of humanity; and Coleridge ought to be once more alive to teach statesmen their forgotten functions. A government like ours, in which the general principles of equality, liberty, and charity give spirit to the laws, needs, as its true administrators, men of profound moral convictions -men upon whose hearts are graven the two tables of the law, love to God and love to Man. A friend of ours lately came back from Washington saying, "The great lack there, is of faith in God!" What fitness have men, lacking such a faith, to administer what ought to be a Christian government? No man is fit to stand at the head of men who does not sit at the feet of God. The only human ruler who rules sublimely is he whose soul is touched of the Holy Ghost, and who thus borrows greatness from Heaven. And a nation in a life-and-death struggle for liberty needs for its leader a man with whom liberty is not only a political idea, but a religious faith; who carries it in his breast as an unquenchable enthusiasmas a holy and purifying fire! In the time of our trial— of our baptism of blood, not yet ended-let all devout hearts pray that God may grant us the gift of such a man! As another requisite, let the nation, in electing a man to preside, take one born to command. The capacity to govern is native with its possessor; it cannot be loaned to him because he happens to be president. Genius for administration is made of superior sense, quickness, courage, and will,-sense enough to make a man his own best. counsellor, though he have a cabinet of ministers beside; quickness enough to make one timely blow tell better than two tardy ones; courage enough to assume every responsibility except that of doing wrong; will enough to break through common men's impossibilities as through وو egg-shells. "The will," as Emerson says, "that is the man.' It is a man with a Will that we mean to hunt for next July, and to vote for next November. Also, let us take a man of clean hands-unvexed with an itch for gain, uncorrupted by bargain and sale, ungreedy for a paid price. It is impossible to make any government thoroughly honest. A great Frenchman says, "Government will always be as rascally as the people permit." Bailie Peyton used to say that the city of Washington was so corrupt that the man in the moon held his nose in passing over it! The present administration, though not perfect in all the virtues, is, in respect to honesty, so great an improvement on the preceding as to create a desire that the forthcoming may be an equal improvement on this. A man of incorruptible integrity is in himself a treasury to a nation. "The king's name is a tower of strength." We hope our countrymen will give heed to these suggestions. If the time is ever to come in this country when, in choosing a President, we ought to take the wisest, strongest, bravest, best man, and no other, we believe that time now draws nigh. And what shall hinder us from such a choice? Such is the comparatively unpartisan state of the old parties, such the general unanimity of purpose among all loyal and patriotic citizens, that the nation is likely to be freer in making its nomination for the next canvass than for any previous. presidential struggle for many years. With no old political favorites to be necessarily rewarded-no old debts to be settled with former placemen and continuous office-seekers-no unavoidable bargains to be made with balance-holding factions-no needful consultations with ancient and dry-rotted lobbymen at Albany and Wash ington no enemy, domestic or foreign, respectable enough to be compromised with-no other object to be promoted than the welfare of the country-why should there be a committal to any other candidate than to the best man for the high place? Nor, this time, can the common plea of "availability” be set up as an apology for putting aside such a man for some one more accidentally usable, because more politically influential. We believe the loyal party will be strong enough at the next election to carry its candidate, whoever he may be. The true presidential campaign will be waged before and during the convention, rather than after the nomination. It will not be so hard to elect the best candidate as to nominate him. This is a reason which not only justifies but urges an early survey of the entire field. Let loyal men unite, speedily and heartily, upon the one and only object of choosing THE BEST MAN. Who, then, is he? We repeat, it is not time to be rashly nominating; but it is time to be prudently considering. The nation, just now, is busy with something besides candidating-having a toilsome task upon its hands, having a bloody sweat upon its brow. But while the blacksmith is hammering he can be thinking. It is idle to say that because the rebellion is on our hands, therefore we are to banish all thoughts of an approaching change of administration—a change that may either be the safety or the ruin of the country. Besides, if the country is expected to be able, next summer, to carry on a presidential and a military campaign, both at once, it is just as able, this spring, to be not only conquering the rebellion, but at the same time taking a wise forethought of the future, first of principles and afterward of men. The ship of state tosses on a rough sea; the bells will soon ring a change of watch; who shall take the next turn at the helm? Let it be the safest man to steer in a storm, the surest man to find the way into port and safe anchorage. Give us the wisest head, the stoutest arm, the bravest heart. And may God keep the ship! February 18, 1864. A WEEK IN A JURY BOX. T is provoking, when your business is at the thickest, when your engagements are most pressing, when your office imperatively needs. your daily presence, to find yourself suddenly imprisoned, shut out from your clamorous duties, kept from your desk from the beginning of Monday to the end of Saturday, all on account of a bit of meddlesome paper with this inscription : You are hereby summoned to attend a term of the Circuit Court, and Court of Oyer and Terminer, at the Court-Room, City Hall, in the city of Brooklyn, as a Petit Juror, said term commencing on the 20th day of January, at ten o'clock in the forenoon. Fine for nonattendance twenty-five dollars each day. mons. Signed, Commissioner of Jurors. What will you do? Get excused? Not while such a man sits on the bench as the judge who ordered that sumHe excuses nobody on the plea of other engagements. He believes that a man who has important business of his own is just the juror to sit on important business of others. He is right. The other day, when one of the busiest men in Brook lyn, on being summoned by a like notice, made the common excuse of urgent business, he was denied. He then |