one remedy Lyon knew, and he stood there, the early apostle of Emancipation, and preached it.  His doctrine was not accepted then, it is not accepted now; but the time must come, when millions shall have been expended, and blood shall have flowed like water only to delay it, when we will fly to it for salvation.  Let those who still cry ’Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace, learn what is to be its price—­Emancipation.  It will be a bitter draught; well, so was the independence of her colonies to England.  And every day makes it more bitter; the gall in the cup rises to the brim; a few more months and it will overflow; the people will take the matter into their own hands and legislate slavery into the swamps of Florida.

It is a lame and blind philanthropy that cries for a respite.  ’A little more sleep, a little more slumber.  After us the deluge.’  And meanwhile the damnable lies gain ground, and a new generation is lost to its due development.  Have we yet to learn that we are no longer individuals, but parts of a mighty nation, and responsible in some sort, every one, women and men, for its destiny?  Poland has learned this lesson.  Her eyes are upon us now.  Shall she, still struggling, find that blood and treasure, and all the thousand dear blessings of peace, have been sacrificed in vain?  If you cry ‘War is an evil!’ we grant it; but is it reserved for the nineteenth century to discover a creed for which there shall be no martyrs?  What great gift has the world ever won that was not bought with blood?  When has independence of action or thought been purchased otherwise than at the cost of persecution,—­more revolution?  Then let us not slander revolutions.  They are the throes of nature undergoing her purification; if it is as by fire, oh! let us have courage and stand beside her in her hour of trial.  St. George will not fight forever; the dragon of oppression is dying.

  ’Yes, although so slowly, he is dying;
  Many thousand years have fled in darkness,
  Since the sword first cut his scaly armor,
  And the red wound roused him into madness;
  But the good knight is of race immortal,
  Ever young, and passionate and fearless;
  And the strength which oozes from the dragon,
  Blooms reviving in the glorious warrior.’

And, after all, the demon of war is not so black as we have painted him.  We do not shudder to-day as we read of the siege of Troy or the downfall of Carthage, or the Romance of the Cid.  The song of Deborah, ’of the avenging of Israel when the people willingly offered themselves,’ is one glorious burst of praise to God and gratitude to the martyrs.  There was war in heaven when ambition was cast out:—­what quiet pastoral appeals to our noblest impulses as Paradise Lost does?  Wisely and well speaks the English clergyman when he says:—­