expression in the Bible implies what it does in mod ern parlance, we may congratulate ourselves that we possess a similar description of citizens-merchants who are princes, not in the magnificence which apes the pomp of royalty, but in the large and liberal spirit that exhibits itself in acts of generosity and munificence, which may be termed princely in respect to the grandeur of their conception, and the efficiency of their execution.

The true genius and character of a people may be tested by the examples of individuals, no less than by their institutions and laws. The illustrious citizens of the ancient republics are the memorials and proofs of their national greatness. As the Roman mother said of her children, "these are my jewels,' so the Commonwealth may say of her distinguished sons, for they are the glory and the crown of the State. The name of HENRY GRINNELL, in connection. with the expedition in search of Franklin, will survive all the marble and granite of the city of his residence. He might say with truth with the Latin Poet,

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius.”

Whatever is done for truth or for humanity, survives in the remembrance of all ages; the star of

a Howard culminates above those of all the heroes and conquerers who have filled the earth with violence, and the merchant prince who sent his ships into the Arctic Seas, to search for the lost of another nation and people, is entitled to the plaudits of his country and his race.

Nor should the commander, officers, and seamen of the American expedition be forgotten by the government, or their countrymen. In the dangerous service in which they voluntarily engaged, they exhibited the courage and hardihood, the coolness and forethought which have characterized the brightest examples in our naval history. The narrative of their hazardous voyage, so far as it has been made public, reflects the highest credit upon all concerned, and has added new luster to the annals of American seamanship.

The naval service is the right arm of the Republic; no power on earth can assail us while the ocean is covered with our ships. Great Britain came out of the contest with Napoleon and the continent with safety and success, only because she acquired and kept the dominion of the sea; it is her naval superiority, which now delays the Autocrat of the North in his contemplated subjugation of Europe, and

prevents his immediate occupation of Constantinople as the seat of his new Empire. Nor is it merely the number of men-of-war which are kept afloat, that creates the naval superiority of a country, but that extensive commerce which constitutes a nursery of seamen, whose numbers, knowledge, and courage may be made available in the hour of danger. In no respect have our countrymen so uniformly distinguished themselves, as in their naval exploits, nowhere have they been so successful, as on the ocean, and the safety of the country is more connected with this department of defense than any other. While such men as Commander De Haven, Griffith, and such crews can be mustered from the naval service of the United States, our shores are safe from foreign invasion, and our country from all assaults save those of the demon of domestic discord; if we perish, it will be suicidally.

While every christian and philanthropist will earnestly desire and pray for the day when men shall learn war no more, when "the sword shall be beater into a plowshare, and the spear into a pruning hook," it is the height of folly to presume that any such period is at hand-to blind our eyes to the evident token of an approaching contest which is to

shake the earth, and from which we can only escape scathless by a position and a force which will compel respect for our rights, and protect our neutrality, if it be possible to maintain this position in a contest waged for the destruction of civil and religious liberty. The narrative of the American expedition cannot fail to enlist the sympathies of the country more earnestly in behalf of those

"Whose march is on the mountain wave,
Whose home is on the deep,"

and kindle generous emotions in all hearts. We hope it may find a place in every habitation throughout the length and breadth of our extended country.