ated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this! Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children, was it hard labor and spare meals, was it disease, was it the tomahawk, was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching, in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea, was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious!

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RELIGION AND POETRY.-W. H. Hamersley.

POETRY can adapt herself to all ages. She can weave a simple ballad for childhood, or a fervent song for the youth ripening into manhood; she has her pictures of fireside happiness and domestic comfort for the parent, and her voice has a tone for the ear of the aged. She can adapt herself to all conditions. She has her simple and affecting narrative for the poor and the humble; she has a trumpet voice for the soldier and the statesman, and a most refined speech for the scholar. She will be our companion at all times and in all seasons; she will give an additional zest to prosperity, and when the season of adversity shall arrive she will comfort the wounded spirit and bind up the broken heart.

The most groundless and anomalous objections urged against poetry are those which proceed from a certain class of religious The chief charge on the part of such men is the perversion

men.

of poetry to improper uses. As well might they tell the patriot not to draw the sword in behalf of his country because it is the weapon of the oppressor; as well might they cast away the book of life because its meaning is distorted by fools and fanatics. Poetry is most grand when connected with religious subjects; and in her purest and most sublime personification she does not, like Ajax, defy the lightning and the God who wields it, but, like the ethereal beings around the throne of heaven, she veils her burning eyes with her resplendent wings when in the solemn presence of the Almighty. He who has no love for poetry may lay to heart the precepts of the Bible; but there is a light upon the pages of that book which he sees not, there is a harmony in its language which he hears not, for there is a vein of poetic fire, pure, simple and sublime, running through the whole sacred volume.

We not only find poetry in the abstract in the Scriptures, but it has been maintained that a portion of its contents are written in accordance with certain rules of composition, approximating in some degree to those which govern its construction in its most exclusive sense; as in the following, among many instances: "My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

"He looketh on the earth,

And it trembleth;

He toucheth the hills,

And they smoke.”

"I planted,

Apollos watered,

But God made to grow:

So that neither he who planteth is anything,

Nor he that watereth,

But God, who maketh to grow."

The life of Christ is a poem, and the argument comprehends the miraculous birth; the star, that God-appointed herald, leading the wise men to the cradle of the child Jesus; the youth disputing with the doctors; the celestial baptism; the man of sorrows expressing the perfect love of God; the little children gathered to his bosom as the exemplars of the simple and pure

faith of the righteous; the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the sick recovering, and the dead rising from their graves, at his command; the temptation, the fast, the transfiguration, the trial, the crucifixion, the prayer for the forgiveness of his persecutors, uttered amid the agony of the cross; the resurrection, and the mission of salvation fulfilled by an ascension welcomed by the harmonious hallelujahs of a heavenly chorus.

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which is "brought to light" in the Scriptures, infuses into the heart of the poet true life, and energy, and sublimity, and opens to his vision fields of eternal hope and beauty.

It is the chief glory of poetry that she bears us on spotless wings far above the sensuous sphere of earth, and, like the repentant tear which the Peri conveyed to the angel, removes the crystal bar that binds the gates of paradise.

I am well assured that poetry, although sometimes seen in connection with error, even as the sons of God held companionship with the daughters of men, is one of the choicest blessings bequeathed to this imperfect world. The Christian can trace her divine origin with the utmost certainty, and behold with an unclouded vision that she is born of God and baptized with inspiration. She diffuses a new light upon the face of nature, she weans us from the rule of our passions and the dominion of our lusts, and reveals the golden ladder that leads from earth to heaven.

IN BEHALF OF GREECE.-H. Clay.

Ir has been admitted by all that there is impending over this country a threatening storm, which is likely to call into action all our vigor, courage, and resources. Is it a wise way of preparing for this awful event, to talk to this nation of its incompetency to resist European aggression, to lower its spirit, to weaken its moral force, and do what we can to prepare it for base submission and easy conquest? If there be any reality in this menacing danger, I would rather adjure the nation to remember that it contains a

million of freemen capable of bearing arms, and ready to exhaust their last drop of blood, and their last cent, in defending their country, its institutions, and its liberty. Are these to be conquered, by all Europe united? No; no united nation can be, that has the spirit to resolve not to be conquered, such a nation is ever invincible. And has it come to this? Are we so humbled, so low, so despicable, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece, lest, peradventure, we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? If gentlemen are afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose that we draw an humble petition addressed to their majesties, asking them that of their condescension they would allow us to express something on the subject. How shall it begin? "We, the representatives of the free people of the United States of America, humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, and supplicate that of your imperial and royal clemency”—I will not go through the disgusting recital; my lips have not yet learnt the sycophantic language of a degraded slave! Are we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens? If the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and calmly on while all this is perpetrated on a Christian people in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensibility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings,that there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie!

But it is not first and chiefly for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted. It will give them but little aid that aid purely of a moral kind. It is indeed soothing and solacing in distress to hear the accents of a friendly voice. We know this as a people. But it is principally and mainly for America herself,

for the credit and character of our common country, that I hope to see this resolution pass; it is for our own unsullied name that I feel.

Go home, if you dare, go home, if you can, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments

that, you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you, that the spectres of scimetars, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you and alarmed you, and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity!

THE deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night hold him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon; he winds the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him! The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger,

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