AMERICA, COMMERCE AND FREEDOM.

BY SUSANNAH ROWSON.

How blest a life a sailor leads,

From clime to clime still ranging ;
For as the calm the storm succeeds,
The scene delights by changing!
When Tempests howl along the main,
Some object will remind us,
And cheer with hopes to meet again

Those friends we've left behind us.

Then, under snug sail, we laugh at the gale,

And though landsmen look pale never heed 'em ;

But toss off a glass to a favorite lass,

To America, commerce, and freedom!

And when arrived in sight of land,
Or safe in port rejoicing,
Our ship we moor, our sails we hand,
Whilst out the boat is hoisting.

With eager haste the shore we reach,
Our friends delighted greet us;
And, tripping lightly o'er the beach,
The pretty lasses meet us.

When the full-flowing bowl has enlivened the soul,
To foot it we merrily lead 'em,

And each bonny lass will drink off a glass
To America, commerce, and freedom!

Our cargo sold, the chink we share,
And gladly we receive it;
And if we meet a brother tar

Who wants, we freely give it.
No freeborn sailor yet had store,
But cheerfully would lend it;

And when 'tis gone, to sea for more

We earn it but to spend it.

Then drink round, my boys, 'tis the first of our joys,
To relieve the distressed, clothe and feed 'em ;
'Tis a task which we share with the brave and the fair
In this land of commerce and freedom!

EMBASSY TO ROME.

BY L. C. LEVIN.

SYMPATHY With Pope Pius IX. appears to be the hobbyhorse of political leaders. O'Connell, the Irish reformer, is dead. The curtain has fallen upon the last act of the national farce, and now the Pope, an Italian reformer, steps upon the stage to conclude what O'Connell left unfinished. The hurrah has gone through the country; public meetings have been held; sympathy for the Pope has grown almost into a fashion: yet sir, in no legitimate sense can this embassy to Rome be called a national measure, intended for the public benefit. We have no commerce to protect in the Roman States; we have no seamen whose rights may need even the supervision of a government agent or consul; we have no navy riding in her only harbor; we have no interests that may be exposed to jeopardy for want of an ambassador.

The Papal flag has never been known to wave in an American port. No American vessel has received the visit of a Pope. Dwelling under the shadow of the ruins of antiquity, they have never disturbed us, save by the bulls of Pope Gregory and the intrigues of his Jesuits. What, then, has produced this sudden revolution in the concerns of the two coun

tries? We are told that Pius IX. is a reformer.

Indeed! In what sense is he a reformer? Has he divested himself of any of his absolute prerogatives? Has he cast off his claims

to infallibility? Has he flung aside his triple crown? Has he become a republican? Has he emancipated his people? Has he suppressed the Jesuits? Far from it. Nothing of this has been done. He maintains his own prerogatives as absolute as Gregory XIX., or any other of his illustrious predecessors. In what, then, does the world, give him credit for being a reformer? For building up a new and firmer foundation to his own secular and hierarchical power; for permitting a press to be established in Rome, under his own supervision and control; for carrying out measures not to be censured, but certainly giving him no pretensions beyond that of a selfish sagacity, intent on the study of all means calculated to add stability to his spiritual power, and firmness to his temporal throne.

But, it is said, if Rome will not come to America, America must go to Rome! This is the new doctrine of an age of retrogressive progress. If the Pope will not establish a republic for his Italian subjects, we, the American people, must renounce all the ties of our glorious freedom, and endorse the Papal system as the perfection of human wisdom, by sending an ambassador to Rome to congratulate "His Holiness" on having made-what? The Roman people free? Oh! no; but on having made tyranny amiable; in having sugared the poisoned cake. And for this, the highest crime against freedom, we are to commission an embassador to Rome! Is

there an American heart that does not recoil from the utter degradation of the scheme? Sir, in the name of the American people, I protest against this innovation, which would make us a by-word among the nations.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION.

BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

O CLEOPATRA of religions! throned in power, glowing and gorgeous in all imaginable splendors and luxuries — proud victor of victors-in the "infinite variety" of thy resources and enchantments more attractive than glory, resistless as fate -now terrible in the dusk splendor of thy imperious beauty -now softening and subtle as moonlight, and music, and poet-dreams-insolent and humble, stormy and tender! O alluring tyranny, O beautiful falsehood, O fair and fatal enchantress, O sovereign sorceress of the world! the end is not yet, and the day may not be far distant, when thou shalt lay the asp to thine own bosom, and die.