After the stubborn and sanguinary battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and Fort Erie, the Niagara frontier had exemption from invasion, and a sort of armed truce prevailed to the end of the war. It was long, however, before the exasperation of feeling excited on either side by the unhappy conflict had died away. Now, thank God, the ameliorating influence of time, of commercial intercourse, and, let us hope, of Christian amity, has almost entirely obliterated the bitter memories of that unnatural strife. A continual exchange of international courtesies and friendly amenities, marks the intercourse of the kindred peoples who dwell upon opposite sides of the Niagara River. At the narrowest part of that river, two miles below the Falls, it is now spanned by the fairy-like railway Suspension Bridge--a life-artery along which throbs a ceaseless pulse of commerce between the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America, the two fairest and noblest daughters of brave Old England, the great mother of nations. As the deep and gloomy gorge beneath that bridge, with its wrathful and tumultuous torrent, seemed to forbid all intercourse between its opposite banks, so, unhappily, a deep and gloomy chasm has too long yawned between these neighbouring peoples, through which has raged a brawling torrent of estrangement, bitterness, and even of fratricidal strife. But as wire by wire that wondrous bridge was woven between the two countries, so social, religious, and commercial intercourse has been weaving subtile cords of fellowship between the adjacent communities; and now, let us hope, by the late Treaty of Washington, a golden bridge of amity and peace has spanned the gulf, and made them one in brotherhood for ever. As treason against humanity is that spirit to be deprecated that would sever one strand of those ties of friendship, or stir up strife between two great nations of one blood, one faith, one tongue. May this peaceful arbitration be the inauguration of the happy era told by the poet and seer, "When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world!" While musing on this theme, the following fancies wove themselves into verse, in whose aspiration all true patriots of either land will devoutly join: As the great bridge which spans Niagara'a flood Was deftly woven, subtile strand by strand Into a strong and stable iron band, Which heaviest stress and strain has long withstood; So the bright golden strands of friendship strong, Knitting the Mother and the Daughter land In bonds of love--as grasp of kindly hand May bind together hearts estranged long-- Is deftly woven now, in that firm gage Of mutual plight and troth, which, let us pray, May still endure unshamed from age to age-- The pledge of peace and concord true alway: Perish the hand and palsied be the arm That would one fibre of that fabric harm!