We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; But John P. Robinson he Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. The side of our country must ollers be took, An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country. An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry;_ An' John P. Robinson he Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum;_ An' thet all this big talk of our destinies Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum; But John P. Robinson he Sez it aint no sech thing: an' of course, so must we. Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P. Robinson he Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,-- God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; Fer John P. Robinson he Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! [The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment,--'Our country, right or wrong.' It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. _Patriæ fumus igne alieno luculentior_ is best qualified with this,--_Ubi libertas, ibi patria_. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, but not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their original intendment.