we know that the people of our land compose a manly nation, determined to defend itself against oppression, we call out in the loudest voice, "Our fatherland is in danger !" Because we are sure that the nation is able to defend its hearths and homes, we announce the peril in all its magnitude, and appeal to our brethren, in the name of God and their country, to look the danger boldly in the face. We will not smile and flatter. We say it plainly, that, unless the nation rise, to a man, prepared to shed the last drop of blood, all our previous struggles will have been in vain. The noble blood that has flowed like water, will have been wasted. Our fatherland will be crushed to the earth. On the soil, where rest the ashes of our ancestors, the Russian knout will be wielded over a people reduced beneath the yoke of slavery, If we wish to shut our eyes to the danger, we shall thereby save no one from its power. If we represent the matter as it is, we make our country master of its own fate. If the breath of life is in our people, they will save themselves and their fatherland. But, if paralyzed by coward fear, they remain supine, all will be lost. God will help no man who does not help himself. We tell you that the Austrian Emperor sends the hordes of Russian barbarians for your destruction. People of Hungary! Would you die under the destroying sword of the barbarous Russians? If not, defend your own lives! Would you see the Cossacks of the distant north trampling under foot the dishonored bodies of your fathers, your wives, and your children? If not, defend yourselves! Do you wish that your fellow-countrymen should be dragged away to Siberia, or should fight for tyrants in a foreign land, or writhe in slavery beneath a Russian scourge? If not, defend yourselves! Would you see your villages in flames, and your harvest-fields in ruins? Would you die of hunger on the soil which you have cultivated with sweat and blood? If not, defend yourselves! This strife is not a strife between two hostile camps, but a war of tyranny against freedom, of barbarians against the collective might of a free nation. Therefore must the whole people arise with the army. If these millions sustain our army, we have gained freedom and victory for universal Europe, as well as for ourselves. Therefore, O strong, gigantic people, unite with the army, and rush to the conflict. Ho! every freeman! To arms! To arms! Thus alone is victory certain. FROM KOSSUTH. CCIII.-HUNGARY. WE have all had our sympathies much enlisted in the Hungarian effort for liberty. We have all wept at its failure. We thought we saw a more rational hope of establishing independence in Hungary, than in any other part of Europe, where the question has been in agitation, within the last twelve months. But despotic power from abroad intervened to suppress it. What will come of it, I do not know. For my part, I feel more indignant at recent events connected with Hungary, than at all those which passed in her struggle for liberty. I see that the Emperor of Russia demands of Turkey that the noble Kossuth and his companions shall be given up. And I see that this demand is made in derision of the established law of nations. There is something on earth greater than arbitrary or despotic power. The lightning has its power, and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake has its power. But there is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power, than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world. The Emperor of Russia holds himself to be bound by the law of nations, from the fact that he treats with nations; that he forms alliances. He professes, in fact, to live in a civilized age, and to govern an enlightened nation. I say that, if under these circumstances, he shall perpetrate so great a violation of natural law, as to seize these Hungarians, and to execute them, he will stand as a crimi nal and malefactor, in the view of the law. The whole world will be the tribunal to try him. He must appear before it, and hold up his hand, and plead, and abide its judgment. The Emperor of Russia is the supreme lawgiver in his own country, and, for aught I know, the executor of it also. But, thanks be to God, he is not the supreme lawgiver or executor of the national law. Every offense against that, is an offense against the rights of the civilized world. If he breaks that law, in the case of Turkey, or in any other case, the whole world has a right to call him out, and to demand his punishment. The bones of poor John Wickliffe, were dug out of his grave, seventy years after his death, and burned, for his heresy. His ashes were thrown upon a river in Warwickshire. Some prophet of that day said: "The Avon to the Severn runs, the Severn to the sea; And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad, wide as the waters be." If the blood of Kossuth is taken by an absolute, unqualified, unjustifiable violation of national law, what will it appease? What will it pacify? It will mingle with the earth. It will mix with the waters of the ocean. The whole civilized world will snuff it in the air; and it will return, with awful retribution, on the heads of those violators of national law and universal justice. I can not say when, or in what form. But depend upon it, that, if such an act take place, the thrones and principalities and powers must look for the consequences. And now, let us do our part. Let us understand the position in which we stand, as the great republic of the world, at the most interesting era of the world. Let us consider the mission and the destiny which Providence seems to have designed us for. Let us so take care of our own conduct, that, with irreproachable hands, and with. hearts void of offense, we may stand up, whenever and wherever called upon, and with a voice not to be disregarded, say, This shall not be done. FROM WEBSTER CCIV.-FATE OF GOLDAU. O, SWITZERLAND! my country! 'tis to thee My country; nurse of Liberty, Parents, and home, and friends: Ye sleep beneath a mountain pall, No chariots of fire on the clouds careered; No earthquake reeled; no Thunderer stormed; But the hour when the sun in his pride went down, While abroad o'er the sky his flushed mantle was blown, An everlasting hill was torn From its primeval base, and borne, Slowly it came in its mountain wrath; And the forests vanished before its path; And the rude cliffs bowed; and the waters fled; And the living were buried, while, over their head, The mountain sepulcher of all I loved! Leaned back from the encountering breeze, As this tremendous pageant moved. The mountain forsook his eternal throne, And came down in his pomp; and his path is shown Sweet vále, Goldau, farewell! An Alpine monument may dwell The mountain, thy pall and thy prison, may keep thee; FROM NEAL. CCV. THE VULTURE. I've been among the mighty Alps, and wandered through their vales, And heard the honest mountaineers relate their dismal tales, And there I from a shepherd heard a narrative of fear, "It is among these barren cliffs the ravenous vulture dwells, "One cloudless sabbath summer morn, the sun was rising high, NEW EC. S.—30 |