field for the development of our energies and resources; with a glorious past behind and a golden future before us, we shall sweep majestically on upon the waves of time, an object of admiration to the world and of justifiable pride to ourselves--a great, and glorious, and, above all, a free, happy, united, and prosperous people. God grant it may be so! God grant that we may be true to the trust reposed in us, and that the glorious cause of human liberty--the cause in which are bound up the hopes of the whole world--may not again fall to the earth through the blindness and weakness and incompetence of us, who are to-day its only exponents. May we of this day and generation live to see the crowning of all these hopes; and when our sun goes down in the shadows of eternity, may we be able to look back and thank God for the trials and sufferings and losses and mournings of to-day, as the refining fire through which we have come strong and bright, the sharp knife whereby the gnawing worms of error, and corruption and inevitable death have been cut from the heart of our goodly tree. GOD'S HARP. FROM AN UNWRITTEN POEM. God struck the heavens' holy Harp, While sang the grand celestial choir. Earth heard the awful sound, and saw The trembling of the golden wire. 'Twas thunder to the stranger ear, And to the eye the lightning's fire. AUTUMN LEAVES. 'O Heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect; that one error Fills him with faults, makes him run through all sins.' _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ Are they truly dying, All the summer leaves? Will the blasts of autumn Strip the happy trees? Bright the glowing foliage Paints the misty air-- Crimson, purple, golden-- Must they die--so fair? Where has flown the sunshine Wooed them to their birth, Tempting them to flutter Far above the earth? Ruthless did it leave them In their hour of bloom, Let the chill blasts whisper Tales of death and doom? Rapidly they robed them In each varied hue, Hoping thus the sunshine To attract anew; But the fickle glitter Looked in anger down, Freezing up the life-pulse With an icy frown. Then the happy radiance Sinks to rise no more; Leaves of gold and crimson Strew earth's gloomy floor. Gone their summer glory, Lifeless, lost, they lie; Wilted, withered, drifting As winds will, they fly. Thus in woman's bosom Love wakes bud and bloom, 'Neath his glowing sunshine Thinking not of doom; Covering soft life's desert Spread the branches green, Hope's bright birds sing through them-- Close the leafy screen.