Or Montl'hery's, that nestles safe close to the heart of France?' 'Unto the warden of Rochelle. Thou'rt answered easily!' 'That stronghold is thy heart, but mine the keep of Montl'hery, For He who giveth gifts to all, hath given me to believe So steadfastly, that strife like thine my wit can scarce conceive. From th' Enemy God keepeth me,--He knows my weaker strength,-- But suffers thee assayed to be for higher meed at length. Then let us at our different posts His equal mercies own; But they the sharpest thorns who bear may wear the brightest crown.' Beside the kneeling penitent the abbot bent his knee, Sent his own praise and prayers to heaven forth on an embassy, Then raised him up, and saw that God had sent him answering grace; The shadow of the Enemy had left his heart and face. Calmly as warily he walked his fellow men beside, A good, grave man. 'Tis said, at last a happy man he died.' UNION NOT TO BE MAINTAINED BY FORCE. The enemies of our cause in Europe seem to have settled in their own minds the certainty of a final separation of the American States. Compelled though they may be, reluctantly to admit the superiority of our resources and the immense advantages we have recently gained over the conspirators, they yet adhere with singular tenacity to the belief that all our victories will be barren, and that all our vast acquisitions of Southern territory will not avail for the ultimate restoration of the Union. Though the domain originally usurped by the rebellion is already sundered by our possession of that great continental highway, the Mississippi river, and though no shadow of hope remains that the enemies of the Union will ever be able to recover it; though the recent boundless theatre of hostilities is gradually contracting, and the resources of the rebellion are rapidly melting away, until there remains no longer any doubt of our ultimate and even speedy success in crushing the wasted armies of the desperate foe; and though the boundaries of the boasted confederacy are uncertain, ever-shifting, and mystical, while whole populations of recovered regions of country hail the advent of our conquering flag with streaming eyes and shouts of joy; yet our jealous friends across the water, in the very act of acknowledging all this, never fail to assert, with the utmost vehemence, that in spite of all our military advantages, the Union is still irrecoverably destroyed. There is something remarkable in this persistent opinion, which, through all the changes of condition exhibited by the hostile parties in our struggling country, continues to possess the mind of British statesmen with unshaken firmness. If they undertake to justify their hasty recognition of the rebels as belligerents, and to vindicate their alleged impartial neutrality, they take apparently peculiar delight in fortifying themselves with the declaration that the Union is effectually broken, and can never be restored.