XX. THE PRESS.

GOD said "Let there be light!"
Grim darkness felt his might,
And fled away;

Then startled seas and mountains cold
Shone forth, all bright in blue and gold,
And cried-""Tis day! 'tis day!"

"Hail, holy light!" exclaimed

The thunderous cloud, that flamed
O'er daisies white;

And lo! the rose, in crimson dressed,
Leaned sweetly on the lily's breast,

And, blushing, murmured-"Light!"

Then was the skylark born!
Then rose the embattled corn;
Then floods of praise

Flowed o'er the sunny hills of noon;
And then, in stillest night, the moon
Poured forth her "pensive lays.
Lo, heaven's bright bow is glad!
Lo, trees and flowers clad
In glory bloom!

And shall the mortal sons of God
Be senseless as the trodden clod,
And darker than the tomb?
No, by the mind of man!
By the swart artisan!

By God, our sire!

Our souls have holy light within,
And every form of grief and sin
Shall see and feel its fire.

By earth, and hell, and heaven,
The shroud of souls is riven!
Mind, mind alone

Is light, and hope, and life, and power!
Earth's deepest night from this blest hour,
The night of minds is gone!

"The Press!" all lands shall sing;
The Press, the Press we bring,

All lands to bless:

O pallid Want! O Labor stark!
Behold we bring the second ark!

The Press! the Press! the Press!

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

XXI. THE PRESS.

Ir was for moral uses that the press was chiefly created; and hence we are in possession of more of the moral than of the early political or general history of the world. We have the history of the Jews, even to the hooks and rings of the tabernacle, but of the glories of heathenism we know little, except as we find its history interwoven with that which the Almighty deemed worth preserving in a better

race.

'Herodotus and Xenophon speak to us; but not as Moses and Isaiah do. At Thebes and Memphis the only press is the sculptured column or the pictorial sarcophagus. These and the like have perpetuated our knowledge of the existence of the people, but the people are no more. Their very ashes, mingled with the sands of the desert, are continually overlaying their own past history. A modern press would have given them a renown more enduring than their pyramids; and placed their manuscripts at Alexandria beyond the reach of conflagration.

The mounds that at intervals line the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, have, by the active energies of a modern press, been made to throw up to the light of the sun the relics of bygone ages. But a few years ago the very site of Nineveh was unknown. Now we may pass along the halls through which "Nebuchadnezzar, Shalmanezer, and Sardanapalus marched with their nobles and captains to give battle to their enemies or audience to their people.

Painting and sculpture have preserved to us, independent of Scripture record, enough of a history of the world without a press to teach us, most impressively, that nearly four thousand years of human life were thrown away before our race could gather the first correct idea of the purpose of that life. Human aspirations and contemplations were confined to the physical, or to objects of sense. From the days of "Nimrod to the discovery of America, mankind seem to have thought of little else than war or conquest, and the gratification of kindred propensities. If learning and taste had, at a comparatively modern period, obtained a foothold in Greece and Italy, they were chiefly developed in poetry or a style of art, which gave a wide expression to the baser passions, rather than to the higher aims of our

better nature. Philosophy was speculative and childish, and history but a detail of campaigns and sieges.

What there was of science and education was made subservient to success in war. Even the Christian religion, with its divine power, unaided by the press, was but a light under a bushel; and, though ever guarded from extinction by the hand that placed it upon earth, it gave but a taper flame to the world it was sent to illuminate and bless.

We observe how rapidly the art of printing advanced after its discovery. Passing by all conjecture-for it is mere conjecture-in regard to its condition in China at a period long prior to its origin in Europe, and all speculation respecting the seal impressions upon wax, clay, and other soft substances found at Babylon and Nineveh, we learn from the books that common block printing began to be practised in Germany about the year 1422. In 1438 the use of separate wooden letters was known. In 1450 was discovered the art of cutting and using metallic type. And finally, in 1456, was first learned the manufacture and use of type cast in moulds as at present. So that the whole time occupied in these transactions, from the solid wooden page to the separate leaden letter, was only thirty-four years. JAMES F. BABCOCK.

XXII. THE BOB-O'LINKUM.

THOU Vocal sprite! thou feathered °tröubadöur!
In pilgrim weeds.through many a clime a ranger,
Com'st thou to doff thy russet suit once more,
And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger?
Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature,
But, wise as all of us, perforce, must think 'em,
The schoolboy best hath fixed thy nomenclature,
And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O'Linkum!

Say, art thou, long 'mid forest glooms benighted,
So glad to skim our laughing meadows over,
With our gay orchards here so much delighted,
It makes thee musical, thou airy rover?
Or are those buoyant notes the pilfered treasure
Of fairy isles, which thou hast learned to ravish
Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure,
And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish?

They tell sad stories of thy madcap freaks,
Wherever o'er the land thy pathway ranges;

And even in a brace of wandering weeks,

They say, alike thy song and plumage changes:
Here both are gay; and when the buds put forth,
And leafy June is shading rock and river,
Thou art unmatched, blithe warbler of the north,
When through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver.

Joyous, yet tender, was that gush of song

Caught from the brooks, where, 'mid its wild flowers smiling, The silent prairie listens all day long,

The only captive to such sweet beguiling;

Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls

And columned aisles of western groves symphonious,
Learn from the tuneful woods rare madrigals,

To make our flowering pastures here harmonious?

Caught'st thou thy carol from Ottawa maid,

Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice plashing,
Brushing the ears from off the burdened blade,

Her birch canöe o'er some lone lake is flashing?

Or did the reeds of some savanna south

Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing,
To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth

The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing

"Unthrifty prodigal! is no thought of ill

Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever?
Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still
Throb on in music till at rest for ever?
Yet now in wilder maze of concord floating,
"Twould seem that glorious hymning to prolong;
Old Time, in hearing thee, might fall a doting,
And pause to listen to thy rapturous song.

CHARLES F. HOFFMAN.

XXIII. A TRUE HERO.

JAMES MAXWELL was pilot on board of a fine steam vessel called the Clydesdale. The vessel was appointed to sail between Clyde and the west coast of Ireland. One evening after setting out on the voyage across the Channel, with between seventy and eighty passengers, Maxwell became sensible at intervals of the smell of fire, and went about anxiously endeavoring to discover whence it originated. On communicating with the master, he found that he too had

perceived it. But neither of them could form the least conjecture as to where it arose. A gentleman passenger also observed this alarming vapor, which alternately rose and passed away, leaving them in doubt of its being a reality.

About eleven o'clock at night this gentleman went to bed, confident of safety, but while Maxwell was at the helm the master ceased not an instant to search from place to place, as the air became more and more impregnated with the odor of burning timber. At last he sprung upon the deck, exclaiming, “Maxwell, the flames have burst out at the paddle-box!" James calmly inquired, "Then shall I put about?" The order was to proceed.

Maxwell struck one hand upon his heart, as he flung the other over his head, and with uplifted eyes uttered, "O God Almighty, enable me to do my duty! and, O God, provide for my wife, my mother, and my child!"

Whether it was the thought of the dreadful nature of the Galloway coast, girdled as it is with perpendicular masses of rock, which influenced the master in his decision to press forward, we cannot tell; but as there was only the wide ocean before and around them, the pilot did not long persist in this hopeless course. He put the boat about, sternly subduing every expression of emotion, and standing with his eyes fixed on the point for which he wished to steer.

The fire, which the exertions of all the men could not keep under, soon raged with ungovernable fury, and, keeping the engine in violent action, the vessel, at the time one of the fleetest that had ever been built, flew through the water with incredible speed. All the passengers were gathered to the bow, the rapid flight of the vessel keeping that part clear of the flames, while it carried the fire, flames, and smoke, backward to the quarter-gallery, where the self-devoted pilot stood like a martyr at the stake.

Everything possible was done by the master and crew to keep the place on which he stood deluged with water; but this became every moment more difficult and more hopeless; for, in spite of all that could be done, the devouring fire seized the cabin under him, and the spot on which he stood immovable became intensely heated.

Still, still the hero never flinched! At intervals, the motion of the wind threw aside the intervening mass of flames and smoke for a moment, and then might be heard exclamations of hope and gratitude, as the multitude on the prow got a glimpse of the brave man standing calm and fixed on his dreadful watch!

The blazing vessel glaring through the darkness of night, had been observed by the people on shore, and they had assembled on the heights adjoining an opening in the rocks about twelve yards wide; and there, by waving torches and other signals, did their best to