THERE IS SOMETHING IN A FLAG.

There is something in a flag, and in a little burnished eagle, That is more than emblematic, it is glorious, it's regal; You may never live to feel it, you may never be in danger, You may never visit foreign lands and play the role of stranger;

You may never in the army check the march of an invader, You may never on the ocean cheer the swarthy cannonader;

But if these should happen to you, then, when age is on you pressing,

And your great big booby boy comes to ask your final blessing

You will tell him: "Son of mine, be your station proud or frugal,

When your country calls her children, and you hear the blare of bugle,

Don't you stop to think of Kansas, or the quota of your

county,

Don't you go to asking questions, don't you stop for pay or bounty;

But you volunteer at once, and you go where orders take

you,

And obey them to the letter, if they make you or they break you;

Hunt that flag and then stay with it, be you wealthy or plebeian;

Let the women sing the dirges, scrape the lint, and chant the paean

"Though the magazines and journals teem with antiwar persuasion,

And the stay-at-homes and cowards gladly take the like occasion,

Don't you ever dream of asking, 'Is the war a right or wrong one?'

You are in it, and your duty is to make the fight a strong

one;

And you stay till it is over, be the war a short or long one; Make amends when war is over; then the power with you is lying;

Then, if wrong, do ample justice-but that flag, you keep it flying;

If that flag goes down to ruin, time will then, without a warning,

Turn the dial back to midnight, and the world must wait till morning.”

GOD GIVE US MEN.

God give us men. The time demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking!

For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds
Mingle in selfish strife; lo! Freedom weeps!
Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps!

J. G. Holland.

DEATH.

The fiat of nature is inexorable. There is no appeal for relief from the great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and fade as the leaves of the forest, and the flowers that bloom and wither in a day have no frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men will appear and disappear as the grass, and the multitude that throng the world today will disappear as the footsteps on the shore. Men seldom think of the great event of death until the shadow falls across their own pathway, hiding from their eyes the faces of loved ones whose living smile was the sunlight of their existence. Death is the antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although its dark passage may lead to Paradise: we do not want to lie down in the damp grave, even with princes for bedfellows. In the beautiful drama of lon, the hope of immortality, so eloquently uttered by the death-devoted Greek, finds deep response in every thoughtful soul. When about to yield his young existence as a sacrifice to fate, his Clemantha asks if they should meet again, to which he

replies: "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills that look eternal-of the clear streams that flow forever of the stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. All were dumb; but as I gaze upon thy living face I feel that there is something in the love that mantles through its beauty that cannot wholly perish. We shall meet again, Clemantha." George D. Prentice.

NEW YORK SPEECH ON LEARNING OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION.

Fellow citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow citizens! God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!"

General James A. Garfield.

WHO MISSES OR WHO WINS.

Quoted by the late Senator Bayard of Delaware in an address to the students of Virginia University.

Who misses or who wins the prize,

Go lose or conquer, as you can;
But, if you fall, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

Wm. M. Thackeray.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

LENOX