They had no glittering bayonets, they were not massed in regular array. There were a few men in advance, bunched together, and creeping up a steep, sunny hill, the top of which roared and flashed with flame. The men

held their guns pressed across their breasts and stepped 5 heavily as they climbed.

Behind these first few, spreading out like a fan, were single lines of men, slipping and scrambling in the smooth grass, moving forward with difficulty, as though they

were wading waist high through water, moving slowly, carefully, with strenuous effort. It was much more wonderful than any swinging charge could have been. They walked to greet death at every step; many of them, as 5 they advanced, sinking suddenly or pitching forward and disappearing in the high grass; but the others waded on stubbornly, forming a thin blue line that kept creeping higher and higher up the hill. It was as inevitable as the rising tide. It was a miracle of self-sacrifice, a 10 triumph of bulldog courage, which one watched breathless. with wonder.

The fire of the Spanish riflemen, who still stuck bravely to their posts, doubled and trebled in fierceness, the crests of the hills crackled and burst in amazed roars, and ripped 15 with waves of tiny flame. But the blue line crept steadily

on and on, and then near the top the broken fragments gathered together with a sudden burst of speed. The Spaniards appeared for a moment outlined against the sky and poised for instant flight, fired a last volley, and 20 fled before the swift-moving wave that leaped and sprang up after them.

And from far overhead, from these few figures perched on the Spanish rifle pits, with their flags planted among the empty cartridges of the enemy, and overlooking the 25 walls of Santiago, came faintly the sound of a tired, broken cheer.

PRIDE OF ANCESTRY

DANIEL WEBSTER

DANIEL WEBSter (1782-1852) is one of the most brilliant figures in American history. He studied law and became famous as a debater and as an ardent Federalist. His defense of the Union, in 1830, has been called "the most remarkable speech ever made in the American Congress." To quote the words of Carlyle, he was a "Parliamentary Her- 5 cules." Webster's personality was remarkably impressive.

It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect our thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness, with what is distant in place or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at once with our ancestors 10 and our posterity.

Human and mortal though we are, we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to the past or the future. Neither the point of time nor the spot of earth in which we physically live, bounds our rational 15 and intellectual enjoyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history, and in the future by hope and anticipation.

By ascending to an association with our ancestors; by contemplating their example and studying their character; 20 by partaking their sentiments and imbibing their spirit; by accompanying them in their toils; by sympathizing in their sufferings and rejoicing in their successes and their triumphs, we seem to belong to their age and mingle

our existence with theirs. We become their contemporaries, live the lives which they lived, endure what they endured, and partake of the rewards which they enjoyed.

5 And in like manner, by running along the line of future time; by contemplating the probable fortunes of those who are coming after us; by attempting something that may promote their happiness and leave some not dishonorable memorial of ourselves for their regard, when we 10 shall sleep with the fathers, - we protract our own earthly

being, and seem to crowd whatever is future, as well as all that is past, into the narrow compass of our earthly

existence.

As it is not a vain and false but an exalted and religious 15 imagination which leads us to raise our thoughts from the orb which amidst this universe of worlds the Creator has given us to inhabit, and to send with them something of the feeling which nature prompts and teaches to be proper among children of the same Eternal Parent, to the con20 templation of the myriads of fellow-beings with which his goodness has peopled the infinite of space; so neither is it false or vain to consider ourselves as interested and connected with our whole race through all time, allied to our ancestors, allied to our posterity, closely compacted on all 25 sides with others, ourselves being but links in the great chain of being which begins with the origin of our race, runs onward through its successive generations, binding

together the past, the present, and the future, and terminating at last with the consummation of all things earthly at the throne of God.

There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for ancestry, which nourishes only a weak pride, as there is 5 also a care for posterity, which only disguises an habitual avarice or hides the workings of a low and groveling vanity. But there is also a moral and philosophical respect for our ancestors which elevates the character and improves the heart.

10

Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardly know what should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened mind than a consciousness of alliance with excellence which is departed; and a consciousness, too, that in its acts and conduct, and even in 15 its sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively operating on the happiness of those who come after it.

Poetry is found to have few stronger conceptions, by which it would affect or overwhelm the mind, than those in which it presents the moving and speaking image of the 20 departed dead to the senses of the living. This belongs to poetry only because it is congenial to our nature. Poetry is in this respect but the handmaid of true philosophy and religion.