and well-earned laurels. It was condemned as an unpatriotic

act.

Charles Sumner insult the soldiers who had spilled their blood in a war for human rights! Charles Sumner degrade victories, and depreciate laurels, won for the cause of universal freedom!-how strange an imputation!

Let the dead man have a hearing. This was his thought: No civilized nation, from the republics of antiquity down to our days, ever thought it wise or patriotic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form the mementos of victories won over fellow citizens in civil war. Why not? Because every

citizen should feel himself with all others as the child of a common country, and not as a defeated foe. All civilized governments of our days have instinctively followed the same dictate of wisdom and patriotism.

The Irishman, when fighting for old England at Waterloo, was not to behold on the red cross floating above him the name of the Boyne. The Scotch Highlander, when standing in the trenches of Sebastopol, was not by the colors of his regiment to be reminded of Culloden. No French soldier at Austerlitz or Solferino had to read upon the tricolor any reminiscence of the Vendee. No Hungarian at Sadowa was taunted by any Austrian banner with the surrender of Villagos. No German regiment from Saxony or Hanover charging under the iron hail of Gravelot was made to remember, by words written on a Prussian standard, that the black eagle had conquered them at Koniggratz and Langensalza.

Should the son of South Carolina, when at some future day defending the Republic against some foreign foe, be reminded, by an inscription on the colors floating over him, that under this flag the gun was fired that killed his father at Gettysburg? Should this great and enlightened Republic, proud of standing in the front of human progress, be less wise, less large-hearted, than the ancients were two thousand years ago, and the kingly governments of Europe are to-day? Let the battle-flags of the brave volunteers, which they

brought home from the war with the glorious record of their victories, be preserved intact as a proud ornament of our State Houses and armories, but let the colors of the army, under which the sons of all the States are to meet and mingle in common patriotism, speak of nothing but union,—not a union of conquerors and conquered, but a union which is the mother of all, equally tender to all, knowing of nothing but equality, peace, and love among her children.

Do you want conspicuous mementos of your victories? They are written upon the dusky brow of every freeman who was once a slave; they are written on the gate-posts of a restored Union; and the most glorious of all will be written on the faces of a contented people, reunited in common national pride.

THE BELL-RINGER OF '76

ANONYMOUS.

PLAIN red-brick walls, the windows partly framed in stone, the hall-door ornamented with pillars,—such is the State House of Philadelphia in the year of our Lord 1776.

Why do those clusters of citizens with anxious faces gather around the State-House walls? There in yonder wooden steeple, which crowns the State House, stands an old man in humble attire, with white hair and sunburnt face. His eye gleams as it is fixed upon the ponderous outline of the bell suspended in the steeple there. He tries to read the inscription, but cannot. By his side, gazing at his face in wonder, stands a fair-haired boy, with laughing eyes of summer blue.

"Come here, my boy. You can read; spell me these words and I'll bless ye, my good child.' And the child raised himself on tiptoe, and pressing his tiny hands against the bell read these memorable words

"Proclaim Liberty to all the Land and all the Inhabitants thereof."

The old man ponders for a moment on those strange words, then gathering the boy in his arms, speaks—“ Look here, my child, wilt do the old man a kindness? Then haste ye down stairs and wait in the hall by the big door, until a man shall give you a message for me. When he gives you the word, then run out yonder in the street and shout it up to me.

It needed no second command.

The boy sprang from

the bell-keeper's arms and threaded his way down the dark stairs. Leaning over the railing of the steeple, the old man looked anxiously for the fair-haired boy. Minutes passed, yet still he came not.

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Ah! he has forgotten me! these old limbs will have to totter down the State-House stairs, and climb up again—” Yet even as he spoke, a merry laugh broke on his ear. There among the crowd on the pavement stood the boy, clapping his tiny hands, while the breeze blew the flaxen hair all about his face. Then swelling his little chest, he raised himself and shouted a single word, “Ring!"

Do you see Do you see that

Do you see that old man's eye catch fire? that arm suddenly bared to the shoulder? withered hand grasping the iron tongue of the bell? The old man is young again; his veins are filled with new life. Backward and forward, with sturdy strokes, he swings the tongue. The bell speaks out! The crowds in the street hear it, and burst forth in one long shout! The city hears it and starts up from desk and work-bench, as if an earthquake had spoken. Yes, as the old man swung that iron tongue, the bell spoke to all the world.

That sound crossed the Atlantic-pierced the dungeons of Europe the workshops of England-the vassal-fields of France. That echo spoke to the slave-bade him look up from his toil, and know himself a man. That echo startled

the kings upon their crumbling thrones. That echo was the knell of all crafts born of the darkness of ages, and baptized in seas of blood. For under that very bell pealing out

noonday, in that old hall, fifty-six traders, farmers, and mechanics had assembled to strike off the shackles of the world. And that bell that now voices the Declaration of Independence speaks out to the world

God has given the American continent to the free, the toiling millions of the human race, as the last altar of the rights of man on the globe, the home of the oppressed, forevermore!

THE TRIUMPH OF PEACE

By EDWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN, Preacher, Lecturer, Essayist. Born at Union Village, N. Y., 1814; died in New York City, 1880.

Selected, by permission of the publishers, from Chapin's "Living Words," published, in 1869, by the Universalist Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.

Eager

Stand, in imagination, of a summer's morning, upon a field of battle. Earth and sky melt together in light and harmony; the air is rich with fragrance, and sweet with the song of birds. But suddenly breaks in the sound of fiercer music, and the measured tramp of thousands. squadrons shake the earth with thunder, and files of bristling steel kindle in the sun; and, opposed to each other, line to line, face to face, are now arrayed men whom God has made in the same likeness, and whose nature he has touched to the same issues. The same heart beats in all. In the momentary hush, like a swift mist sweep before them images of home; voices of children prattle in their ears; memories of affection stir among their silent prayers. They cherish the same sanctities, too. They have read from the same Book. It is to them the same charter of life and salvation; they have been taught to observe its beautiful lessons of love; their hearts have been touched alike with the meek example of Jesus. But a moment, and all these affinities are broken, trampled under foot, swept away by the shock and the shouting. Confusion rends the air; the simmering bomb plows up the earth; the iron hail cuts the quivering flesh; the steel bites to the bone; the cannon-shot crashes through

serried ranks; and under a cloud of smoke that hides both earth and heaven the desperate struggle goes on. The day wanes, and the strife ceases. On the one side there is a victory, on the other a defeat. The triumphant city is lighted with jubilee, the streets roll out their tides of acclamation, and the organ heaves from its groaning breast the peal of thanksgiving. But under that tumultuous joy there are bleeding bosoms and inconsolable tears; and, whether in triumphant or defeated lands, a shudder of orphanage and widowhood—a chill of woe and death-runs far and wide through the world. The meek moon breaks the dissipating veil of the conflict, and rolls its calm splendor above the dead. And see now how much woe man has mingled with inevitable evils of the universe! See now the fierceness of his passion, the folly of his wickedness, witnessed by the torn standards, the broken wheels, the pools of clotted blood, the charred earth, the festering heaps of slain. Nature did not make these horrors, and when those fattening bones shall have moldered in the soil she will spread out luxuriant harvests to hide those horrors forever.

Fancy yourselves standing on the banks of the Delaware more than a century and a half ago. The winds have stripped the leaves from the primeval forest, save where the pines lift their dark drapery to the sky. The river travels silently on its way. All around lies the solitude of nature, unbroken by wheels of traffic or triumphs of civilization. Apart from the roar and conflict of nations,-apart from the hurrying tides of interest and passion,—this lone spot in the wilderness, beside the calm river, is a spot for peace and love, —a spot where the children of humanity may come, bury their war-weapons, and embrace. Lo! it is that spot. From the recesses of the forest there glides a file of red and naked men, wild in their strength, and uncurbed in all the native impulses of humanity. As they cluster beneath the arching elm, or brood in dusky lines along the woody background, their eyes glisten with the fires of their fierce nature,