many motives which might govern me, that to you are unknown. Our situations are different: I am known as the leader of armies, but you must descend into the grave with the reputation of a foe to your native land. Remember that the veil which conceals your true character cannot be raised in years—perhaps never."

Birch again lowered his face, but there was no yielding of the soul in the movement.

"You will soon be old; the prime of your days is already past; what have you to subsist on?"

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These," said the peddler, stretching forth his hands, that were already embrowned with toil.

"But those may fail you; take enough to secure a support to your age. Remember your risks and cares. I have told you that the characters of men who are much esteemed in life depend on your secrecy. What pledge can I give them of your fidelity?"

"Tell them," said Birch, advancing and unconsciously resting one foot on the bag, "tell them that I would not take the gold!"

The composed features of the officer relaxed into a smile of benevolence, and he grasped the hand of the peddler firmly.

"Now, indeed, I know you; and although the same reasons which have hitherto compelled me to expose your valuable life will still exist, and prevent my openly asserting your character, in private I can always be your friend;

fail not to apply to me when in want or suffering, and so long as God giveth to me, so long will I freely share with a man who feels so nobly and acts so well. If sickness or want should ever assail you, and peace once more smile upon our efforts, seek the gate of him whom you have so often met as Harper, and he will not blush to acknowledge you in his true character."

"It is little that I need in this life," said Harvey; "so long as God gives me health and honest industry I can never want in this country; but to know that your excellency is my friend is a blessing that I prize more than all the gold of England's treasury."

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER in The Spy

fidelity

benevolence

reputation

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE in Othello

THE SHIP OF STATE

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee, -are all with thee!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

in The Building of the Ship

THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON

At a period of life when, in a more advanced stage of society, the intelligent youth is occupied in the elementary studies of the schools and colleges, Washington was carrying the surveyor's chain through the fertile valleys of the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains; passing days and weeks in the wilderness beneath the shadow of eternal forests; listening to the voice of the waterfalls, which man's art had not yet set to the healthful music of the sawmill or the trip hammer; reposing from the labors of the day on a bearskin, with his feet to the blazing logs of a camp fire, and sometimes startled from the deep slumbers of careless, hard-working youth, by the alarm of the Indian war whoop.

This was the gymnastic school in which Washington was brought up; in which his quick glance was formed, destined to range hereafter across the battlefield through clouds of smoke and bristling rows of bayonets; the school in which his senses, weaned from the taste for those detestable indulgences, miscalled pleasures, in which the flower of adolescence so often languishes and pines away, were early braced up to the sinewy manhood which becomes the "lord of the lion heart and eagle eye."

There is preserved among the papers of Washington a letter written to a friend while he was engaged on his first surveying tour, and when he was consequently but