And on the billow's curling spray the sunbeams glittering fell,
The storm has vexed that billow oft, and oft that sun has set,
But plighted love remains with us in peace and luster yet.

I wiled thee to a lonely haunt, that bashful love might speak
Where none could hear what love revealed, or see the crimson cheek;
The shore was all deserted, and we wandered there alone,

And not a human step impressed the sand-beach but our own.
Thy footsteps all have vanished from the billow-beaten strand;
The vows we breathed remain with us-they were not traced in sand.

Far, far we left the sea-girt shore, endeared by childhood s dream;
To seek the humbie cot that smiled by fair Ohio's stream;
In vain the mountain cliff opposed, the mountain torrent roared,
For love unfurled her silken wing, and o'er each barrier soared;
And many a wide domain we passed, and many an ample dome,
But none so blessed, so dear to us, as wedded love's first home.

Beyond those mountains now are all that e'er we loved or knew,
The long-remembered many, and the dearly-cherished few;
The home of her we value, and the grave of him we mourn,
Are there;—and there is all the past to which the heart can turn:
But dearer scenes surround us here, and lovelier joys we trace,
For here is wedded love's first home, its hallowed resting-place.

JAMES HALL.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.

[The following extrict is from the cloquent oration delivered upon the occa sion of the Centennial Anniversary of the meeting of the first Colonial Congress, in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia.]

The conditions of life are always changing, and the experience of the fathers is rarely the experience of the sons. The temptations which are trying us are not the temptations which beset their footsteps, nor the dangers which threaten our pathway the dangers which surrounded them. These men are few in number; we are many. They were poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we are strong. What is it, countrymen, that we need to-day? Wealth? Behold it in your hands. Power? God hath given it you. Liberty?

It is your birthright. Peace? It dwells amongst you. You have a Government founded in the hearts of men, built by the people for the common good. You have a land flowing with milk and honey; your homes are happy, your workshops busy, your barns are full.

The school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing press, have welded you together into one. Descend those mines that honeycomb the hills! Behold that commerce whitening every sea! Stand by yon gates and see that multitude pour through them from the corners of the earth, grafting the qualities of older stocks upon one stem; mingling the blood of many races in a common stream, and swelling the rich volume of our English speech with varied music from an hunured tongues. You have a long and glorious history, a past glittering with heroic deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and imperishable examples. You have passed through danger, endured privation, been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by suffering. You have journeyed in safety through the wilderness and crossed in triumph the Red Sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who led you hath not faltered nor the light of His countenance been turned away.

It is a question for us now, not of the founding of a new gov ernment, but of the preservation of one already old; not of the formation of an independent power, but of the purification of a nation's life; not of the conquest of a foreign foe, but of the subjection of ourselves. The capacity of man to rule himself is to be proven in the days to come, not by the greatness of his wealth; not by his valor in the field; not by the extent of his dominion, nor by the splendor of his genius. The dangers of to-day come from within. The worship of self, the love of power, the lust for gold, the weakening of faith, the decay of public virtue, the lack of private worth,— these are the perils which threaten our future; these are the enemies we have to fear; these are the traitors which infest the camp; and the danger was far less when Cataline knocked with his army at the gates of Rome, than when he sat smiling in the Senate House. We see them daily face to face; in the walk of virtue; in the road to wealth; in the path to honor; on the way to happiness. There is no peace between them and our safety. Nor can we avoid them and turn back. It is not enough to rest upon the past. No man or nation can stand still. We must mount upward or go down. We must grow worse or better. It is the Eternal law-we cannot change it.

The century that is opening is all our own. The years that lie before us are a virgin page. We can inscribe them as we will. The

future of our country rests upon us; the happiness of posterity depends upon us. The fate of humanity may be in our hands. That pleading voice, choked with the sobs of ages, which has so often spoken to deaf ears, is lifted up to us. It asks us to be brave, benevolent, consistent, true to the teachings of our history, proving “divine descent by worth divine." It asks us to be virtuous,-building up public virtue by private worth; seeking that righteousness which exalteth nations. It asks us to be patriotic-loving our country before all other things; her happiness our happiness, her honor ours, her fame our own. It asks us, in the name of justice, in the name of charity, in the name of freedom, in the name of God.

My countrymen, this anniversary has gone by forever, and my task is done. While I have spoken, the hour has passed from us: the hand has moved upon the dial, and the old century is dead. The American Union hath endured an hundred years! Here, on this threshold of the future, the voice of humanity shall not plead to us in vain. There shall be darkness in the days to come; danger for our courage; temptation for our virtue; doubt for our faith; suffering for our fortitude. A thousand shall fall before us, and tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall pass beneath our feet, and century follow century in quick succession. The generations of men shall come and go; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten: to-day and the glories of this noon shall vanish before to-morrow's sun; but America shall not perish, but endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons.

HENRY A. BROWN.

PUBLIC OPINION.

The point of view from which I shall speak is that of total abstinence. It is, I know, the unpopular view, the depreciated view, the despised view. By taking it, I rank myself among those of whom some speak as unpractical bigots and ignorant fanatics. But, because I believe it, in the present need, to be the only effective remedy for an otherwise hopeless evil, therefore, I take it undeterred.

Public opinion, my bre hren, is a grand power. It is a mighty engine for good, if we can array it on our side. He who despises it must be either more or less than man; he must be puffed up by a conceit which mars his usefulness, or he must be too abject to be

reached by scorn. He, therefore, that affects to despise public opinion stands self-condemned; but yet, public opinion has, many a time, been arrayed on the side of wrong; and he who is not afraid to brave it in defence of righteousness, he who, in a cause which he knows to be good, but which his fellow-men do not yet understand, is willing to be ranked among the idiots and fools, he is a partaker with all those who, through faith and patience, have inherited the promises,

It was thus-it was for the cause of scientific truth-that Roger Bacon bore his long imprisonment, and Galileo sat contented in his cell; it was thus-it was for the cause of religious truth-that Luther stood undaunted before kings; it was thus that, to wake the base slumbers of a greedy age, Wesley and Whitefield were content to "stand pilloried on infamy's high stage, and bear the pelting scorn of half an age;" it was thus that Wilberforce faced in Parliament the sneers and rage of wealthy slave o vners; it was thus, "in the teeth of clenched antagonisms," that education was established, that missions were founded, that the cause of religious liberty was won. The persecuted object of to-day is the saint and exemplar of to-morrow.

St. John enters the thronged streets of the capital of Asia as a despised Galilean and an unnoticed exile; but, when generations have passed away, it is still his name which clings to its indistinguishable ruins. St. Paul stands, in his ragged garbardine, too mean for Gallio's supreme contempt; but to-day, the cathedral dedicated to his honor towers over the vast, imperial city, where the name of Gallio is not so much as heard. "Count we over the chosen heroes of this earth," says a great orator, "and I will show you the men who stood alone, while those for whom they toiled and agonized poured on them contumely and scorn. They were glorious iconoclasts, sent out to break down the Dagons worshiped by their fathers. The very martyrs of yesterday, who were hooted at, whom the mob reviled and expatriated; -to-day, the children of the very generation who mobbed and reviled them, are gathering up their scattered ashes to deposit them in the golden urn of their nation's history!"

CANON FARRAR.

THE LOST STEAMSHIP.

"Ho, there! fisherman, hold your hand!
Tell me what is that far away-