REST. POETIC SELECTIONS. Beneath the western heaven's span The cloud's rich sunset hues and tints The dim night comes from out the east With gloom and vapor gray. The stars far in the sky's blue depths The moon above yon eastern hill The night winds steal with gentle wing The birds upon the tuneless spray Its song is of the woods and meads- No voice is in the tranquil air, The earth is hushed as heaven above, Sweet calm, and undisturbed repose, A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT. Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy, With his marble block before him, His face lit up with a smile of joy As an angel dream passed o'er him! With heaven's own fight the sculpture shone If we carve it then, on the yielding stone, Its heavenly beauty shall be our own, AN ARAB'S LOGIC. A skeptic, through the wilderness of Vin And evermore whene'er the fierce simoon The skeptic noted that, with outstretched hands, And pressed his turbaned forehead to the ground, Prostrate thyself in this lone desert place, "I kneel to worship God," the Arab said; "A God! a God?" the scoffer laughed. "Poor fool! 'Tis plain to see thou never went'st to school; Thou seest not, thou hearest not, dull clod! "How do I know?"-the Bedouin upraised The early history of New Hampshire was full of disorders, political and religious. For the first seventeen years the colonists had no rest in church or state. They were too weak to punish great criminals, and too factious to exclude unworthy preachers. Their social feuds did not lead to open war, though they sometimes threatened it. Becoming weary of intestine troubles, the four towns, almost unanimously, in 1641, sought a union with Massachusetts. They were cordially welcomed by the larger State. At the time of the union, New Hampshire contained about two hundred legal voters. Hampton was founded under the auspices of Massachusetts, and the territory where the other settlements were made was claimed by her citizens, because their charter bounded their grant, on the north, by a line running three miles north of the head of the Merrimack River. This conflict of titles rose from the fact that the original grantors of the two charters knew nothing of the origin or course of rivers in New Hampshire. They supposed that the Merrimack rose in the west and ran eastward, as it does from Dracut to Newburyport. The union, for a time, postponed this territorial controversy. John Mason, the proprietor of New Hampshire, died in 1635. His heirs were unable to find in the colony honest agents to take care of their property. The goods and cattle of Capt. Mason were removed from the plantations and sold in Nova Scotia and Boston. Norton, the chief proprie tary agent, drove one hundred head of cattle to Boston and sold them for twenty-five pounds sterling a head; and, for aught that appears, appropriated the money. This valuable stock had been imported at great expense from Denmark. The colonists, being left without governors or overseers, formed separate political combinations for the better protection of their own property and lives. This handful of men, brought from their homes three thousand miles away and planted in the wilderness, without efficient political or ecclesiastical organization, could not have been very formidable as foes or influential as friends. It is matter of astonishment that they had not, before this date, been swept away by cold, hunger, nakedness, pirates, savages or domestic thieves. Such were the founders of a sovereign State. Poor and powerless as they were, they were cordially welcomed by Massachusetts. Important concessions were made in their favor, and no new exactions were imposed. Henceforth, the laws of Massachusetts ruled New Hampshire. In process of time the religion, schools and social customs of the more powerful State prevailed in New Hampshire. At the time of the union of these two colonies New England contained about four thousand families, or about twenty thousand souls. These had been mostly brought from England in twenty years, in one hundred and ninety-eight ships. Only one of these was lost at sea. This fact indicates that navigation at that day in small, slow-sailing ships, was quite as safe as that of steamers at the present day. A descent from these families is regarded by many as equivalent to a patent of nobility. The New Englanders have been the founders of many new States, as well as promoters of all good institutions in the old. The early laws of Massachusetts were terribly severe. As many as ten offences were deemed capital. The laws of Moses were the models of these enactments. The Rev. John Cotton, the first minister of Boston, sat in Moses' seat, and, as the representative of Jehovah, dictated his will. He boldly asserted that "the government [of Massachusetts] might be considered as a theocracy, wherein the Lord was Judge, Lawgiver and King; that the laws he gave Israel might be adopted, so far as they were of moral and perpetual equity; and that the people might be considered as God's people in covenant with him; that none but persons of approved piety and eminent gifts should be chosen as rulers; that the ministers should be consulted in all matters of religion, and that the magistrate should have a superintending and coercive power over the churches." Here is a union of church and state unparalleled in power and influence. The meaning of this quotation is, that God alone is king and John Cotton is his prophet. The persons and dignities of priests and magistrates became inviolable by word or deed. The reviling of officers in church and state, and blasphemy of the Trinity were visited with fearful penalties. Toleration was a crime; the venerable Higginson of Salem, pronounced it "the firstborn of all abominations." Liberty of conscience, in any form, was deemed the worst enemy of government and religion. This theocratic government also undertook to regulate the thoughts, words, deeds, dress, food and expenditures of every man, woman and child in the colony. The shield of this divine government was extended over New Hampshire; and her magistrates and ministers attempted to be as severe as those of the Bay State; but the refractory materials they had to deal with, did not readily and kindly yield to the pressure of pow She These inconsiderable evils of the union were counterbalanced by numerous and important advantages. New Hampshire was elevated in morality and strengthened in government, by her connection with the larger and stronger state. also borrowed her school system, her academies and college from the same source. Free schools were established in Boston in 1635. Massachusetts adopted and enforced her admirable system of town schools, free shcools, where every child in the Commonwealth could learn to "read, write and cypher," as early as 1647. Every town of fifty families was required to establish a school both for the rich and poor. Thus education was brought to every man's door. This system has since been adopted by most of the States in the Union. In 1649, the records of Hampton show logy, delivered by Col. Daniel Hall, upon the presentation to the Court of the reso lutions recently adopted by the Strafford County Bar in honor of the deceased: COL. HALL'S EULOGY. May it please your Honor: I rise to formally announce an event, the unwelcome intelligence of which has already come to the Court by common report. The HON. DANIEL M. CHRISTIE, the most distinguished member of this bar, and the most eminent counsellor of this Court, departed this life, at his residence in this city, on the 8th day of December last, at the advanced age of 86 years. His brethren of the bar of Strafford County, whose leader, and ornament, and pride he was for so many years, profoundly impressed by this event, and desiring to do whatever is in their power to acknowledge the supremacy, illustrate the virtues, and honor the memory of this great man, have with entire unanimity, adopted resolutions expressive of the high sense entertained by the bar of the eminent character and services of Mr. Christie, and their sincere sympathy and condolence with those friends whom his loss affected more nearly; and have, with a partiality which I gratefully acknowledge, imposed upon me the honorable duty of presenting them to the Court. In the performance of that duty, I will, by leave of the Court, read the resolutions which have been adopted by the bar, and respectfully move that they be entered upon the records of the Court: Resolved, That we have heard with profound sensibility of the death of the Hon. Daniel M. Christie, the oldest and most distinguished member of this bar, who has by a long life of arduous labor, fidelity to duty, and spotless integrity in every relation of life, adorned and elevated the profession of the law, and imparted dignity and luster to the jurisprudence of our State. Resolved. That in the long, honorable and conspicuous career of Mr. Christiechiefly as a counsellor and advocate at this bar-distinguished by great learning, sound judgment, unwearied industry and unsurpassed fidelity to every personal and professional obligation, we recognize those qualities which entitled him to the respect and veneration which were universally entertained for him; and that, by his wisdom, prudence, and conscientious attention to all the duties of good citizenship, he exerted a great and salutary influence upon the community in which he lived. Resolved, That we take pride in recording our high estimate of his extraordinary intellectual endowments, his exalted principles, and elevated standard of private and professional morality, and commend his virtues and excellencies of character to the imitation of the members of the profession which he pursued with such assiduity, and such remarkable honor and success. Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with the family of Mr. Christie in the bereavement which has deprived them of an indulgent father and faithful friend, and respectfully offer them such consolation as may be found in the heartfelt condolence of the bar, whose leader and exemplar he was for nearly fifty years, and whose affection and veneration ties and blameless life. he had gained by his pre-eminent abili Resolved, That the Secretary communicate a copy of these resolutions to the family of Mr. Christie, and that the Committee present them to the Court now in session in this county, with the request of the bar that they be entered upon its records. May it please your Honor: I should be doing injustice to my own feelings on this occasion, if I were to refrain from adding a few words at least to the expressions of grief and sensibility which these resolutions contain. This, of all places in the world, could our deceased elder brother have selected the scene, would he have chosen to have pronounced above his grave whatever of honorable praise he had earned by a life of high exertion in an exalted profession, of incorruptible fidelity to every trust, and unsullied honor in all the relations of life. And here, certainly, in this building, whose walls will be forever associated with his name and his labors, it is appropriate that such honors as the living can pay to the dead should not be denied to him. Others there are, older than myself, and whose opportunities of observation have extended over a larger period than mine, who can better inform the Court of the varied incidents of his long and useful life, and to their hands I shall mainly leave the task, contenting |