to differ from the times and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic, it may appear--do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly, as a man who wears a soul of his own in his bosom and does not wait till it shall be breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel you are firm. Resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect, and no after-time can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him who made a noble and successful exertion in a virtuous cause. SIDNEY SMITH.

THE AMERICAN INDIAN.

AN ORATION.

tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, they worshipped, and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sunk in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind ado

NOT many generations ago, where you ration.

now sit circled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your heads the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown the latter sprang up in the path of

for

you;

the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent and blotted for ever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of Nature, and the children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain, but how unlike their bold, untamed, untamable progenitors! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone, and his degraded offspring crawl upon the soil where he walked in majesty,

1

LIC LIBRARY

AS TUDEN

JOHN LOWE.