martyrs, not by its savage hatreds-darkened alike by kingcraft and priestcraft-let the dead past bury its dead. Let the present and the future ring with the song of the singers. Blessed be the lessons they teach, the laws they make. Blessed be the eye to see, the light to reveal. Blessed be Tolerance, sitting ever on the right hand of God to guide the way with loving word, as blessed be all that brings us nearer the goal of true religion, true Republicanism, and true patriotism, distrust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief in our country and ourselves. It was not Cotton Mather, but John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried:

"Dear God and Father of us all,
Forgive our faith in cruel lies,
Forgive the blindness that denies.

Cast down our idols-overturn
Our bloody altars-make us see
Thyself in Thy humanity!"

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

By EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Clergyman, Author, Poet. Born in Boston, Mass., 1822.

From "The Man Without a Country," published by Roberts Brothers, Boston. By permission of the author.

[Philip Nolan, "the man without a country," was at one time an ambitious young officer in the United States Army. But because of intimacy with Aaron Burr, he was banished from his country and compelled to live upon a government vessel, where he was never allowed even to hear the name of his country.]

My own acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after the War, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. We had him to dine in our mess once a week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said about home.

I first came to understand anything about the man without a country one day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. An officer was

sent to take charge of her, and, after a few minutes, he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent him who could talk Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as the captain was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he understood the language. The captain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and in this boat it was my luck to go.

There were not a great many of the negroes; most of them were out of the hold and swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan. "Tell them they are free, Nolan," said Vaughan; "and tell them that I will take them all to Cape Palmas.

Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is, they would be eternally separated from home there. And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said, "Ah, non Palmas.' The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushed the men down, and said: " He says, 'Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take us home, take us to our own country, take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own women.' He says he has an old father and mother who will die if they do not see him. And this one says," choked out Nolan, that he has not heard a word from his home in six months."

Even the negroes stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, Vaughan said:

Tell them, yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the mountains of the Moon, if they will."

And after some fashion Nolan said so. And they all fell to kissing him again.

But he could not stand it long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he beckoned me down into the boat. As we lay back in the stern-sheets and the men gave way, he said to me: "Youngster, let that show you what it is to

And

be without a family, without a home, and without a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to take you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush back to it when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. for your country, boy," and the words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag, and he pointed to the ship, "never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand terrors. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with,-behind officers, and government, and people even,-there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother; and stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother.

OXFORD COUNTY

By JOHN DAVIS LONG, Lawyer, Author; Governor of Massachusetts, 1882-88; Secretary of the Navy, 1897-. Born in Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, 1838.

Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from a speech on Oxford County in "After Dinner and Other Speeches," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, copyright, 1895, by John D. Long.

Oxford County to me, sir, is a volume of poems, a paradise of nature. Her crests of blue against the summer sky, and in winter white with glistening snow, her pure waters, her cool woods, her picturesque roads winding over hill and down dale, her exquisite intermingling of forest and farm,

are such a natural park of loveliness and magnificence as no metropolitan wealth or art can ever imitate.

For one, I owe it a deeper debt. Enlarging and educating as were its physical influences, I pay my tribute still more gratefully to the living influences of its people. In American life and struggle, I believe there is no such education as that of a country boy's contact in school and at all times with the social democracy of a country such as Oxford County typifies,-absolutely meeting the ideal of a free and equal people, and ignorant of such a thing as caste or class.

Yes, my friends, I believe we are here to utter our gratitude to the men and women who gave a popular tone to Oxford County worthy of her hills and the grandeur and strength of her physical magnificence. My gratitude is from a full heart. I recognize with profound emotion the resolute, generous, and fruitful purpose and force which our fathers put into their farms and watercourses and trading-posts. I look back and behold worth and highmindedness driving the oxen afield, cutting the wood, tending the sawmill, leading the training field and the election, doing neighborly turns and kindnesses, bartering the worsted mitten over the counter, and making the wholesomest texture of a pastoral, provincial life the world has ever seen or ever will see, the ideal combination of industry, equality, freedom, intelligence, and high character. It was the best blood of Massachusetts-pure English stock, little changed even to this day, the best families of Pilgrim and Puritan descent-which after the Revolutionary War made their way to Oxford County. But like all pioneers, they had little of this world's goods, and brought little except their splendid inheritance of worth and character, their brave hearts and honest, hardworking hands.

This was the sort of men who were most distinctive of

Oxford County, and who gave it character. What splendid stock it was! What sturdy English names,—those Mitchells, Lincoins, Holmeses, Lorings, Emerys, Parsons, Taylors,

Cushings, Halls, Bicknells, Perrys, Washburns, Hamlins, Aldens, Whitmans, Mortons, and hundreds more! Hardly a family, however hard its fight with adverse circumstances, that has not been a contributor to the enterprise, the scholarship, the statesmanship, the patriotism, that have made our country great.

In every avenue of its usefulness you find their trace. You hear their eloquence in every court and congress. You saw the flash of their swords in every battle for freedom. Well may we recall the men of Oxford with pride and gratitude. No narrow scope was theirs. They nursed the schools. They valued and exemplified and maintained the education of the people. They contended for good politics. They discussed fundamental issues. Could you awake the voices of the past you would hear them also treat of reform, of tariff and revenue, and of the relations of the general government to its local components, with all the vigor and enlightenment which we sometimes think to be the exclusive attainment of our own time.

I thank you, sir, for permitting me to join with you in your tribute to Oxford. The occasion touches me very tenderly, for it carries my heart and betrays my utterance into sacred memories of my own boyhood and home. They come freshly back to me, as yours to you, and I stand again at the threshold of an opening world, with the sunrise on my face. Again I sit at the blessed family fireplace as of old, unthinking then of the love and fervent devotion to my welfare and advancement to which I owe everything, and which to me now, looking back, is all so clear. I knew not then that angels' wings brushed my cheeks. Now I strain

my eyes to heaven to catch their flight,