How shall it be separated? Who shall put asunder the best affections of the
heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? We love the land of our
adoption; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both, and
always exert ourselves in maintaining the unity of our country, the
integrity of the Republic. Accursed, then, be the hand put forth to loosen
the golden cord of the Union!--thrice accursed the traitorous lips which
shall propose its severance! But no; the Union cannot be dissolved. Its
fortunes are too brilliant to be marred; its destinies too powerful to be
resisted. Here will be their greatest triumphs, their most mighty
development. And when, a century hence, this Crescent City shall have
filled her golden horns,--when within her broad-armed port shall be
gathered the products of the industry of a hundred millions of
freemen,--when galleries of art and halls of learning shall have made
classic this mart of trade,--then may the sons of the Pilgrims, still
wandering from the bleak hills of the North, stand upon the banks of the
great river and exclaim with mingled pride and wonder,--"Lo, this is our
country: when did the world ever behold so rich and magnificent a city,--so
great and glorious a Republic!"
S. S. Prentiss.


LVI.

ON SENDING RELIEF TO IRELAND.

We have assembled, not to respond to shouts of triumph from the West, but
to answer to the cry of want and suffering which comes from the East. The
Old World stretches out her arms to the New. The starving parent
supplicates the young and vigorous child for bread. There lies, upon the
other side of the wide Atlantic, a beautiful island famous in history and