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who with the faintest wish could blot them all from existence; and who, after they had all vanished away like a dream, would remain, filling the whole tremendous solitude they left, as unimpaired in all the fulness of his might as when he first scattered them around him to be the flaming beacons of his glory. With him, coïnfinite with immensity, coeval with eternity, the universe is a span, its duration a moment. Hear his voice attesting his own eternal sovereignty: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."-But who is he that thus builds the throne of his glory upon the ruins of earth and heaven? who is he that thus triumphs over a perishing universe, himself alone eternal and impassible? The child of a Jewish woman;- he who was laid in a manger, because there was no room for him in the inn at Bethlehem!

POETRY.

SECTION I.-HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE.

I.-TRIUMPHS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

(J. G. LYONS.)

Now gather all our Saxon bards, let harps and hearts be strung,

To celebrate the triumphs of our own good Saxon tongue; For stronger far than hosts that march with battle-flags

unfurled,

It goes with FREEDOM, THOUGHT, and TRUTH, to rouse and rule the world.

Stout Albion learns its household lays on every surf-worn

shore,

And Scotland hears its echoing far as Orkney's breakers

roar

From Jura's crags and Mona's hills it floats on every gale, And warms with eloquence and song the homes of Innisfail.

On many a wide and swarming deck it scales the rough wave's crest,

Seeking its peerless heritage the fresh and fruitful West: It climbs New England's rocky steeps, as victor mounts a throne;

Niagara knows and greets the voice, still mightier than its

own.

It spreads where winter piles deep snows on bleak Canadian plains,

And where, on Essequibo's banks, eternal summer reigns:

It glads Acadia's misty coasts, Jamaica's glowing isle, And bides where, gay with early flowers, green Texan prairies smile:

It tracks the loud, swift Oregon, through sunset valleys rolled,

And soars where Californian brooks wash down their sands of gold.

It sounds in Borneo's camphor groves, on seas of fierce Malay,

In fields that curb old Ganges' flood, and towers of proud

Bombay:

It wakes up Aden's flashing eyes, dusk brows, and swarthy

limbs ;

The dark Liberian soothes her child with English cradle hymns.

Tasmania's maids are wooed and won in gentle Saxon speech; Australian boys read Crusoe's life by Sydney's sheltered beach :.

It dwells where Afric's southmost capes meet oceans broad and blue,

And Nieuveld's rugged mountains gird the wide and waste Karroo.

It kindles realms so far apart, that, while its praise you sing, These may be clad with autumn's fruits, and those with flowers of spring:

It quickens lands whose meteor lights flame in an arctic sky, And lands for which the Southern Cross hangs its orbèd fires on high.

It goes with all that prophets told, and righteous kings desired,

With all that great apostles taught, and glorious Greeks admired;

'With Shakspere's deep and wondrous verse, and Milton's loftier mind,

'With Alfred's laws, and Newton's lore,-to cheer and bless mankind.

Mark, as it spreads, how deserts bloom, and error flies away, As vanishes the mist of night before the star of day!

But grand as are the victories whose monuments we see, These are but as the dawn, which speaks of noontide yet to be.

Take heed, then, heirs of Saxon fame, take heed, nor once disgrace

With deadly pen or spoiling sword, our noble tongue and

race.

Go forth prepared in every clime to love and help each other, And judge that they who counsel strife would bid you smite -a brother.

Go forth, and jointly speed the time, by good men prayed for long,

When Christian states, grown just and wise, will scorn revenge and wrong;

When earth's oppressed and savage tribes shall cease to pine or roam,

All taught to prize these English words-FAITH, FREEDOM, HEAVEN and HOME.

II.-THE THREATENED INVASION.
(CAMPBELL.)

Thomas Campbell, so well known by his "Pleasures of Hope," and his many spirited lyrics, was born in Glasgow in 1777, and died in Boulogne in 1844. The poem refers to the invasion threatened by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803.

OUR bosoms we'll bare for the glorious strife,

And our oath is recorded on high,

To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or, crushed in its ruins, to die!

Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

'Tis the home we hold sacred is laid to our trust-
God bless the green isle of the brave!
Should a conqueror tread on our forefathers' dust,
It would rouse the old dead from their grave!

Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

In a Briton's sweet home shall a spoiler abide,
Profaning its loves and its charms?

Shall a Frenchman insult the loved fair at our side?—
To arms! O my country, to arms!

Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand, And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

Shall a tyrant enslave us, my countrymen ?—No!
His head to the sword shall be given-

A death-bed repentance be taught the proud foe,
And his blood be an offering to Heaven!

Then rise, fellow-freemen, and stretch the right hand,
And swear to prevail in your dear native land!

III.—THE ABBOT TO BRUCE.

(SIR WALTER SCOTT.)

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh in 1771, and died at Abbotsford in 1832.

THEN on King Robert turned the Monk,
But twice his courage came and sunk;
Confronted with the hero's look,
Twice fell his eye, his accents shook;
At length, resolved in tone and brow,
Sternly he questioned him,-" And thou,
Unhappy! what hast thou to plead,
Why I denounce not on thy deed
That awful doom which canons tell
Shuts paradise, and opens hell;
Anathema of power so dread,
It blends the living with the dead,
Bids each good angel soar away,
And every ill one claim his prey;
Expels thee from the Church's care,
And deafens Heaven against thy prayer;

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