the breathing of my
active hope and love; that if my heart were open to their view, they
might there read thy love most deeply engraven upon it with a beam from
the face of the Son of God; and not find vanity or lust or pride within
where the words of life appear without, that so these lines may not
witness against me, but, proceeding from the heart of the writer, be
effectual through thy grace upon the heart of the reader, and so be the
savor of life to both."

WILLIAM LEGGETT

"O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses, gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crowned his slave,
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;
They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven."
BRYANT.

WHEN the noblest woman in all France stood on the scaffold, just before
her execution, she is said to have turned towards the statue of Liberty,
--which, strangely enough, had been placed near the guillotine, as its
patron saint,--with the exclamation, "O Liberty! what crimes have been
committed in thy name!" It is with a feeling akin to that which prompted
this memorable exclamation of Madame Roland that the sincere lover of
human freedom and progress is often compelled to regard American
democracy.

For democracy, pure and impartial,--the self-government of the whole;
equal rights and privileges, irrespective of birth or complexion; the
morality of the Gospel of Christ applied to legislation; Christianity
reduced to practice, and showering the blessings of its impartial love
and equal protection upon all, like the rain and dews of heaven,--we have
the sincerest love and reverence. So far as our own government
approaches this standard--and, with all its faults, we believe it does so
more nearly than any other--it has our hearty and steadfast allegiance.
We complain of and protest against it only where, in its original
framework or actual administration, it departs from the democratic
principle.