O dark, sad millions, patiently and dumb
Waiting for God, your hour, at last, has come,
And freedom's song
Breaks the long silence of your night of wrong!
Arise and flee! shake off the vile restraint
Of ages! but, like Ballymena's saint,
The oppressor spare,
Heap only on his head the coals of prayer!
Go forth, like him! like him, return again,
To bless the land whereon in bitter pain
Ye toiled at first,
And heal with freedom what your slavery cursed!
* * * * *
THE LAW OF COSTS.
Our nation is now paying the price, not only of its vice, but also
of its virtue,--not alone of its evil doing, but of its noble and
admirable doing as well. It has of late been a customary cry with
a certain class, that those who cherish freedom and advocate social
justice are the proper authors of the present war. No doubt there
is in this allegation an ungracious kind of truth; that is, had the
nation been destitute of a political faith and of moral feeling, there
would have been no contest. But were one lying ill of yellow-fever
or small-pox, there would be the same sort of lying truth in the
statement, that the _life_ in him, which alone resists the disease, is
really its cause; since to yellow-fever, or to any malady, dead bodies
are not subject.
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