against a continued agitation that retarded her progress, when her claims were admitted, her rights acknowledged, and her wrongs redressed. seems to have been the rule of his life." The Earl of Carlisle, inaugurating the statue of the poet,* bore testimony to his moral and social worth "in all the holy relations of life, as son, as brother, as husband, as father, as friend"; and on the same occasion, Mr. O'Hagan, Q. C., thus expressed himself: "He was faithful to all the sacred obligations and all the dear char Reference to the genius of Moore is needless. My object in this "Memory is to offer homage to his moral and social worth. The world that obtains intense delight from his poems, and willingly acknowledges its debt to the poet, has been less ready to esti-ities of domestic life, he was the idol mate the high and estimable character, of a household." the loving and faithful nature of the man. There are, however, many-may this humble tribute augment the number! by whom the memory of Thomas Moore is cherished in the heart of hearts; to whom the cottage at Sloperton will be a shrine while they live, that grave beside the village church a monument better loved than that of any other of the men of genius by whom the world is delighted, enlightened, and refined. "That God is love," writes his friend and biographer, Earl Russell, "was the summary of his belief; that a man should love his neighbor as himself Perhaps a better, though a far briefer, summary of the character of Thomas Moore than any of these may be given in the words of Dr. Parr, who bequeathed to him a ring: "To one who stands high in my estimation for original genius, for his exquisite sensibility, for his independent spirit, and incorruptible integrity." * A bronze statue of Moore has been erected in College Street, Dublin. It is a poor affair, the production of his namesake, the sculptor. Bad as it is, it is made worse by contrast with its neighbor, Goldsmith, a work by the great Irish artist, Foley, -a work rarely surpassed by the art of the sculptor at any period in any country. ON BOARD THE SEVENTY-SIX. [Written for Bryant's Seventieth Birthday.] UR ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side; Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free, Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair; And she that bore the promise of the world Within her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare, Not sullener than we. Morn came at last to peer into our woe, When, lo, a sail! Now surely help is nigh; The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no, Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes by And hails us :-"Gains the leak? Ah, so we thought! I leaned against my gun still angry-hot, There our foe wallowed like a wounded brute, Though death come with it? Or evade the test Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lag With the slow beat that doubts and then despairs; But one there was, the Singer of our crew, The voices of the hills did his obey; The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song; Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng Of dateless woods, or where we heard the calm But now he sang of faith to things unseen, We, listening, learned what makes the might of words, Manhood to back them, constant as a star; His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords, And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and spar Heard him and stiffened; the sails heard and wooed The winds with loftier mood. In our dark hour he manned our guns again ; THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. I. HERE comes the First of January, thing remarkable or perceptible for the Eighteen Hundred and SixtyFive, and we are all settled comfortably into our winter places, with our winter surroundings and belongings; all cracks and openings are calked and listed, the double windows are in, the furnace dragon in the cellar is ruddy and in good liking, sending up his warming respirations through every pipe and register in the house; and yet, though an artificial summer reigns everywhere, like bees, we have our swarming-place, -in my library. There is my chimneycorner, and my table permanently established on one side of the hearth; and each of the female genus has, so to speak, pitched her own winter-tent within sight of the blaze of my camp-fire. I discerned to-day that Jennie had surreptitiously appropriated one of the drawers of my study-table to knitting-needles and worsted; and wicker work-baskets and stands of various heights and sizes seem to be planted here and there for permanence among the bookcases. The canary-bird has a sunny window, and the plants spread out their leaves and unfold their blossoms as if there were no ice and snow in the street, and Rover makes a hearth-rug of himself in winking satisfaction in front of my fire, except when Jennie is taken with a fit of discipline, when he beats a retreat, and secretes himself under my table. Peaceable, ah, how peaceable, home and quiet and warmth in winter! And how, when we hear the wind whistle, we think of you, O our brave brothers, our saviours and defenders, who for our sake have no home but the muddy camp, the hard pillow of the barrack, the weary march, the uncertain fare, you, the rank and file, the thousand unnoticed ones, who have left warm fires, dear wives, loving little children, without even the hope of glory or fame, without even the hope of doing any cause you love, -resigned only to fill the ditch or bridge the chasm over which your country shall walk to peace and joy! Good men and true, brave unknown hearts, we salute you, and feel that we, in our soft peace and security, are not worthy of you! When we think of you, our simple comforts seem luxuries all too good for us, who give so little when you give all ! But there are others to whom from our bright homes, our cheerful firesides, we would fain say a word, if we dared. Think of a mother receiving a letter with such a passage as this in it! It is extracted from one we have just seen, written by a private in the army of Sheridan, describing the death of a private. "He fell instantly, gave a peculiar smile and look, and then closed his eyes. We laid him down gently at the foot of a large tree. I crossed his hands over his breast, closed his eyelids down, but the smile was still on his face. I wrapped him in his tent, spread my pocket-handkerchief over his face, wrote his name on a piece of paper, and pinned it on his breast, and there we left him: we could not find pick or shovel to dig a grave." There it is!- a history that is multiplying itself by hundreds daily, the substance of what has come to so many homes, and must come to so many more before the great price of our ransom is paid! What can we say to you, in those many, many homes where the light has gone out forever?-you, O fathers, mothers, wives, sisters, haunted by a name that has ceased to be spoken on earth, you, for whom there is no more news from the camp, no more reading of lists, no more tracing of maps, no more letters, but only a blank, dead silence! The battle-cry goes on, - but for you it is passed by! the victory comes, but, oh, never more to bring him back to you! your offering to this great cause has been made, and been taken; you have thrown into it all your living, even all that you had, and from henceforth your house is left unto you desolate! O ye watchers of the cross, ye waiters by the sepulchre, what can be said to you? We could almost extinguish our own home-fires, that seem too bright when we think of your darkness; the laugh dies on our lip, the lamp burns dim through our tears, and we seem scarcely worthy to speak words of comfort, lest we seem as those who mock a grief they cannot know. But is there no consolation? Is it nothing to have had such a treasure to give, and to have given it freely for the noblest cause for which ever battle was set, for the salvation of your country, for the freedom of all mankind? Had he died a fruitless death, in the track of common life, blasted by fever, smitten or rent by crushing accident, then might his most precious life seem to be as water spilled upon the ground; but now it has been given for a cause and a purpose worthy even the anguish of your loss and sacrifice. He has been counted worthy to be numbered with those who stood with precious incense between the living and the dead, that the plague which was consuming us might be stayed. The blood of these young martyrs shall be the seed of the future church of liberty, and from every drop shall spring up flowers of healing. O widow ! O mother! blessed among bereaved women! there remains to you a treasure that belongs not to those who have lost in any other wise, the power to say, "He died for his country." In all the good that comes of this anguish you shall have a right and share by virtue of this sacrifice. The joy of freedmen bursting from chains, the glory of a nation new-born, the assurance of a triumphant future for your country and the world, all these become yours by the purchase-money of that precious blood. Besides this, there are other treasures that come through sorrow, and sorrow alone. There are celestial plants of root so long and so deep that the land must be torn and furrowed, ploughed up from the very foundation, before they can strike and flourish; and when we see how God's plough is driving backward and forward and across this nation, rending, tearing up tender shoots, and burying soft wild-flowers, we ask ourselves, What is He going to plant? Not the first year, nor the second, after the ground has been broken up, does the purpose of the husbandman appear. At first we see only what is uprooted and ploughed in, -the daisy drabbled, and the violet crushed, — and the first trees planted amid the unsightly furrows stand dumb and disconsolate, irresolute in leaf, and without flower or fruit. Their work is under the ground. In darkness and silence they are putting forth long fibres, searching hither and thither under the black soil for the strength that years hence shall burst into bloom and bearing. What is true of nations is true of individuals. It may seem now winter and desolation with you. Your hearts have been ploughed and harrowed and are now frozen up. There is not a flower left, not a blade of grass, not a bird to sing,—and it is hard to believe that any brighter flowers, any greener herbage, shall spring up, than those which have been torn away: and yet there will. Nature herself teaches you to-day. Out-doors nothing but bare branches and shrouding snow; and yet you know that there is not a tree that is not patiently holding out at the end of its boughs next year's buds, frozen indeed, but unkilled. The rhododendron and the lilac have their blossoms all ready, wrapped in cere-cloth, waiting in patient faith. Under the frozen ground the crocus and the hyacinth and the tulip hide in their hearts the perfect forms of future flowers. And it is even so with you: your leaf-buds of the future are frozen, but not killed; the soil of your heart has many flowers under it cold and still now, but they will yet come up and bloom. The dear old book of comfort tells of no present healing for sorrow. No chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, but afterwards it yieldeth peaceable fruits of righteousness. We, as individuals, as a nation, need to have faith in that AFTERWARDS. It is sure to come, sure as spring and summer to follow winter. There is a certain amount of suffering which must follow the rending of the great chords of life, suffering which is natural and inevitable; it cannot be argued down; it cannot be stilled; it can no more be soothed by any effort of faith and reason than the pain of a fractured limb, or the agony of fire on the living flesh. All that we can do is to brace ourselves to bear it, calling on God, as the martyrs did in the fire, and resigning ourselves to let it burn on. We must be willing to suffer, since God so wills. There are just so many waves to go over us, just so many arrows of stinging thought to be shot into our soul, just so many faintings and sinkings and revivings only to suffer again, belonging to and inherent in our portion of sorrow; and there is a work of healing that God has placed in the hands of Time alone. Time heals all things at last; vet it depends much on us in our suffering, whether time shall send us forth healed, indeed, but maimed and crippled and callous, or whether, looking to the great Physician of sorrows, and coworking with him, we come forth stronger and fairer even for our wounds. We call ourselves a Christian people, and the peculiarity of Christianity is that it is a worship and doctrine of sorrow. The five wounds of Jesus, the instruments of the passion, the cross, the sepulchre, - these are its emblems and watchwords. In thousands of churches, amid gold and gems and altars fragrant with perfume, are seen the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear, the cup of vinegar mingled with gall, the sponge that could not slake that burning death-thirst; and in a voice choked with anguish the Church in many lands and divers tongues prays from age to age, "By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial!" - mighty words of comfort, whose meaning reveals itself only to souls fainting in the cold deathsweat of mortal anguish! They tell all Christians that by uttermost distress alone was the Captain of their salvation made perfect as a Saviour. Sorrow brings us into the true unity of the Church, that unity which underlies all external creeds, and unites all hearts that have suffered deeply enough to know that when sorrow is at its utmost there is but one kind of sorrow, and but one remedy. What matter, in extremis, whether we be called Romanist, or Protestant, or Greek, or Calvinist ? We suffer, and Christ suffered; we die, and Christ died; he conquered suffering and death, he rose and lives and reigns, and we shall conquer, rise, live, and reign; the hours on the cross were long, the thirst was bitter, the darkness and horror real, — but they ended. After the wail, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" came the calm, "It is finished"; pledge to us all that our "It is finished" shall come also. Christ arose, fresh, joyous, no more to die; and it is written, that, when the disciples were gathered together in fear and sorrow, he stood in the midst of them, and showed unto them his hands and his side; and then were they glad. Already had the healed wounds of Jesus become pledges of consolation to innumerable thousands; and those who, like Christ, have suffered the weary struggles, the dim horrors of the cross, who have lain, like him, cold and chilled in the hopeless sepulchre, if his spirit wakes them to life, shall come forth with healing power for others who have suffered and are suffering. Count the good and beautiful ministrations that have been wrought in this world of need and labor, and how many of them have been wrought by hands wounded and scarred, by hearts that had scarcely ceased to bleed! How many priests of consolation is |