Hobbes said, that, "when it should be thought contrary to the interest of men that have dominion that the three angles of a triangle should equal two right angles, that truth would be suppressed." Taney did deny truths far plainer than that,--the axioms of right itself. He did more than any other man to make actual that awful picture of the Great Leviathan, the Mortal God. How just, how true, were those last symbols of the State founded on mortal power! The end of the dread conflict of battle is the same as the end of the equally dreadful issue of the Court. But those he served themselves with the sword cut the knot he so securely tied; his own State was tearing off the poisoned robe in the very hour in which he was called before the Judge of all. America stood forth once more the same she was when the old man was a boy. The work which he had watched for years and generations, the work of evil to which all the art of man and the power of the State had been subservient, that work which he sought to finish with the fatal decree of his august bench, one cannon-shot shattered forever. He is dead. Slavery is dying. The destiny of the country is in the hand of the Eternal Lord. THE MANTLE OF ST. JOHN DE MATHA A LEGEND OF "THE RED, WHITE, AND BLUE," A.D. 1154-1864 A strong and mighty Angel, Calm, terrible, and bright, The cross in blended red and blue Upon his mantle white! Two captives by him kneeling, Each on his broken chain, Sang praise to God who raiseth The dead to life again! Dropping his cross-wrought mantle, "Wear this," the Angel said; "Take thou, O Freedom's priest, its sign,-- The white, the blue, and red." Then rose up John de Matha In the strength the Lord Christ gave, And begged through all the land of France The ransom of the slave. The gates of tower and castle Before him open flew, The drawbridge at his coming fell, The door-bolt backward drew. For all men owned his errand, And paid his righteous tax; And the hearts of lord and peasant Were in his hands as wax. At last, outbound from Tunis, His bark her anchor weighed, Freighted with seven score Christian souls Whose ransom he had paid. But, torn by Paynim hatred, Her sails in tatters hung; And on the wild waves, rudderless, A shattered hulk she swung. "God save us!" cried the captain, "For nought can man avail: Oh, woe betide the ship that lacks Her rudder and her sail! "Behind us are the Moormen; At sea we sink or strand: There's death upon the water, There's death upon the land!" Then up spake John de Matha: "God's errands never fail! Take thou the mantle which I wear, And make of it a sail." They raised the cross-wrought mantle, The blue, the white, the red; And straight before the wind off-shore The ship of Freedom sped.