LOYALTY AND HEROISM.

THE NATIONAL FLAG.

CHARLES SUMNER.

THERE is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a foreign land, the flag is companionship and country itself with all its endearments. Who, as he sees it, can think of a State merely? Whose eyes, once fastened upon its radiant trophies, can fail to recognize the image of the whole nation? It has been called a "floating piece of poetry," and yet I know not if it have an intrinsic beauty beyond other ensigns. Its highest beauty is in what it symbolizes. It is because it represents all, that all gaze at it with delight and reverence. It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air, but it speaks sublimely, and every part has a voice. Its stripes of alternate red and white proclaim the original union of thirteen States to maintain the Declaration of Independence. Its stars of white on a field of blue proclaim that union of States constituting (our national constellation, which receives a new star with every new State. The two

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together signify union, past and present. The very colors have a language which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice; and all together, bunting, stripes, stars and colors blazing in the sky, make the flag of our country -to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands.

STAND BY THE FLAG!

JOHN NICHOLS Wilder.

STAND by the flag! Its stars, like meteors gleaming,
Have lighted Arctic icebergs, southern seas,
And shone responsive to the stormy beaming
Of old Arcturus and the Pleiades.

Stand by the flag! Its stripes have streamed in glory,
To foes a fear, to friends a festal robe,
And spread in rhythmic lines the sacred story
Of Freedom's triumphs over all the globe.

Stand by the flag! On land and ocean billow
By it your fathers stood unmoved and true,
Living, defended-dying, from their pillow,

With their last blessing, passed it on to you.

Stand by the flag! Immortal heroes bore it

Through sulphurous smoke, deep moat and armed defence;

And their imperial Shades still hover o'er it,

A guard celestial from Omnipotence.

Stand by the flag though death-shots round it rattle,
And underneath its waving folds have met,
In all the dread array of sanguine battle,

The quivering lance and glittering bayonet!

Stand by the flag, all doubt and treason scorning!
Believe with courage firm, and faith sublime,
That it will float, until the eternal morning
Pales in its glories all the lights of Time!

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WE cannot honor our Country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her harvest-home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-sea and her inland isles; with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn; with her beautiful Ohio and her verdant Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, OUR COUNTRY!

THE DEAD COMRADE.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

At the burial of Grant, a bugler stood forth and sounded “taps."

COME, soldiers, arouse ye!
Another has gone;

Let us bury our comrade,
His battles are done.
His sun it is set;

He was true, he was brave,
He feared not the grave;

There is naught to regret.

Bring music and banners
And wreaths for his bier,
No fault for the fighter

That death conquered here.
Bring him home ne'er to rove,
Bear him home to his rest,
And over his breast

Fold the flag of his love!

Great Captain of Battles,

We leave him with thee!
What was wrong, O forgive it:
His spirit make free!

Sound taps and away!
Out lights, and to bed!
Farewell, soldier dead!
Farewell for a day!

HEROES.

JOHN B. GOUGH.

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COUNT me over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you men that stood alone-ay, alone, while those they toiled, and labored, and agonized for, hurled at them contumely, scorn and contempt. They stood alone; they looked into the future calmly and with faith; they saw the golden beam inclining to the side of perfect justice; and they fought on amidst the storm of persecution. In Great Britain they tell me when I go to see such a prison: "There is such a dungeon in which such a one was confined." Here, among the ruins of an old castle, we will show you where such a one had his ears cut off, and where another was murdered." Then they will show me monuments towering up to the heavens: "There is a monument to such a one; there is a monument to another." And what do I find? That the one generation persecuted and howled at these men, crying, "Crucify them! crucify them!" and dancing around the blazing fagots that consumed them; and the next generation busied itself in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes and depositing them in the golden urn of a nation's history!

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

JOHN BRIGHT.

WHETHER the Union will be restored, I know not and predict not. But this I think I know that —