FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or to detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Speech made at the dedication of Gettysberg Cemetery, 1863.

WHATEVER thing is done, by Him is done,
Ne any may His mighty will withstand;
Ne any may His sovereign power shun,

Ne loose that He hath bound with steadfast hand :
In vain therefore dost thou now take in hand
To call to count, or weigh His works anew,

Whose counsels' depths thou cans't not understand;
Sith of things subject to thy daily view

Thou dost not know the causes nor their courses due.

For take thy balance, if thou be so wise,

And weigh the wind that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow: But if the weight of these thou canst not show, Weigh but one word which from thy lips doth fall : For how canst thou those greater secrets know, That dost not know the least thing of them all? Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.

EDMUND SPENSER. 1553.

"FIRST the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."

MARK iv. 28.

I GRIEVE not that ripe Knowledge takes away
The charm that Nature to my childhood wore,
For, with that insight, cometh, day by day,
A greater bliss than wonder was before;
The real doth not clip the poet's wings,-
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart
Reveals some clue to spiritual things,
And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art.
Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes ;
Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense :
He knows that outward seemings are but lies,
Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence
The soul that looks within for truth may guess
The presence of some wondrous heavenliness.

JAMES RUSSELL Lowell.

REMEMBER now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, When thou shalt say: I have no pleasure in them ; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened,

Nor the clouds return after the rain :

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, And the strong men shall bow themselves,

And the grinders cease because they are few,

And those that look out of the windows be darkened,
And the doors shall be shut in the streets,
When the sound of the grinding is low,

And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird,

And all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, And fears shall be in the way,

And the almond tree shall flourish,

And the grasshopper shall be a burden,

And desire shall fail :

Because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners

go about the streets :

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl

be broken,

Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel

broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: And the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. ECCLESIASTES xii. 1-7.

GOD said: "Break thou these yokes; undo
These heavy burdens. I ordain
A work to last thy whole life through,
A ministry of strife and pain.

"Forego thy dreams of lettered ease,
Put thou the scholar's promise by,
The rights of man are more than these."
He heard, and answered: "Here am I !"

He set his face against the blast,
His feet against the flinty shard,
Till the hard service grew, at last,
Its own exceeding great reward.
Lifted like Saul's above the crowd,
Upon his kingly forehead fell
The first, sharp bolt of Slavery's cloud,
Launched at the truth he urged so well.
The fixed star of his faith, through all

Loss, doubt, and peril, shone the same;
As through a night of storm, some tall,
Strong lighthouse lifts its steady flame.
Beyond the dust and smoke he saw
The sheaves of Freedom's large increase,
The holy fanes of equal law,

The New Jerusalem of peace.

One language held his heart and lip,
Straight onward to his goal he trod,
And proved the highest statesmanship
Obedience to the voice of God.

JOHN GREENLEAF Whittier.

* From a poem on the death of CHARLES SUMNER, (1874), the Leader for many years of the Anti-Slavery Movement in the United States Senate.