And long rich grasses, in the clover meadow: How the clear air rings with their merry voices, Morn's cooling dews the Night Birds plumage chris tens The Meadow Lark in God's free air rejoices- Sporting care free, the tuneful Bob' Link raises His rounded throat with rapturous music swelling, This glorious morn wakes his vivacious praises Of" Heaven on Earth," his strains are telling: Redbreasted Robin shakes the tree above me, Till showers of blossoms netly round me glisten; Her woodland warble seems to say "we love thee❞— What memories there are in Bird Songs :-listen! Now a soft cloud of forest odors renders The air a luxury, of green things breathing; And here, all bird-sounds grow inore softly tender Heard thro' the foliage round their hid nests wreathing. The plaintive Wood Dove coos in green recesses,In the clear mirror of a pool-like cistern Her purple plume the Forest Pigeon dresses What memories there are in Bird Songs :-listen! In pleasant lanes-in cool and shady valleys, Mid flowering vines the Hum Birds gold wings glisten, Stirring the rose-scents with a sweet devotion What memories there are in Bird Songs:-listen! Hark to the Oriole's eloquent oration A rhapsody-a breathing soul of gladnessAnon the Thrush pours forth her wondrous passion, Blissful, yet with faint under-tone of sadnessAs though within its heart of love and beauty Came the sharp sense of sorrow yet existin' Amid its ecstasies of voiceful duty What memories there are in Bird Songs ;-listen! There goes the Black Bird, plunderer right merry; The early morning doth his acts embolden! The shy young Quail pipes through the green fields, stooping Where the green shoots of wheat begin to glisten; And starts away at the wild school-boy's whoopingWhat memories there are in Bird Songs :-listen! The chattering Blue Jay spreads his azure pinion Thus through the realms of air countless they wander On God's wise care of which each is partaker: A Calm Discussion of the Know Nothing Question. The following article is inserted because it discusses a question in which many of our readers are interested just now. Of course its writer alone is responsible for the sentiments it contains.-[Ed. Mess. The merest superficial observer of passing events has not failed to note the rise and progress of a new power in the State, which, either because of an affected humility on the part of its members, or for some other reason, has dubbed itself with the title of"Know Nothings." This organization promises to become one of the most important political and social movements of the day. Viewless as the wind, it has thus far swept before it every obstacle that grappled with its strength, and has laid prostrate in its path alike the oldest and best established political organizations and the mushrooms of the hour. It is confidently predicted that it will itself prove to be one of these latter; that a few months, at farthest, a few years will serve to bury it with the past, and that then its advocates and present adherents will be ashamed to confess their attachment to its principles. We fear that this confidence is mispla ced-that this Know Nothing movement will prove to be, unless arrested at its birth-throe, a giant evil. We base our fears upon these grounds. It is certainly true that many of the principles attributed to this party are cherished by the large mass of our people. Their position on the naturalization question. for example, is one which nine men out of ten who are born here would sustain, in preference to the present system of naturalizing foreigners. Almost without exception, our people believe that nothing but good would result from the extension of the period of naturalization. Some favor ten, others fifteen, others twenty-one years, as the limit, but they all prefer the longest term to the pres ent. With this element of strength in the organization-supported by the popular opinion and the popular sense of justice and right in this particular, the movement will not prove merely ephemeral, but promises to widen its borders and strengthen its stakes, and, it may be, eventually become the ruling power of the State. In view of these fact it becomes a matter of serious import to in quire who these Know Nothings are?-what unnumbered ills. Suppose it succeeds! We they design doing and what their princi- are told that no effort will be made to put ples?—and whether they are or are not deserving of popular support? down the Catholic religion as such-that so far as this is concerned, Catholics will be left free to serve their God in their own way, without let or hindrance! and that the present movement is simply intended to cut them off from political power. All of these are exceedingly plausible statements-they seem to carry with them an air of religious tolera The Know Nothings have unhappily kept us and the people generally in the dark as to their persons. We may sit, eat, drink, sleep and talk with a Know Nothing for days and weeks in succession and never learn the fact, or even suspect it. Indeed, so it is said, we may ask him the direct question and re- tion-but is it not apparent, that if you deceive a categorical negative, and yet he prive the adherents of a particular form of speaks the truth, while we are as wise as we religious belief, from the enjoyment of pubwere before. It is useless, therefore, to pur- lic office, you are to that extent crippling sue an ignis fatuus of the kind. WE shall the church, of which they are members, and not attempt it. thus hindering the free exercise of religious. opinion? Will a man be as willing to adopt a The principles of these viewless spirits, however, have been abundantly set forth-religion which brings with it an exclusion and we propose to examine them. from the enjoyments of rights which others. They declare themselves Native Ameri- enjoy, as if there was no such exclusion? cans; meaning by that term to advocate a Surely not Were the Catholics a mere serepeal of all naturalization laws, and the ele- cret political society-as some contend, whose vation of none but American-born citizens object was to build up the civil power of the to office; and they unite with this, avowed Church of Rome, and that at the expense of hostility to the Church of Rome, inscribing whatever government they might live under, on their banner enmity to all papal influen- there would be occasion not alone for excluences in whatever form and under whatever ding them from office,-they would deserve name, when brought to bear against this re-extermination! But this we do not believe. public-and, in this, tacitly agreeing to elect There are Catholics whom we know to be as no man to public office who is attached to true republicans as any in the land, and who that form of religious persuasion. would, we verily believe, shoulder their musTheir Native American doctrines, to a cer-kets to put down an attempt on the part of tain extent at least, are, as we have already the Pope to overturn the civil institutions of stated, cherished by a very large portion of the this country, with as much readiness as they community. We verily believe that if this would help us to resist England or any were the alone peculiar characteristic feature Protestant power-and with the exception of of the Know Nothing movement, and there a very few ignorant and uninstructed Cathowere no political prejudices afloat tending to lics, these truly national and patriotic sentithe building up of a party at the expense of the ments are almost universally cherished by country, that the large majority of our people citizens of this religious persuasion. Not would bid it God-speed. It is founded in jus- believing, then, that our institutions have tice and truth, and when presented as a naked any thing to fear from this source, we are not question, disencumbered of the clogs which inclined to join in the crusade against them, now beset it, it will meet with a triumphant even to the extent of depriving them of ofissue. fice. But suppose this attempt succeedsBut fortunately there is not this unanimity what will be the almost inevitable result? of sentiment in regard to the exclusion of Next, we shall have a similar crusade against Catholics from office! A very large num- the High Church Episcopalians-some of ber of our citizens, it must be confessed, favor whom it is even now affirmed, are but a step the idea-but the larger portion of them will removed from the Catholics-then the Low put upon it the seal of their reprobation. Church Episcopalians will share the same We think we discover in it the germ of reli- fate ;-then the Presbyterians and so on gious intolerance-and in its train a host of until the country shall become the scene of a to see our religious, civil and social war and our land [dency. In the first place, it ties the hands (it may be) drunk with the blood of its citi- of free citizens of the country and compels zens. The days of the French Revolution them to be guided by the will of others, not will then be upon us, with a thousand fold by their own judgment, in the votes which more of its cursings and its bitterness. We they are to cast at the polls. This itself is are not prepared for this. We do not wish to lay the axe at the root of the tree—to sap sun go down" after this man- the very foundations of the liberty we enner. Our fathers inscribed the true princi-joy-to say that a man, who is a freeman, ple upon the folds of the banner of our re- having a right to vote as he pleases, shall not public-FREE TOLERATION TO EVERY FORM SO vote, save at the expense of violating a OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF-and we should never solemn pledge—or, it may be, an oath! In desert it. It is the only principle consis- the second place, and as a corollary natu tent with the political institutions we cherish. rally flowing from the foregoing, it imposes We have to object to the Know Nothing upon the people of the country a man or a movement another evil only second to its measure which the free, unbiassed and unproscription of Catholics. It is a secret restrained will of the community does not political organization! The history of such favor and would not have supported, save organizations, the wide world over, is written for this improper influence thus brought to in blood! The noblest martyrs to truth have operate upon the expression of that will. To been the victims of persecutions set on foot take a practical illustration of these princiby such political societies. Soul-less cor- ples. Martin Van Buren is now generally porations,' is a term as trite in the mouths of regarded as inimical in his feelings and senmodern statesmen, and as expressive, as 'Pu- timents to the institutions of the South. If nic faith' was in the language of the old Ro- he were nominated to morrow, it is more man senators. But secret political organi- than probable that he would not receive zations not alone enjoy the pleasure of living throughout the entire belt of States, stretchwithout the inconveniences of a conscience, ing from the Potomac to the Gulf of Mexico, as in the case of such corporations, but they more than ten or fifteen votes at farthest. are armed with the power which these others He unites himself, however, with the Know do not and cannot enjoy-the power of se- Nothing movement at the North. He is crecy itself a guerdon of success wherever taken to its bosom and rides into power and and whenever applied, but especially when influence. The great Know Nothing party wielded by large masses of men. desire a presidential candidate, and in full We know nothing' of the ritual of this convention of its delegates from the various party, or of its obligations. An expose re- organizations scattered through all the States, cently made in one of the Richmond papers Martin Van receives the majority of votesof its objects and operations, is openly and and he is declared to be their candidate. flatly denied by men of high character and What will be the action of the Know Nothstrict veracity, and, in this state of things, ings at the South in such an emergency? one would surely not be justified in con- Will they violate their solemn pledge to supdemning them outright on the faith of such port the candidate of the party, or will they exposure. But the evil we allege against bolt their Southern principles and vote for them is of the essence of their secresy, and him? If the latter, which is alone consist one which they cannot rid themselves of so ent with their success as a secret political long as they remain such. To efficient ac- organization, they will not have used the right tion in such organization two things are ab- of freemen-they will be but the serfs of opinsolutely necessary-its members must be ion and measures coined for them and expresspledged, and that pledge must be to support ed and approved of by a corporate body, comwhatever man or measures the organization prised of all classes of opinion, and it may be proposes. Taking these two as indisputable of every variety of color in the complexion of its premises, we lay it down as a conclusion members. Another illustration, and we close. which the logician cannot escape, that such It is addressed to a different class of thinkan organization must be of deleterious ten-ers. The very warm advocates of a prohibi tory liquor law are making strenuous exertions to secure its passage in the several States. Among the rest, our own people are moving on the subject. A convention last year at Charlottesville adopted resolutions toward agitating it, and a similar convention at Lynchburg has just closed, in which the temperance men have avowed their determination to support alone for certain public offices men of temperate habits and those who favor the objects they have in view. Are there any such temperance advocates among the Know Nothings? What action will they take, should that party nominate for such offices, a man who is notoriously a drunkard, or one who indulges even moderately in the use of wine, but is withal a strenuous defender of the present licence laws? Shall they abandon the Temperance or the Know Nothing standard? Will they vote for the man with temperance principles who is not a Know Nothing, or the man without them who is? This clashing of interests and opinions is inevitableand the citizen who wishes to be left free to exercise his own vote with a good conscience, must eschew all secret political connections, whatever their merits in other regards. Most happy shall we be, if this organization shall result in no farther injury to the public, than the elevation of a few improper men to office or the decapitation of others who had worn their honors well and worthily. ADELA. You say I coldly heard you vow Why, lady! should that doom befal Had they been fraught with thanks alone, You taste the poison you prepare, Lady! forbear that fatal vow, I cannot bear its woes alone- THE TEMPEST. BY REV. C. W. EVEREST. The Summer's day was ending. Low the sun The pulses of the mighty deep were still : Seemed conscious of the boon her Monarch gave. Of ancient Galilee-the peaceful wave The sum of the whole matter is this. If our people are truly anxious to secure the control of the government in their own hands, and if they wish to effect this by means which will not in the end prove a two-edged sword-per-And where the shimmering rays in glory beamed haps destroying the very interests they desire O'er the departing thousands, by the shore to protect-the honest men of all political Which all day long had heard that sacred voice, parties, should unite and publicly declare Glowed like the heart which holy Hope inspires! their resolution to enact more stringent nat- With silent step that mighty host passed on, uralization laws and see that they are effi-Turning to watch the sunset's parting glow, ciently executed. This, we believe, would Or lingering oft, to cast their farewell gaze satisfy the just sense of the community and Upon the Prophet's form. turn aside from us the tornado that threatens to sweep over the land, crushing alike in its career the good and the bad, the true with the false. A. Awe-struck and still-now, with admiring view, Thoughtful he stood, His faithful band in whispering converse near. The throngs were lost in distance; while no sound Of echoing tread, or voice's murmuring hum All, all in gloom was mantled; and the barque Hark to the warning! Mark the quivering gleam! But ah! by the red lightnings fitful glare, Tis HIS-the SAVIOUR'S. Now it mounts the wave, But now, a wave, high rising o'er the deep, The thunders hushed; The trembling lightnings fled away in fear; The foam-capt surges sunk to quiet rest; The raging winds their holiow voices stilled; And silence brooded o'er a tranquil sea! Trembling with dread, now gazing o'er the deep, Glowing in beauty 'neath the Moon's calm sheen; While the bright stars smiled upward from the wave: Now, shrinking from that awful glance severe, Before whose stern rebuke the Tempest fledThe doubting question rose-" What Man is this, Whom roaring winds, whom raging waves obey? Hamden, Coun., July, 1854." SPIRIT UNION. BY E. C. W. Sweet and sad is that cotamunion, Sweet and sad is such communion |