disgusted that he vented his indignation in 'Mr. Sludge.'

Fireside Travels. ByJames Russell Lowell. 'Travelling makes a man sit still in his old age with satisfaction, and travel over the world again in his chair and bed by discourse and thoughts.'—The Voyage of Italy, by Richard Lassels, Gent. Boston; Ticknor & Fields. 1864.New York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Lowell says, in big short preface: 'The greater part of this volume was printed ten years ago inPutnam's MonthlyandGraham's Magazine. The additions (most of them about Italy) have been made up, as the original matter was, from old letters and journals written on the spot. My wish was to describe not so much what I went to see, as what I saw that was most unlike what one sees at home. If the reader find entertainment, he will find all I hoped to give him.'

And a churl he surely were if he find it not; for a right pleasant book it is to read—genial and full of the real Lowell humor, almost as characteristic as Jean Paul's,der einzige. 'Cambridge Thirty Years Ago' will carry many of our most distinguished men back to the sunny days of youth, while the boys of to-day will be delighted to know how it fared with them then and there. Contents: Cambridge Thirty Years Ago; A Moosehead Journal; Leaves from My Journal in Italy and Elsewhere; At Sea; In the Mediterranean; Italy; A Few Bits of Roman Mosaic.

There is no use in praising a book of Lowell's; everybody knows, reads, and loves him.

Simonson's Circular Zoological Chart.A Directory to the Study of the Animal Kingdom. Published by Schermerhorn, Bancroft & Co., 130 Grand street, New York, and 25 North Fourth street, Philadelphia.

This chart must prove a valuable guide to the teacher, and a great aid to the student of Natural History. It appears to have been carefully compiled from modern standard works, and is divided and subdivided as accurately as the limited space allows. It is a vast aid to the memory, showing at a glance the classification of the animal kingdom; and, bringing together the various groups of animals on one page, it stamps its complicated lesson on the mind through the rapid power of the eye. When the enormous number of species is considered, the advantage of such a chart may be readily imagined. It may be used as an introduction by the teacher, or side by side with any text book. We heartily recommend it to notice.

Perce's Magnetic Globes.A very ingenious invention is here offered to the public through Mr. J. F. Trow, of 50 Greene street, New York. It consists of a hollow Globe made of soft iron, and Magnetic Objects, representing the races of mankind, animals, trees, light-houses, are supplied with it, which,adhering to the surface, illustrate clearly the attraction of gravitation, the rotundity of the earth, its diurnal motion, the changes of day and night, and many other things very difficult to make intelligible to children. Teachers will find this globe and its magnetic objects of incalculable value in affording facilities for striking illustrations of principles, problems, and various terrestrial phenomena.

No. 1. Library, 12 inches in diameter, revolving brass meridian$22.00No. 2. Library, 12 inches, plain stand16.00No. 3. Student's, 5 inches, revolving brass meridian5.00No. 4 Student's, 5 inches, plain stand3.50No. 5. Primary, 3 inches, plain stand2.50

Suitable Magnetic Objects accompany each Globe.

Christus Judex. A Traveller's Tale. ByEdward Roth. Philadelphia: Frederick Leypoldt. 1864.

A singular romance, interwoven of the art life of the Old, and the forest life of the New World. The main character is theGreat Stone Face, already immortalized by the lamented Hawthorne. It is here presented to us under a new aspect, and while we think that even those grand old rocks fail to embody the glorious ideal of a Christus Judex, we must acknowledge the pleasure we have derived from the fanciful descriptions and pleasant associations offered us in this dainty little volume.

Christmas is again upon us, dear readers; we may almost hear the gathering chime of its happy bells upon the frosty air. It is a time when even strangers may hold commune; let us take advantage of it, and learn to know something of each other. But are we indeed strangers? It is true that we stand as abstract impersonalities, as disembodied spirits, unknown even by name to one another. Yet have we held relations which we cannot shake off even if we would. 'The most obscure of literary men' we may be, yet has your kind smile often cheered us as we labored to place before you the wants, wishes, tastes, views, hopes, and aims of our common country. Caterer as we are for you, through us and the handywork of our skilful printer have our able writers spun their golden threads through heart, mind, and soul. Contributors, readers, and editor are alike linked in these glittering spiritual meshes, and can never be quite the same as if the web had never held them for its passing moment in its light zone of thought. For ideas generate duties, knowledge stimulates action, and to act in a world of doubt may well be onerous. We frankly confess to you that a dread responsibility has cast a deep shadow upon all our moments since the commencement of our intercourse with you. Our butterfly hours were then past: we grew into work-a-day bees—if only we have stored some honey in your hives to pay us for the lost idlesse of our dreamy summers! If it 'is greatly wise to talk with our past hours, and ask them what report they bear to Heaven' when spent only for ourselves, it is a solemn thing to call them back, and ask them what report they bear to Heaven for the thousands to whom they have ministered. We spread the table lovingly before you: what if there should be something in yourselves to turn our healthful food to poison? On marchesThe Continentalwith its light and heavy freight of winged words and thoughts, striding frommonthlystepping-stone to stepping-stone on the long route of Time. Stepping-stones in Time are they now truly, but as we gaze they seem to grow into Eternity, and the buds which twine their glow around them ripen slowly into ever-living fruit in the strange clime of the Everlasting Now to which we are all hastening.

How clear that Christmas chime upon the frosty air!

Reader, is it too much to hope that in spite of all our short-comings, we have yet been loyal to your better hours, and faithful in the field given us to sow for the heavenly Reapers? We have labored to interest, amuse, and instruct you for the last eighteen months: have you learned in that time totrustus as we have learned to care for you? Do you know us loyal patriots and true Christians, even if of a broad and all-unsectarian faith? If we are too frank, it is because we are certain that truth can never contradict itself, that nature must be one with revelation, that he errs who fears the crucible of the savant or would hold science in leading strings.The Continentalseeks the light, condemns to silence no new Galileo, tortures no creative Kepler, has no fires for heretics, and nothing worse than an incredulous smile for the shivering witches and mediums, the muscular demons of modern spiritualism. It rejects no scientific investigation honorably pursued, for all paths lead back to the Maker of the Universe, and the honest seeker must find Him at the end of his route. That God is our Father, that we are made in His triune image, that Christ is our elder Brother, the great Regenerator of our race, is surely the ever open, ever mystic secret of the universe!

We have travelled on together through a gloomy year. The air has been sad with sighs, dim with tears, restless with great sobs of human anguish. But we are drifting into calmer swells on the great Time-Ocean, and thecrimsonyear of '64 is almost past. The dwellers of the Valley already look for the morning star, while those upon the Hilltop hail the auroral light of '65. Enshrined in and sparkling through its golden glow two mystic figures gleam; the star of the morning pales before their splendor. The one is godlike in her majesty, sublime through conquered suffering, the awful smile of the Crucified seems shining through the features transfigured since He wore them, and the cross glitters in all the glory of Self-sacrifice on her broad breast. She wears a girdle blue as if woven from the depths of heaven, and as we gaze we see great opals with veiled hearts of fire form into quaint old runic letters upon it, and the God-word LOVE flashes down the secret of her inner life upon us. She is still young as when she woke in Paradise, and, seeing the End, is not yet weary with her long journey of Exile. Brighter gates than those of Eden stand unbarred before her! In her right hand she holds unrolled, that all may read, the great Magna Charta of universal Human Rights, and even at this distance we may see EMANCIPATION upon its broad margin. We know the once sad spirit now, no longersad, theradiantGenius of Humanity.

Her vigorous arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to beour own; our banner in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light upon her, and the young eagles turning from the sun throng around her to drink the splendor from her brighter brow. The long streamers from her girdle float athwart the sky, their wavy lines, red, white, and blue, quiver with delight as the wild zephyrs caress them, thrilling the air with shifting play of passionate color. Ha! what miracle is this?—whatsoever light may fall upon them, under what angle soever we may see them, as were it magically woven into their warp and woof, we read the word now graven on our hearts—Union! Her left hand holds closely clasped to her heart a great urn, glowing as it were an immense ruby—ah! we need no words to tell us what the young spirit clasps so fondly to her breast—wefeelit is the dust of the holy dead, who gave their lives on the red battle field that she might live: their very ashes glow with living fire! Her white feet rest on the sacred graves of Shiloh, Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, the Wilderness, Atlanta, Winchester, and Cedar Creek, from which she has newly risen in her young strength and ever-growing glory.

She is the brilliant Spirit of our Nation! the new hope of all People! Her career is ever onward with the Genius of Humanity into the enchanted realm of the happy Future. No chains are in her white hands now. The tired laborer rests as she smiles upon him; the bay of the bloodhound and sharp crack of the lash cease in the white cotton field; the Indian buries his tomahawk, no longer wounding the still ear of the forest with his shrill war whoop; the maiden walks fearlessly free, for all men are now her brothers; shielding her sanctity; the wife is happy, for the husband has won her esteem, and it is no shame to crown him with her love; and cherub-children sport around, lovely and happy as the heaven-seraphs.

Peace to our glorious dead! Eternal honor to the martyrs of freedom! From the sharp agonies of their true hearts springs now first toconsciousbirth the vigorous Spirit of our Nation. We never knew aright how very dear to us she was until the traitors tried to tear her limb from limb because her heart was open to all made in the image of their God—because she knew the sacred worth of man.

How near those Christmas chimes peal on the frosty air!

And if we will but think of it, a Nationality is always of slow growth, of gradual development. It, like man himself, is born in pain and anguish. It is indeed a living member of the Grand Man of which Humanity is composed. Since the forty years wandering of the children of Israel in the desert, how much suffering has been endured to hold it sacred! The history of the present time is but a record of fierce struggles to achieve or hold a Nationality. Poland has hung on the cross of her great enemy for centuries rather than yield its sanctity. He has torn and scattered its quivering members, blotted it out in blood from the names known on earth, it has been murdered, and fed upon by three great Christian Powers ('Oh, the pity of it!')—Catholic Austria, Protestant Prussia and Greek-Churched Russia—but it is not dead: it lives in all the energy of self-abnegating suffering on the mountains of Causasus, the steppes of Asia, the frozen plains of Siberia, in the depths of Russian mines, the darkness of Russian prisons, and it still will live until the last Pole is laid in the last grave of his heroic but unfortunate race. Such is its vitality when once truly born. Denmark turns pale and shivers as she feels it may be torn from her; 'Italia, with the fatal gift of beauty for her dower,' the fair land where fairer Juliets breathe the enamored air, art—crowned and genius-gifted, writhes in agony until it may be her own; Greece long bled for it; and the brave and haughty Magyar, to whom a courser fleet and the free air are necessities of daily life, braves and bears prisons, chains, and poverty, in the hope of its attainment. What is this precious Nationality? Like all basic elements, it is difficult to define. It is not a State, a Constitution, nor is it made by man at all. An able writer inThe North American Reviewfor October says: 'It may be said, in general, to be the sum of the differences, geographical, historical, political, and moral, which separate a people as a community from every other—of those differences which modify the character of each individual, and the results of which are combined in the traits of national character. The consciousness of its existence is developed slowly, and it is long before the sentiment of Nationality—the true foundation of patriotism—gains force over the hearts and convictions of a people. But this sentiment, when it has once taken root, is one of themost powerfulof those by which human conduct is affected. It is a sentiment of the highest order, lifting men out of narrow and selfish individualism into a region where they behold their duties as members one of another, as partakers of the general life of humanity—the inheritors of the past, the trustees of the future.'

'What is planetary humanity?' says Krasinski. 'It is the entirety and unity of all the powers and capacities of the human spirit expressed visibly on the earth through harmony and concord, the love of its members, that is of the various nationalities. As all the members of the human body are the visible and various parts of the invisible human I, which connects and rules them all, so the visible nationalities must in their variety and harmonious unity become in some future time the living members of a universal humanity. The world knows to-day to what point its history is tending: it knows it is governed by the wisdom of God, and that its end is the Humanity, the entire universality brought into perfect accord with the will of God, knowing and executing the laws given it by God. But the means to this end, the instruments, the living members, are theNationalities, in which all the varieties of the human race have their fairest bloom, their most precious flower. What the tones are in the musical chord they are in humanity, eternal variety in eternal harmony and concord. It is impossible to conceive Humanity without them; it would then be unity without variety, consequently noproper unityat all, a mere lifenessoneness. States are of human creation, an aggregative collection of small parts; but nationalities are made by God alone, and therefore not states without nationalities, but states forming nationalities, belong to the coming union of universal humanity, and pass into the Christian order. States have risen before this to destroy a nationality, dividing and quartering it for the profit of some selfish ideal, tearing asunder a living, palpitating organism, murdering a visible member of the Universal Humanity. He is but a child who calls this merely a political crime: it is a crime of the very deepest dye, a crime against the Humanity itself, against religion, where the daring criminals, striding over all lower spheres, break into the circles of the living God. To tear asunder a state of merely human creation, generated only by human interests and passions, would be a political crime, but to wish to dismember and murder a God-given nationality, when the realization of the idea of humanity on the planet cannot be filled without it, is a rebellion against the eternal truth of God—it is a sacrilege! The recognition of such violation were participation; opposition to such impiety is religion!'

Our very origin teaches us union. We have sprung from so many races that it is throbbing in our very life-pulse, and is written on the red tablets of our hearts. It runs and dances in our blood, tingles along our nerves, colors our thoughts, tones our emotions, and determines our affections. All the old and bitter European animosities die inus, for its Peoples are fused in ouronelife pulse. A little child of our own household now unites in the sacred oneness of American life, English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Saxon, Bohemian, and Polish nationalities. What lessons we have in our multiform descent, if we will but heed them; what inner teachings of sympathy and love, if we will but learn them! Distinctive nationalities, giving such beautiful variety to theearth, here join in the individual, imparting the greatest complexity and variety to internalcharacter. Such nationalities, still existing unimpaired abroad, are here formed intooneof unequalled breadth and grandeur; their scattered rays of light are here concentrated intoonegreat focus; the blood of the various Peoples pours throughonegreat heart, and the common gifts, hopes, creeds of the separated and warring nations meet in the holy mystery ofonegrand national life. Here, indeed, is the widest variety in the closest unity, the life of the warring Past melting into that of the myriad-pulsed Present, the certain hope of a harmonious Future.

The maturity and highest powers of other nations being necessary as its germs, what wonder that our nationality should be the latest born on earth, or that in view of the broad love stirring in its soul, because of its manifold descent, its first articulate accents should beALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL! This is a union in the laboratory of assimilative nature, such as has never before been dreamed of, vital and all embracing, weaving into one palpitating mesh the very fibres of being itself. The union of long-jarring nations is consummated, perfected in us, and shall not we, the children of all climes, beonein our own marvellous nationality? 'Divide and conquer' is old strategy, but despots and tyrants strike in vain at this wondrous mingling of all Peoples in one great PEOPLE, where the People are the Sovereigns; for this UNION is spun in the loom of Eternal Destiny, throbs in each linking life-pulse, is knit into our very nature, and kindles in the close unity and sanctity of our national life under the creative breath of God himself. Palsied be the hand armed to strike the multitudinously mingled life of Humanity as it circles through our glorious Union!

'Peace on earth, good will to men,' chime out the Christmas bells from old Trinity!

It is this struggle to preserve our nationality intact which has sanctified our war, from the red heart of which has grown a patriotism which, glowing like a central sun, burns away all the dross of our earlier materialism, gives as self-reliance, and frees us at last from our long tutelage to the Old World. And never had patriotism a more solid ground than ours, since the power, growth, and safety of our nationality are the progress, happiness, and prosperity of humanity itself. Everything that breathes the breath of human life, however opposed to it now, isreallybenefited by our growth. As a Government we stand first upon the earth; the first utterance of our brave lips being—all men are born free and equal. Sublime, bold, and living words; blessed be the lips which uttered them! And we are beginning to fulfil the inspired ideal. Alas! we have suffered too much from permitting an evil germ to grow up side by side with this great annunciation, to fall speedily again into a like error. It has taken down into the dust our best and dearest, saddened almost every hearthstone in the land, and, saddest of all, wrought ruin on the Southern soul, maddening our brethren there into modern Cains, armed against the sacred life of their and our nationality. For what cause did Cain kill his brother? 'Because,' says St. John, 'his own works were evil, and his brother's just.' We will surely save it, but that done, we have an arduous task before us. Christianity and love must take the place of expediency, machiavelism, and cunning diplomacy in the sphere of politics. We see the smile of scorn upon the lips of the doubter; he deems the thing impossible. So he would have pronounced our noble record of the last three years, three years ago. Nay, it is already half accomplished, since we now know it must be done. The black man free, the red man must at last receive attention. The protection of our laws must be thrown around him; justice must guide our future dealings with him, and sorrow for all the fearful ills we have wrought upon him must awaken larger sympathy, and elicit tender mercy. The race are dying out among us: let us at least soothe their parting hours. And let the Government look well to its avaricious agents. Our people aregenerous, and mean to be just; that is not enough: they must take the proper means, and see that their beneficent intentions are carried out with regard to this wretched remnant. It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural eloquence, of graceful imagery, of tender metaphor, of stern endurance, can beutterlylost and depraved. Be it our noble task to try to save these wild children of the forest, while throwing the most complete protection around our brave frontier population. Our nationality is now fully born—on our banner is inscribed the equal rights of humanity. Our mission is revealed to us—it is that labor shall be elevated, and that equal justice be the law ofactual life. 'That the human race is in a real sense one—that its efforts are common, and tend to a joint result, that its several members may stand in the eye of their Maker, not only asindividualagents, but as contributors to this joint result—is a doctrine which our reason, perhaps, finds something to support, and which our heart readily accepts.' This Christmas peal rings to us as it has never rung before: let it awaken our consciousness of what God means us to be upon this planet, and touch our heart. It has at last reached the ear of the emancipated African, after pealing nearly nineteen hundred years for the more favored part of humanity; and, thanks to the mercy of God and our own manhood, the most oppressed of the brethren of Christ may now feel themselves men. The dark wife, in her new right to be faithful, is at last a woman; her dusky children are now her own, and cannot be torn from her arms at the dictates of one who has bought at the human auction block the right to torture the body and soul. Is not humanity newborn among us? Is the negro of the accursed race of Ham? It is we who curse, not God, whose very name is Love! Well may our Christmas bells ring on so merrily, for our age is great and glorious. It is a pupil of the entire Past, the heir of all its knowledge, the inheritor of all its wisdom. The Future is its own.The sphere of politics must be redeemed from the demons of expediency and interest which have so long ruled there; it is to be vitalized and purified from all iniquity.It is an Augean stable we have to clean, but Hercules was one, and we are many. The People are at last sovereign. Every man who works for humanity has God upon his side; he cannot fail, for the might of Omnipotence is with his puny arm. This is the task now set before us: it lies directly in our onward path—we cannot take a step really in advance until it is achieved. If we fail now, all is lost. Our dead heroes will not rest in their graves until the task is done, and their young lives will have been a vain sacrifice. This crimson year is dying fast; bury with it all past wickedness! May our long civil war die out with its knell, the corpse of Slavery be laid in its bloody grave, and the vain attempts of assembled despots to destroy our glorious nationality perish forever! Bury with this blood-red year all malice and uncharitableness, all sectarian suspicion and distrust, all partisan political violence and hatred, and let the new year ring in one faith, one hope, one country undivided andindivisible. Our Union means all this, and a great many things more which it has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive. We can effect wonders if we will, for theindividualeffort makes theuniversalall. Who would prove recreant in such a cause? Come! it is pleasant to work for humanity; fatigue itself seems sweet, the strength of the race nerves the individual arm, labor grows into prayer, human sympathy and communion become godlike and open heaven. We are none of us so little that we can do nothing; we are all necessary to the good of the whole. The highest individuality and freedom should generate the widest social love and charity. No labor is really irksome that helps the masses of our fellow men. If we have the Promethean fire, let it burn to light and warm them. The race is one, nor can we be happy while its members suffer. The moment we have done one duty faithfully, another and a higher awaits us. To be condemned to work only for ourselves were the true hell, the self-kindled fire of everlasting torture! We are the children of the nineteenth century, have been nourished upon the humane laws of this noble country, we are sons of God, brothers of Christ, heirs of glory, immortals. Let us assume the majesty of our being, drape ourselves in our heaven-woven robes of love, open our hearts to the poor and wretched, instruct the ignorant, reclaim the vicious, bear each other's burdens, frown on vice, give up our petty vanities, cease our frivolousexcuses that, we have no influence, when every one of us has an immortal in charge, use our strength to forbid oppression, whether of individuals or nationalities. Then might the day seen by the prophets, sung by poets, and believed in by devout hearts, dawn upon this planet before the blessed '65 were tolled to rest.

"A man shall be more precious than gold, ay, than the finest of gold."

"The fool shall no more be called prince, nor the deceitful great."

"And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into spades; nation shall not take sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.

"And every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid."

"I will give my laws into their mind, and I will write them in their heart; and I will be their God; and they shall be my people."

Peace on earth, good will toward men, still peal the Christmas bells, until the frosty air seems quivering with the new joy of humanity.

Fair voyage through the realms of Space, the universe of stars, the passionate throbs of Time, with thy precious human freight, O lovely Planet, cradling our dead in thy green bosom, and uniting the living in one great nation; and may the brightest sunshine fall upon thy flowers until thy young Immortals are all landed in the Port of Heaven!

From every clime, and name, and race,The thronging myriads came,A mighty Empire's bounds to trace,A wilderness to tame!Chorus—From mountain peak to sear-girt shore,Let Freedom's noble bandUplift the song thrills each heart's core:God bless our native land!Columbia's plains are broad and fair,Each coast an ocean laves,Vast lakes and streams fleet navies bearUpon their sun-lit waves.Chorus.Her mountains towering meet the skies,Her vales are clad in green,Her leafy forests proudly rise,Pure gold her grain's bright sheen.Chorus.United flows our mingled blood,And Freedom guards the land,While linked in closest brotherhood,Invincible we stand!Chorus.Unfurl our banner! Let it waveFrom every plain and crag!Its beacon light our fathers gave,—All hail! our glorious flag!Chorus—From mountain peak to sea-girt shore,Let Freedom's noble bandUplift the song thrills each heart's core:God bless our native land!

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