AMERICA'S DEBT TO FRANCE.

Ir may perhaps be suggested that the fact that France lavished her favors on the American people in the past does not explain her present action. Logically—the objector may say-America should send bronze statues to France, not France to America. We never sent armed men to her aid when all Europe was banded against her. While her land was overrun, and German, Russian, English armies swept over her fields and towns, leaving a track of ruin behind them, only French blood was shed in her behalf. Our ships did not go down with French ships at Trafalgar, our treasure did not melt away in the fiery furnace of French tribulation and German triumph. If we are paying taxes to support our credit and diminish our debt, no part of that debt was incurred to save French interests or French territory. True-but he knows little of the hidden springs that control human action who does not know that there is no gratitude like that which is felt by the benefactor. It is far easier to forget the favors that we have received than those that we have conferred. That pattern of shrewd worldly wisdom, Benjamin Franklin, ingenuously tells us that when he wanted to secure the goodwill of influential men he always sought to place himself under some slight obligation; he borrowed (and returned) a book, or asked some small service. The obligation incurred was never heavy enough to trouble him, but it always en

uraged the other party to renewed bounty. ne habit of generosity is apt to grow with exerse, and it is precisely because France was the iend and loyal ally of America upward of a cenry ago, that she is now ready, and always has en, to testify the warmth and fidelity of her atchment. And if there ever has been at any ne, on the face of our friendship, coldness or trangement, or the appearance of it, such a Lange has never been exhibited by France.

If I were called upon to pick out from the ass of concurring testimony proof of the pricess value of French aid to the American coloes, I should go to that dark and dreary winter Valley Forge, when even the stoutest hearts ere despondent. All that makes victory possie was absent, except courage and faith, and ey were fast failing before the cruel blows of verse fortune. What must other men have ought of the future and its promises when ashington from the midst of his shivering, halfd, and half-fed followers, wrote this: "Unless me great and capital change takes place the my must be inevitably reduced to one or other three things—starve, dissolve, or disperse." Only a miracle could save the cause! Who uld help the struggling band of enthusiasts at had nothing to offer as a reward for the aid ich they prayed for? Was it not against all story and experience that the vanquished cause ould so commend itself to the world that ops, and money, and friends, and sympathy

Or the fragile, pallid mother, seeing in that starry

eye

God's eternal, fadeless garden, God's wide sunshine and His sky,

Hers through painless, endless ages, bright'ning through immensity?

None may know-the busy workings of the brain remain untold,

But the loving deed-the outgrowth-brings us lessons manifold.

Smiles and frowns-a look-a flower growing by the common way,

Trifles born with every hour make the sum of life's poor day,

And the jewels that we garner are the tears we wipe away.

Scribner's Monthly.

WASHINGTON.

Ir matters very little what spot may have been the birthplace of Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the atmosphere that it cleared! How bright, on the brow of the firmament, was the planet which it revealed to us!

In the production of Washington, it seems as if ature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, id that all the virtues of the ancient world were it so many studies preparatory to the patriot the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there ere, splendid exemplifications of some singular alification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was mperate, Hannibal was patient; but it was rerved for Washington to blend them all in one, d like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian tist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, e pride of every model, and the perfection of ery master.

As a general he marshalled the farmer into a teran, and supplied by discipline the absence experience. As a statesman he enlarged the olicy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive stem of general advantage; and such was the isdom of his views, and the philosophy of his -unsels, that to the soldier and statesman he most added the character of the sage! A coneror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; revolutionist, he was free from any stain of eason, for aggression commenced the contest, d his country called him to command. Liberty sheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory turned it.

If he had paused here, history might have oubted what station to assign him; whether at e head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns s career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like

Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to her philosophy. The temptations of earth could not seduce her patriotism. Charles Phillips.

"PERSEVERE."

ROBERT, the Bruce, in the dungeon stood
Waiting the hour of doom;

Behind him the Palace of Holyrood,

Before him, a nameless tomb.

And the foam on his lip was flecked with red,
As away to the past his memory sped,
Upcalling the day of his great renown

When he won and he wore the Scottish crown;
Yet come there shadow, or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"I have sat on the royal seat of Scone," He muttered, below his breath;

"It's a luckless change, from a kingly throne

To a felon's shameful death.”

And he clinched his hand in his despair,

And he struck at the shapes that were gathering there

Pacing his cell in impatient rage,

As a new-caught lion paces his cage.