LI. SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JAMES OTIS. LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802-1880), a native of Medford, Massachusetts, was through a long and useful life one of the history-makers of her century. She possessed much literary talent, and a philanthropic spirit. She had a strong will and a determination that led her to what she considered to be right whether she was praised or criticized. Upon her gravestone in the cemetery at Wayland Centre, Massachusetts, are carved the words: "You call us dead. We are not dead, but truly living now." LYDIA MARIA CHILD. James Otis, a distinguished American patriot, was born at West Barnstable, Massachusetts, May, 1724, and was killed by lightning in 1783. He was one of the prominent men of his time, being an eminent lawyer, statesman, and scholar. 1. ENGLAND may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which we now contest, have cost one king his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies. 2. We are two millions; one-fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the nation from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance, but it must not, and it never can be, extorted. 3. Some have sneeringly asked, Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper? No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the specter is now small; but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land. 4. Others, in a sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount of this debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the dam, which has brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or left it amid the winds and storms of the desert. 5. We plunged into the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and the torch were behind us. We have waked this new world from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path; towns and cities. have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics; and the fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase of our wealth and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother country? No! we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her, to the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy. 6. But perhaps others will say: "We ask no money from your gratitude: we only demand that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity? Why, the king: and, with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as little as he does the language of the Choctaws! Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the money is properly expended? The cabinet behind the throne. In every instance those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is suffered to go into operation we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege that rain and dew do not depend upon Parliament, otherwise, they would soon be taxed and dried. 7. But, thanks to God! there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their enemies shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember that a fire is lighted in these colonies which one breath of their king may kindle into such a fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it. LYDIA MARIA CHILD. LII. THE WIND AND THE MOON. 1. SAID the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out! You stare In the air Like a ghost in the chair, Always looking what I am about – I hate to be watched; I'll blow you out." 2. The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon; So deep On a heap Of cloudless sleep Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon, 3. He turned in his bed; she was there again! On high In the sky, With her ghost eye, The Moon shone white and alive and plain; 4. He blew, and he blew, and the thread was gone. In the air Nowhere Was a moonbeam bare; Far off and silent the shy stars shone- 5. The Wind he took to his revels once more; On down, In town, Like a merry, mad clown, He leaped and hallooed with whistle and roar; "What's that?"-The glittering thread once more. 6. He flew in a rage-he danced and he blew; But in vain Was the pain Of his bursting brain; For still broader the moon-scrap grew, The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew. 7. Slowly she grew - till she filled the night, And shone On her throne In the sky alone, A matchless, wonderful, silvery light, 8. Said the Wind: "What a marvel of power am I! Good faith, I blew her to death First blew her away right out of the sky- 9. But the Moon she knew nothing about the affair, For, high In the sky, With her one white eye, Motionless, miles above the air, She had never heard the great Wind blare. GEORGE MACDONALD. LIII. PAUL'S DEFENSE BEFORE KING AGRIPPA. 1. THEN Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself: 2. I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself, this day, before thee, touching all the things -15 |