"Nor shall ye check my impulse,
Nor stay it for an hour,
Until earth's groaning millions
Have felt my healing power."

That spirit is Progression,

In the vigour of its youth;
The foeman of Oppression,

And its armour is the TRUTH.

Old Error, with its legions,

Must fall beneath its wrath;
Nor blood, nor tears, nor anguish,
Will mark its brilliant path.

But onward, upward, heavenward,
The spirit still will soar,

'Till peace and love shall triumph,

And falsehood reign no more.

MRS. F. D. GAGE.

WAR SONG FOR THE TIMES.

Up and onward, Europeans! Arm ye for another fight!
Men believe in steel no longer as the arbiter of right.

You have spent enough of treasure and the sacred life of man;
Other foes are pressing on you,-up and meet them while ye can.

Hark! a murmur, like the ground-swell telling of the coming

storm,

Lo! a host arrayed for battle, numberless and multiform :

See, their name is on their banner blazoned," Human Misery," Gaunt of form and fiends in aspect, stalk in front their leaders three;

In the centre, pale and ghastly, WANT, with his envenomed spear,
Pointing to the weary nations, mutters low, "The time is near."
On his left, deformed and brute-like, IGNORANCE, with shaded eye,
Gazeth o'er his new dominions, trusting to his strong ally.
CRIME, the third, with devilish malice, buckles on his human

snares,

Flask and purse,—which lightly jingle 'gainst the dagger which he

wears.

Cursed Trio! that have wasted tower and town and champaign fair, Sweeping like the desolation of a plague-infected air;

Leagued against all social order, dealing death and scattering woe.
Up, my brothers! time is pressing! let us face the common foe!
O forget the feuds that rent us, maddened, plundered, made us
blind;

Fellow-workers! fellow-freemen! close alliance let us bind.
Shall a foolish flag divide us, or a difference of name,

Whilst a common danger threatens, and our safety is the same?
Every epoch brings us nearer, every new device of man

Speeds the destined hour, unfolding more and more th' Almighty's plan.

Bars of iron firmly join us, and the interchange of skill,

With the golden cord of Commerce, weaves a union firmer still. Seas by cunning art unite us,-mountain barriers pierce we through,-

Shall a bygone age defraud us of our heirship in the new?
Shall an old tradition bar us from a life of mutual trust?
Shall we ne'er defy aggression by resolving to be just?
Must we ever spend our earnings on machinery to kill,*
Guarding 'gainst imagined danger by inflicting certain ill?
What imports our faith, my brothers, in a God we fondly call
By the name of Father, saying that He ruleth over all,

That without His high permission e'en a sparrow cannot fall,
Whilst in act we dare not trust Him? O, for once, with purpose

true,

Let us league, and earth shall wonder at the deeds that we will do. Yonder host shall flee before us, wasted realms shall smile again,

Waving like a golden ocean with the undulating grain,

And the peasant seeking labour never more shall ask in vain. Other troops shall fill your barracks, armed with shuttle and with. loom,

And the buzz of school-boy voices rob the fortress of its gloom.
Rival nations then no longer, but a league of federal states,
All, as one, shall rise disburdened from intolerable weights;

*

The military expenditure of Europe amounts, according to Cobden, to £200,000,000 annually.

Interlinked, each aiding each, shall form but one great Commonweal;

Every wound that War hath left us, Peace, with heavenly art, shall heal.

Will ye leave the golden fruit untasted hanging in its place,
Leave it for a riper future and a more enlightened race?
Never be it said, my brothers, it was plucked, but not by you,
That the twentieth age accomplished what the nineteenth could
not do!

You that vanquished space! -a triumph greater still let time

reveal;

Rise, and make the world your captive-LOVE IS stronger far

THAN STEEL.

THE BANNER OF BROTHERHOOD.

NOT with the flashing steel,

Not with the cannon's peal,

Nor stir of drum,

But in the bonds of love,

Our white flag floats above;

Its emblem is the dove,

'Tis thus we come.

R. B. F.

The laws of Christian light,
These are our weapons bright,
Our mighty shield:
Christ is our leader high,

And the broad plains which lie
Beneath the blessed sky,
Our battle-field.

What is the great intent,
On which each heart is bent,
Our hosts among?

It is that hate may die,

That war's red curse may fly,

And war's high praise, for aye, No more be sung;

That all the poor may rest, Beneath their own vines blest, In glorious peace;

That death and hell may yield, And human hearts long steeled, By love's pure drops unsealed, From warfare cease.

Oh, then! in God's great name, Let each pure spirit's flame