a moment the
control of either; and that persevering opposition to his laws must
meet, in the end, retributive justice.
PROMISE.
O watcher for the dawn of day,
As o'er the mountain peaks afar
Hangs in the twilight cold and gray,
Like a bright lamp, the morning star!
Though slow the daybeams creep along
The serried pines which top the hills,
And gloomy shadows brood among
The silent valleys, and the rills
Seem almost hushed--patience awhile!
Though slowly night to day gives birth,
Soon the young babe with radiant smile
Shall gladden all the waiting earth.
By fair gradation changes come,
No harsh transitions mar God's plan,
But slowly works from sun to sun
His perfect rule of love to man.
And patience, too, my countrymen,
In this our nation's fierce ordeal!
Bright burns the searching flame, and then,
The dross consumed, shall shine the real.
Wake, watcher! see the mountain peaks
Already catch a golden ray,
Light on the far horizon speaks
The dawning of a glorious day.
Murky the shadows still that cling
In the deep valleys, but the mist
Is soaring up on silver wing
To where the sun the clouds has kissed.
Hard-fought and long the strife may be,
The powers of wrong be slow to yield,
But Right shall gain the victory,
And Freedom hold the battle field.
AMERICAN DESTINY.
We would study the question of American Destiny in the light of common
sense, of history, and of science.
It may be unusual to illustrate from science a principle which is to
have a political application; but we shall endeavor to do so, believing
it to be unexceptionably legitimate. The different departments of
science, science and history, science and politics, have been,
heretofore, kept quite distinct as to the provinces of inquiry to which
it was presumed they severally belonged. Each has been cultivated as if
it had no relation external to itself, and was not one of a family of
cognate truths. This, however, is undergoing a gradual but certain
change, in which it is becoming constantly more manifest that between
the different departments of human inquiry there are mutual dependences
and complicated interrelations, which enable us, by the truths of one
science, to thread the mazes of another.
There are certain general laws which pertain with equal validity to many
departments of acti
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