50. When Israel's race from bondage fled, Signs from on high the wanderers led; But here--Heaven hung no symbol here, Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer; They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night, Naught but the fagot's guilty light; The cloud they gazed at was the smoke. Nor power above, nor power below, Sustained them in their hour of woe; A fearful path they trod, And dared a fearful doom; To build an altar to their God, And find a quiet tomb. 51. Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand On yonder ice--bound rock, Stern and resolved, that faithful band, To meet Fate's rudest shock. Though anguish rends the father's breast, For them, his dearest and his best, With him the waste who trod-- Though tears that freeze the mother sheds Upon her children's houseless heads-- The Christian turns to God. 52. In grateful adoration now Upon the barren sands they bow. What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer As bursts in desolation there? What arm of strength e'er wrought such power As waits to crown that feeble hour? When into life an infant empire springs, There falls the iron from the soul, There Liberty's young accents roll Up to the King of kings! 53. Spread out earth's holiest record here, Of days and deeds to reverence dear; A zeal like this, what pious legends tell? On kingdoms built In blood and guilt, The worshipers of vulgar triumph dwell: But what exploit with them shall page Who rose to bless their kind-- Who left their nation and their age Man's spirit to unbind Who boundless seas passed o'er, And boldly met in every path, Famine, and frost, and heathen wrath, To dedicate a shore Where Piety's meek train might breathe their vow, And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow; Where Liberty's glad race might come, And set up there an everlasting home! _Charles Sprague_. CHAPTER IX. _PLASSEY; AND HOW AN EMPIRE WAS WON._ 1. India, the great peninsula stretching from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, is nearly half as large as Europe, and contains a population of 150,000,000. Myth and tradition claim for this people a very great antiquity, and there are many evidences that in arts, government, and literature, India is at least coeval with China and Egypt, the three constituting the most ancient civilizations of the world. While Western Europe was still the abode of barbarians, and while even Greece had scarcely felt the impulse which aroused her to intellectual life, the fabrics of India had reached a marvelous degree of fineness and beauty; and the monarchs of the West counted it a great privilege to be clothed in the "purple and fine linen" of the Orient. EARLY HISTORY.