“To serve as model for the mighty world,
    To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
    To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
    To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
    To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
    Not only to keep down the base in man,
    But teach high thought, and amiable words. 
    And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
    And love of truth, and all that makes a man.”

* * * * *

LOVE’S CHALLENGE.

    I picked this trifle from the floor,
       Unknowing from whose tender hand
    It fell,—­but now would fain restore
       A thing which hath my heart unmanned.

    I say unmanned, for ’t is not now
       A manly mood to dream of Love,
    When each bold champion knits his brow,
       And for War’s gauntlet doffs his glove.

    But we’re exempt, and have no heart
       Of wreak within us for the fray;
    And therefore teach our souls the art
       With life and life’s concerns to play.

    Yet, lady, trust me, ’t is not all
       In play that I proclaim intent,
    When next thou lett’st thy gauntlet fall,
       To take it as a challenge meant.

    REPLY.

    SIR CARPET-KNIGHT, who canst not fight,
       Thy gallantries are not for me;
    The man whom I with love requite
       Must sing in a more martial key.

    I have two brothers on the field,
       And one beneath it,—­none knows where;
    And I shall keep my spirit steeled
       To any save a soldier’s prayer.

    If thou have music in thy soul,
       Yet hast no sinew for the strife,
    Go teach thyself the war-drum’s roll,
       And woo me better with a fife!

* * * * *

POLITICAL PROBLEMS, AND CONDITIONS OF PEACE.

The relations existing between the Federal Government and the several States, and the reciprocal rights and powers of each, have never been settled, except in part.  Upon matters of taxation and commerce, and the diversified questions that arise in times of peace, the decisions of the Supreme Court have marked the boundary-lines of State and Federal power with considerable clearness and precision.  But all these questions are superficial and trivial, when compared with those which are coming up for decision out of the great struggle in which we are now engaged.  The Southern Rebellion, greater than any recorded in history since the world began, must necessarily call for the exercise of all the powers with which the Government is clothed.  And we need not be surprised, if, in resorting to the new measures which the great exigency of the new condition seems to require, it shall be found, after the storm has ceased and the clouds have rolled away, that in some things the