that, within these last ten years, we English have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs we have fought where we should not have fought, for gain; and we have been passive where we should not have been passive, for fear. I tell you that the principle of non-intervention, as now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as the worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only malignant, but dastardly.

I know, however, that my opinions on this subject differ too widely from those ordinarily held, to be any farther intruded upon you, and therefore I pass lastly to examine the conditions of the third kind of noble war;-war waged simply for defense of the country in which we were born, and for the maintenance and execution of her laws, by whomsoever threatened or defied. It is to this duty that I suppose most men entering the army consider themselves in reality to be bound, and I want you now to reflect what the laws of mere defense are; and what the soldier's duty, as now understood, or supposed to be understood. You have solemnly devoted yourselves to be English soldiers, for the guardianship of England. I want you to feel what this vow of yours indeed means, or is gradually coming to mean. You take it upon you, first, while you are sentimental schoolboys; you go into your military convent, or barracks, just as a girl goes into her convent while she is a sentimental schoolgirl; neither of you then know what you are about, though both the good soldiers and good nuns make the best of it afterwards. You don't understand perhaps why I call you "sentimental" schoolboys, when you go into the army? Because, on the whole, it is love of adventure, of excitement, of fine dress, and of the pride of fame, all which are sentimental motives, which chiefly make a boy like going into the Guards better than into a countinghouse. You fancy, perhaps, that there is a severe sense of duty mixed with these peacocky motives? And in the best of you, there is; but do not think that it is principal. If you cared to do your duty to your country in a prosaic and unsentimental way, depend upon it, there is now truer duty to be done in raising harvests, than in burning them; more in building houses, than in shelling them more in winning money by your own work, wherewith to help men, than in taxing other people's work, for money wherewith to slay men; more duty finally, in honest and unselfish living than in honest and unselfish dying, though that seems to your boys' eyes the bravest. . .

And, now, but one word more. You may wonder, perhaps, that I have spoken all this night in praise of war. Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one, would fain join in the cadence of hammer strokes that should beat swords into plowshares: and that this cannot be, is not the fault of us men. It is your fault. Wholly yours. Only by your command, or by your permission, can any contest take place among us. And the real, final reason for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, throughout Europe, is simply that you women, however good, however religious, however self-sacrificing for those whom you love, are too selfish and too thoughtless to take pains for any creature out of your own immediate circles. You fancy that you are sorry for the pain of others. Now I just tell you this, that if the usual course of war, instead of unroofing peasants' houses, and ravaging peasants' fields, merely broke the china upon your own drawing-room tables, no war in civilized countries would last a week. I tell you more, that at whatever moment you chose to put a period to war, you could do it with less trouble than you take any day to go out to dinner. You know, or at least you might know if would think, that every battle you hear of has made many widows and orphans. We have, none of us, heart enough truly to mourn with these. But at least we might put on the outer symbols of mourning with them. Let but every Christian lady who has conscience toward God, vow that she will mourn, at least outwardly, for His killed creatures. Your praying is useless, and your churchgoing mere mockery of God, if you have not plain obedience in you enough for this. Let every lady in the upper classes of civilized Europe simply vow that, while any cruel war proceeds, she will wear black;-a mute's black, with no jewel, no ornament, no excuse for, or evasion into, prettiness, I tell you again, no war would last a week.

ICHABOD.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!

The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!

Revile him not! the Tempter hath
A snare for all;

And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall.

O! dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might

Have lighted up and led his age
Falls back in night!

Scorn? Would the angels laugh to mark
A bright soul driven,

Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark
From hope and heaven?

Let not the land once proud of him
Insult him now;

Nor brand with deeper shame his dim
Dishonored brow!

But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake

A long lament as for the Dead
In sadness make!

Of all we loved and honored naught
Save power remains,-

A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul hath fled:

When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The Man is dead.

JUST for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat;

Found the one gift of which Fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote.

They with the gold to give doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud.

We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their
graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen;

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves.

We shall march prospering, not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name then! record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devils' triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more for man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part, the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again.

Best fight on, well, for we taught him; strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own!

Then let him receive the new knowledge, and wait us,
Pardoned, in heaven, the first by the Throne!

THE OLD WOMAN OF SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.

(Anonymous: translated by F. Max Müller.)

[FRIEDRICH MAX MÜLLER, Cosmopolitan philologist, was born December 6, 1823, at Dessau, Germany, where his father, Wilhelm Müller, the poet, was librarian. He studied at several great universities, making Sanskrit his specialty, and edited the Rig-veda, 1849-1874. He was professor at Oxford of modern languages, and later of comparative philology, which he has popularized beyond any other man by his writings. His "Chips from a German Workshop" is a

well-known collection of his essays; his "Comparative Mythology," "Science of Language," "Science of Religion," "Science of Thought," "Science of

Mythology," etc., have been very influential.]

WHEN the war against Denmark began again in the winter of 1863, offices were opened in the principal towns of Germany for collecting charitable contributions. At Hamburg, Messrs. L. and K. had set apart a large room for receiving lint, linen, and warm clothing, or small sums of money. One day, about Christmas, a poorly clad woman from the country stepped in and inquired, in the pure Holstein dialect, whether contributions were received here for Schleswig-Holstein. The clerk showed her to a table covered with linen rags and such like articles. But she turned away and pulled out an old leather purse, and, taking out pieces of money, began to count aloud on the counter: "One mark, two marks, three marks," till she had finished her ten marks. "That makes ten marks," she said, and shoved the little pile away. The clerk, who had watched the poor old woman while she was arranging her small copper and silver coins, asked her, "From whom does the money come?"

"From me," she said, and began counting again, "One mark, two marks, three marks." Thus she went on emptying her purse, till she had counted out ten small heaps of coin, of ten marks each. Then, counting each heap once over again, she said, "These are my hundred marks for Schleswig-Holstein; be so good as to send them to the soldiers."

While the old peasant woman was doing her sums, several persons had gathered round her; and, as she was leaving the shop, she was asked again in a tone of surprise from whom the money came.

"From me," she said; and observing that she was closely scanned, she turned back, and looking the man full in the face, she added, smiling, "It is all honest money; it won't hurt the good cause."

The clerk assured her that no one had doubted her honesty, but that she herself had no doubt often known want, and that it was hardly right to let her contribute so large a sum, probably the whole of her savings.

The old woman remained silent for a time, but, after she had quietly scanned the faces of all present, she said: "Surely it concerns no one how I got the money. Many a thought passed through my heart while I was counting that money. You would not ask me to tell you all? But you are kind