the tenure of a despot's will. O, ye friends of liberty! ye who have been nursed in the lap of freedom, and cradled in the storms of emancipation, will you not contribute to the release of such a people? Will you look on, without concern, and see the sons of Sparta, of Athens, of Thermopela, crushed beneath the sceptre of the Porte? Will you make no effort for their redemption? Shall they still bend their neck to the cruel yoke for the want of your assistance? O, if this be the fact, the time will come, when you will repent of your present apathy. When the sighs of expiring hope, the clank of chains binding the Greeks to the car of tyranny, shall be wafted over the wide wastes of the Atlantic, and sink into your reluctant ears, you will lament, (but alas! too late,) the inglorious supiness which had led to this result. If the cause of Greece be lost, the cause of liberty will suffer. In permitting this event, you will descend from your high position, and commence a preparation for servi tude and chains. When the Greek republic shall have ceased its struggles, and sunk into the iron grasp of Moslem tyranny, the current of civil liberty will not improbably change its course, and the chill of death striking to the heart of freedom commence the dissolution of our own government. Come, then, ye friends of liberty, and contribute to the cause of Greece. If you cannot go and fight her battles, at least send subsistence to her children, while her own warriors are achieving victory for themselves. They are worthy of the best assistance you can render them. A more valorous troop of freemen were never mentioned in the page of history, than those unhappy Greeks who are now struggling for their existence. 4. Nor ought we to forget that they are christians. They are devoted to the interests of the cross, with an ardor which the lapse of ages has not extinguished, the persecutions of Mahomet abated, nor the allurements of Turkish policy diminished! Their altars have been demolished, their churches sacre ligiously converted into mosques, their bishops and patriarchs decapitated, and the emblem of their redemption treated with contempt; but they are still immovable in their attachments to the cross! Knowing in whom they have believed, they resolutely persist in preferring death, to an abandonment of his religion. Errors, it is true; they have imbibed, but they are christians of no ordinary firmness. Could you behold the veteran soldier bowing before the cross, and invoking the God of battles to defend his cause; the aged matron kneeling at the altar, and in the face of death, sealing her vows in the reception of the eucharist; the lisping infant clinging to his father's faith as the anchor of his hope; and the whole nation, with up lifted hands, swearing to Him who made them, they will die, rather than embrace the Koran; your hearts would not only dissolve with tenderness, but every means in the compass of your power would be devoted to their relief. I have said the Greeks are christians ;—and so they are.They are members of a church planted by the first apostles, cherished by the blood of martyrs, and defended by the arm of God. In Athens, the citadel of Grecian liberty, Paul preached the glad tidings of salvation by Jesus Christ; and for receiving those tidings the Greek is now proscribed, hunted down, and butchered by the intolerant Turk. In the land consecrated by the presence of the great apostle, illumined by his divine instruction, and which was one of the cradles of christianity, the sultan raises the accursed crescent and commands the disciples of the Son of God to abjure their faith. And will this be borne? No, exclaims the christian, it can not, it shall not be endured. The cross shall yet be cherished in unhappy Greece; and every mosque, and Turk, that pollutes her hallowed soil, shall be made the subject of a righteous retribution. But notwithstanding all that I have said, murmurs of distrust still fall upon my ear. Give what you may, say some, it will be unavailing. The Porte inevitably will crush the feeble Greeks, and in defiance of foreign aid, reduce them to their former vassalage. But even if this were certain; if we knew the ruthless Mussleman would pour the tide of war with ten fold fury into unhappy Greece-would blast forever her once verdant fields-pillage the last fragment of her treasure-extinguish her already flickering lamps of science-give to the vultures her famished children-and bind with chains, to the car of servitude, the last remnant of Grecian liberty-our donations would not be useless. They would even then, afford some relief. They would illicit from dying hearts sentiments of gratitude and prayer-exhibit to surrounding nations the magnanimity of this republic-be inscribed upon the columns of yon lofty temple for the admiration and delight of angels and of men: and what is infinitely more, secure the approbation of HIM, who hath said, give and it shall be given to you again, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. But even in relation to the issue of the present contest, we have no reason to believe our donations will be unavailing.The star of hope has already risen in the prospect of unhappy Greece; the gloom with which she has been long surrounded is beginning to disperse; and even her sturdy foe, feels the uncertainty of his anticipated conquest. Crowned heads are co-operating in the work of her redemption; the combined fleets of England, France and Russia, are avenging her injured cause; and millions of faithful christians are praying daily for the consummation of her freedom. What then shall be done? The time for action has arrived, and it remains for you to do your duty; and I trust that every one, according to his ability, will contribute to the assistance of afflicted Greece. The example is set before you, and it is worthy of imitation; and I hope you will not only equal-but surpass it ;-that you will, of your abundance, send to the pensive widow, the orphan maid, the mutilated hero, the dying christian, and the fighting patriot, enough, not only to shield them from the burning sun and the pitiless storm; but to assuage their hunger, to sustain them in their sufferings, and to restore them to the glory and prosperity of former and brighter rimes. Character of CICERO-from the North American Review. To dwell upon the merits of Cicero, at this period, would indeed be preposterous; it would be exposing ourselves to receive the answer given to the old Greek Sophist for his eulogy on Hercules, "who ever thought of blaming him?" But we cannot refrain from remarking, how strongly he ought to excite the admiration and reverence, of all the lovers of freedom and republican governments. He, beyond all other great characters of antiquity, deserves the homage of virtuous and enlightened freemen. He, of all others, is the model which should be taken, to excite the emulation of talents, patriotism and virtuous ambition. There is no other that may so safely be held up to the imitation of young men of liberal education, who are destined to pursue a course of public speaking and political life. His legal science and skill, his eloquence, his sound principles of politics, philosophy and morality, were acknowledged by his contemporaries, and will be reverenced by all succeeding ages, so long as learning and virtue shall have any votaries on earth. High as his fame was elevated, it yet remains unshaken. "It was a solid fabric and has supported the laurels which adorn it." Before the tribunals of justice he was the protector of innocence, the avenger of the injured, the dread of traitors, and the scourge of profligate tyrants in power. He governed the councils of the republic at the height of its splendour and prosperity, and when it fell a prey to faction and conspiracy, he resigned his head without resistance to the executioner. From his days to our own, no government has ever existed, where this illustrious man could have pursued the same course, or held the same rank. Under our institutions, should the same combination of virtue and talents again appear, after a lapse of two thousand years, it may follow the same exalted destiny, from the bar to the senate, from the senate to the chief magistracy. Should such a man ever again, exist, may his own fate and that of his country, be more auspicious. THE TORCH OF LIBERTY.-Moore. I saw it all in Fancy's glass Herself, the fair, the wild magician, "Twas like a torch-race-such as they I saw th' expectant nations stand, The clear, but struggling glory burn. And oh, their joy, as it came near, And each, as she receiv'd the flame, From Albion first, whose antient shrine, And lit a flame, like Albion's ,steady. The splendid gift then Gallia took, And when she fir'd her altar, high Next, Spain, so new was light to her, Yet, no-not quench'd—a treasure, worth Who next receiv'd the flame? alas Scarce had her fingers touched the torch And fall'n it might have long remain❜d, And fancy bid me mark where, o'er Who thus in song their voices blended : Shine, shine forever, glorious Flame, "Divinest gift of Gods to men! From Greece thy earliest splendour came, "To Greece thy ray returns again. |