LI.-BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.*

Rev. John Wolfe

Nor a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly, at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moon-beam's misty light,
And the lantern, dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet, nor in shroud, we bound him;

But he lay, like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow!

But we stedfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe would be rioting over his head,
And we far away on the billow.

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But nothing he'll reck, if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock tolled the hour for retiring;
And we heard, by the distant random gun,
That the foe was suddenly firing.

• Who fell in the battle of Corunna, in, Spain, 1808.

1

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone,
But left him alone with his glory.

LII. THE HORRORS OF WAR.

Extract from a Sermon of the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, entitled, "Thoughts on Universal Peace."

THE first great obstacle, my friends, to the extinction of war, is the way in which the heart of man is carried off from its barbarities and its horrors, by the splendor of its deceit. ful accompaniments. There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, just as there is in contem. plating the devouring energy of a tempest; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of their desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful- warrior burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons of valor struggle for a remembrance and a name; and this side of the picture is so much the exclusive object of our regard, as to disguise from our view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more, who have been laid on the cold ground, where they are left to languish and to die. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the maddening fury of the combat, have been given and received by the children of one common Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every countenance, and when night comes on, and darkness around them, how many a despairing wretch must take up with the bloody field as the untended bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant home, without one companion to close his eyes.

On every side of me, I see causes at work which go to spread a most delusive colouring over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to the back-ground of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the poetry, which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood. and transports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the music, which represents the progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing room are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men, as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence. All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian senti. ment upon earth, to arrest the strong current of its popular and prevailing partiality for war.

LUI. THE GLORY OF NEW-ENGLAND-HER FREE SCHOOLS.

Extract from Judge Story's Discourse before the Essex Historical Society, September 18, 1828.

I KNOW not, my friends, what more munificent donation any government can bestow, than by providing instruction at the public expense, not as a scheme of charity, but of municipal policy. If a private person deserves the applause of all good men, who founds a single hospital or college, how much more are they entitled to the appellation of public benefactors, who, by the side of every church in every village, plant a school of letters! Other monuments of the art and genius of man may perish; but these, from their very nature seem, as far as human foresight can go, absolutely immortal. The triumphal arches of other days have fallen; the sculptured columns have crumbled into dust; the temples of taste and religion have sunk into decay; the pyramids themselves seem but mighty sepulchres hastening to the same oblivion, to which the dead they cover have long since passed. But here, every successive generation becomes a living memorial of our public schools, and a living example of their excellence. Never, never may this glorious institution be abandoned or betrayed, by the weakness of its friends, or the power of its adversaries. It can scarcely be abandoned or betrayed, while New-England remains free, and her representatives are true to their trust. It must for ever count in its defence a majority of all those, who ought to influence public affairs by their virtues or their talents; for it must be, that here they first felt the divinity of knowledge stir within them. What consolation can be higher, what reflection prouder, than the thought, that in weal and in wo, our children are under the public guardianship, and may here gather the fruits of that learning which ripens for eternity!

They sternly bore

Such toils as meaner souls had quelled;
But souls like these, such toils impelled

To soar.

Hail to the morn, when first they stood

On Bunker's height,

And, fearless, stemmed the invading flood, And wrote our dearest rights in blood,

And mowed in ranks the hireling brood,

In desperate fight!

O! 'twas a proud, exulting day,.

For e'en our fallen fortunes lay

In light.

And, rising from thy hardy stock,
Thy sons the tyrant's frown shall mock,

And Slavery's galling chains unlock,
And free the oppress'd;

All, who the wreath of Freedom twine,
Beneath the shadow of their vine

Are blest.

We love thy rude and rocky shore,
And here we stand-

Let foreign navies hasten o'er,
And on our heads their fury pour,
And peal their cannon's loudest roar,