BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

LINES,

Or Smithfield, and that thrice-accursed flame

Which Calvin kindled by Geneva's lakeWritten on reading several pamphlets published by New England's scaffold, and the priestly sneer clergymen against the abolition of the gallows. Which mocked its victims in that hour of fear,

When guilt itself a huma tear might claim

Bear witness, O Thou wronged and mercisul One! The suns of eighteen centuries have shone

That earth's most hateful crimes have in Thy name

been done!
Since the Redeemer walked with men, and made
The fisher's boat, the cavern's floor of stone,
And mountain moss, a pillow for His head;

Thank God! that I have lived to see the time
And He, who wander'd with the peasant Jew,

When the great truth begins at last to find And broke with publicans the bread of shame,

An utterance from the deep heart of mankind, And drank, with blessings in His Father's name, Earnest and clear, that ALL REVENGE is crime! The water which Samaria's outcast drew,

That man is holier than a creed-that all Hath now His temples upon every shore,

Restraint upon him must consult his good, Altar, and shrine, and priest- and incense dim

Hope's sunshine linger on his prison wall, Evermore rising, with low prayer and hymn,

And Love look in upon his solitude. From lips which press the temple's marble floor,

The beautiful lesson which our Saviour taught Or kiss the gilded sign of the dread Cross He bore! Through long, dark centuries, its way has wrought

Into the common mind and popular thought; Yet, as of old, when, weekly « doing good,"

And words, to which by Galilee's lake shore

The humble fishers listened with hushed oar, He fed a blind and selfish multitude,

Have found an echo in the general heart, And even the poor companions of His lot,

And of the public faith become a living part. With their dim, earthly vision, knew Him not,

How ill are His high teachings understood ! Where He hath spoken Liberty, the priest

Who shall arrest this tendency? Bring back At His own altar binds the chain anew;

The cells of Venice and the bigot's rack ? Where He hath bidden to life's equal feast,

Harden the softening human heart again, The starving many wait upon the few;

To cold indifference to a brother's pain? Where He hath spoken peace, His name hath been Ye most unhappy men !-who, turu'd away 'The loudest war-cry of contending men;

From the mild sunshine of the gospel day, Priests, pale with vigils, in His name have blessed Grope in the shadows of man's twilight time, The unsheathed sword, and laid the spear in rest, What mean ye, that with ghoul-like zest ye brood Wet the war-banner with their sacred wine,

O'er those foul altars streaming with warm blood, And crossed its blazon with the holy sign;

Permitted in another age and clime? Yea, in His name who hade the erring live,

Why cite that law with which the bigot Jew And daily taught His lesson-to forgive!

Rebuked the Pagan's mercy, when he knew
Twisted the cord, and edged the murderous steel; No evil in the Just One ?-Wherefore turn
And, with His words of mercy on their lips, To the dark, cruel past?—Can ye not learn
Hung gloating o'er the pincer's burning grips, From the pure Teacher's life, how mildly free

And the grim horror of the straining wheel; Is the great Gospel of Humanity ?
Fed the slow flame which gnawed the victim's limb, The Flamen's knife is bloodless, and no more
Who saw before his searing eye-balls swim

Mexitli's altars soak with human gore;
The image of their Christ, in cruel zeal,

No more the ghastly sacrifices smoke Through the black torment-smoke, held mockingly Through the green arches of the Druid's oak; to him!

And ye of milder faith, with your high claim

Of prophet-utterance in the Holiest name, The blood which mingled with the desert sand, Will ye become the Druids of our time? And beaded with its red and ghastly dew,

Set up your scaffold-altars in our land, The vines and olives of the Holy Land

And, consecrators of law's darkest crime, The shrieking curses of the hunted Jew

Urge to its loathsome work the hangman's hand ? The white-sown bones of heretics, where'er Beware-lest human nature, roused at last, They sank beneath the Crusade's holy spear From its peeled shoulder your incumbrance cast, Goa's dark dungeons-Malta's sea-washed cell, And, sick to loathing of your cry for blood, Where with the hymns the ghostly fathers sung, Rank you

with those who led their victims round Mingled the groans by subtle torture wrung, The Celt's red altar and the Indian's mound, Heaven's anthem blending with the shriek of Hell! Abhorred of Earth and Heaven-a pagan brotherThe midnight of Bartholomew—the stake

hood!

VOICES OF THE TRUE-HEARTED.

No. 16.

THE SILVER TANKARD.

possessions spread before him. At that instant a

neighbor, of six miles' distance, rode up on horseOn a stope of land opening itself to the south, in back and beckoned to him from the gate of the ena now thickly settled town in the State of Maine, closure around the house. some hundred and more years ago, stood a farm " Good morning, neighbor Gordon," said he, “I house to which the epithet “comfortable" might be have come out of my way in going to meeting, to applied. The old forest came down to the back of it; tell you that Tom Smith-that daring thief-with in front were cultivated fields; beyond which was two others, have been seen prowling about in these ground partially cleared, full of pine stumps, and parts, and that you'd better look out, lest you have here and there, standing erect, the giant trunks of a visit. I have got nothing in my house to bring trees which the fire had scorched and blackened, them there, but they may be after the silver tankard, though it had failed to overthrow them. The house neighbor, and the silver spoons. I have often told stood at the very verge of the settlement, so that you that these things were not fit for these new from it no other cottage could be seen; the nearest parts. Tom is a bold fellow, but I suppose the neighbor was distant about six miles. Daniel Goro fewer he meets when he goes to steal the better. don, the owner and occupant of the premises we I don't think it safe for you all to be off to meeting have described, had chosen this valley in the wilder- to day: but I am in a hurry, neighbor, so good-bye.” ness, a wide, rich tract of land, not only as his This communication placed our friend Daniel in own home, but, prospectively as the home of his an unpleasant dilemma. It had been settled that children, and his children's children. He was 110 one was to be left at home but his daughter willing to be far off from men, that his children Mehitable, a beautiful little girl, about nine years might have room to settle around him. He was old. Shall I stay or go? was the question. Daniel looked upon as the rich man of that district, well was a Puritan; he had strict notions of the duty of known over all that part of the country. His house worshipping God in His temple, and he had faith was completely finished, and was large for the that God would bless him only as he did his duty; times, having two stories in front and one behind, but then he was a father, and little Hitty was the with a long sloping roof; it seemed as if it leaned to light and joy of his eyes. the south, to offer its back to the cold winds from But these Puritans were stern and unflinching.the northern mountains. It was full of the comforts He soon settled the point.

"I won't even take of life,—the furniture even a little « showy' for a Hitty with me; for 'twill make her cowardly. The Puritan ; and when the table was set, there was, to thieves may not come,-neighbor Perkins may be use a Yankee phrase, o considerable" silver plate, mistaken; and if they do come to my house, they among which a large tankard stood pre-eminent. — will not hurt that child. At any rate, she is in God's This silver had been the property of his father, and hands; and we will go to worship Him, who never was brought over from the mother country. forsakes those who put their trust in Him. As he

Now we will go back to this pleasant valley as it settled this, the little girl and her mother stepped was on a bright and beautiful morning in the month to the chaise; the father saying to the child, « If any of June. It was Sunday; and thongh early, the strangers come, Hitty, treat them well. We can two sons of Daniel Gordon and the hired man had spare of our abundance to the poor. What is silver gone to meeting, on foot, down to the “ Land- and gold, when we think of God's holy word ?”— ing,” a little village on the banks of the river, ten With these words on his lips he drove off,-a troumiles distant. Daniel himself was standing at the bled man, in spite of his religious trust; because he door, with the horse and chaise, ready and waiting left his daughter in the wilderness alone. for his good wife who had been somewhat detained. Little Kitty, as the daughter of a Puritan, was He was standing at the door-step enjoying the fresh- strictly brought up to observe the Lord's day. She ness of the morning, with a little pride in his heart, knew that she ought to return to the house ; but perhaps, as he cast his cyc over the extent of his nature, for this once at least, got the better of her

training. "No harm,” thought she, “ to see the brood , and so thoughtful of housewifery, that she took little of chickens." Nor did she, 'when she had given or no notice of the appearance and manners of her them some water, go into the house; but loitered guests. She did the work as cbeerily and freely, and lingered, hearing the robin sing, and following and was as unembarrassed, as if she had been surwith her eye the bob'lincoln, as he flitted from shrub rounded by her father and mother and brothers. to shrub. She passed almost an hour out of the One of the thieves sat down doggedly, with his house, because she did not want to be alone; and hands on his knees, and his face down almost to his she did not feel alone when she was out among the hands, looking all the time on the floor. Another, birds, and was gathering here and there a little wild a younger and better looking man, stood confounded flower. But at last she went in, took her Bible, and irresolute, as if he had not been well broken and seated herself at the window, sometimes reading into his trade; and often would he go to the window and sometimes looking out.

and look out, keeping his back to the child. Smith, As she was there seated, she saw three men com on the other hand, looked unconcerned, as if he bad ing up towards the house, and she was right glad to quite forgotten his purpose. He never once took see them; for she felt lonely, and there was a his attention off the child, following her with his dreary long day before her. • Father,” thought she, eye as she bustled about in arranging the dinner “meant something, when he told me to be kind to table; there was even a half smile on his face. strangers. I suppose he expected them. I wonder | They all moved to the table, Smith's chair at the what keeps them all from meeting. Never mind; head, one of his companiops on each side, the child they shall see I can do something for them, if I am at the foot, standing there to help her guests, and to little Hitty;" so putting down the Bible, she ran to be ready to go for further supplies as there was need. meet them, happy, confiding, and even glad that they The men ate as hungry men, almost in silence; had come. She called to them to come ; and with drinking occasionally from the silver tankard. — out waiting for them to speak, she called to them when they had done, Smith started up suddenly, to come in with her, and said, “I am all alone; if and said, “Come! let's go.” “What?"' exclaimed mother was here she would do more for you, but the older robber, “go with empty hands when this I will do all I can;"' -and all this with a frank, silver is here.” He seized the tankard. « Put that Joving heart, glad to do good to others, and glad to down,” shouted Smith; "I'll shoot the man who please her father, whose last words were, to spare takes a single thing from this house.” Poor Hitty of their abundance to the weary traveller.

at once awoke to a sense of the character of ber Smith and his two companions entered. Now it guests ; with terror in her face and yet with a child. was neither breakfast time nor dinner time, but like frankness, she ran to Emith, took hold of his about half way between both; yet little Hitty's hand and looked into his face, as if she felt sure that head was full of the direction, “ spare of our abun. he would take care of her. dance;" and almost before they were fairly in the The old thief, looking to his young companion, house, she asked if she should get them something and finding he was ready to give up the job, and to eat. Smith replied, “ Yes, I will thank you, my seeing that Smith was resolute, put down the tan. child, for we are all hungry.” This was indeed a kard, growling like a dog which has had a bone civil speech for the thief, who, half starved, bad taken from him. - Fool! catch me in your combeen lurking in the woods to watch his chance to pany again;"' and with such expressions left the steal the silver tankard, as soon as the men folks house, followed by the other. Smith put his hand had gone to meeting. "Shall I give you cold vic on the head of the child and said, “ Don't be afraid tuals, or will yon wait till I can cook some meat ?"|-stay quiet in the house–nobody shall hurt yon.” asked Hitty. "We can't wait," was the reply, "give Thus ended the visit of the thieves; thus God preus what you have ready, as soon as you can.” "1 served the property of those who had put their trust am glad you do not want me to cook for you, but in him. What a story had the child to tell when I would do it if you did, -because father would the family came home! How hearty was the rather not have much cooking on Sundays.” Then thanksgiving that went up that evening from the away she tripped about, making her preparation for family altar! their repast. Smith himself helped her out with the A year or two after this, poor Tom Smith wa table. She spread upon it a clean white cloth, and arrested for the commission of some crime, was placed nipon it the silver spoons and the silrer tan. tried, and sentenced to be executed. Daniel Gordon kard full of " old orchard,” with a large quantity of heard of this, and that he was confined in a jail in wheaten bread and a dish of cold meat. I don't the seaport town, to wait for the dreadful day wben know why the silver spoons were put on,- perhaps he was to be hung up like a dog between heaven Jittle Hitty thonght they made the table look pret- and earth. Gordon could not keep away from him ; tier. After all was done, she turned to Smith, and he felt drawn to him for the protection of his daughwith a courtesy told him that dinner was ready. ter, and went down to see him. When he entered The child had been so busy in arranging her table, I the dungeon, Smith was seated, his face was pale,