INDEPENDENCE.

DOW, JR.

TEXT. Independence is the thing,

MY HEARERS:

And we're the boys to boast on't.

Next Thursday is the birthday of American Liberty the day upon which our star-spangled banner first waved in the fair breeze of Freedom- the day that the proud eagle of the mountain first looked down from his eyry on a free and independent nation-the day upon which the fat, ragged, and saucy children of Columbia broke loose from, the apron-strings of their mother-country, and kicked up their heels for joy, like so many colts released from the bondage of winter confinement. You ought, on this occasion, to be as full of glory as a gin bottle, that this blessed anniversary is about once more to dawn upon your heads, and find you reaping the harvest of those blessings which your fathers sowed in revolutionary soil, watered with their own blood, and manured with their own ashes. Yes, you ought to throw up your caps, and make the halls of Freedom ring with loud huzzas, and then sit down and meditate on the groans, and the pains of travail, which attended this mighty Republic during the delivery of her first-born — LIBERTY.

My friends, next Thursday the celebration will take place. Then the whole nation will be alive like a beggar's shirt; there will be a general stirring up of the genus homo from one end of the nation to another. The fires of enthusiasm will be kindled in every breast; and many of those who look in patriotic glory will, doubtless, supply themselves with the article at the booths round the Park.

But, my dear friends, this sixpenny patriotism is most horrible stuff; it is patriotism of the head, and not of the heart. It makes you feel too independent altogether. It induces

you to fight in times of peace, and takes all the starch out of your courage in times of war. While this artificial patriotism is effervescing in your cocoa-nuts, your boasts of independence are loud and clamorous; but when its spirit has evaporated, you are the veriest serviles that ever writhed under the lash of despotism. If you suppose, my friends, that the proper way to observe our national independence is by drinking brandy slings and gin cocktails, you are just as mistaken as the boy was who set a bear-trap to catch bed-bugs.

My dear hearers, I like to hear you boast of your independence, if it be not done in a vain and bragadocial spirit; and my gratuitous prayer is, that you may maintain it as long as you are permitted to squat this side of the deep, still river of death. To preserve your collective strength, your hearts, your feelings, and your pure sympathies must be all joined together, like the links of a log chain. You must all hang together like a string of fish, and stick to one another through thick and thin, like a bunch of burdocks in a bell-wether's fleece. Remember, my friends, that, with all your boasted independence, you are poor, weak, miserable, dependent beings. That same Almighty hand which provides you with soup and shirts, beef and breeches, can take them all from you in a little less than a short space of time, and leave you as naked as an apple-tree in winter. Yes, my friends, you must recollect that you are dependent, as well as independent; and that all the favors you receive are donations from heaven, brought down by angels of mercy, and distributed impartially among the grabbing, snatching, and thieving sons of sin.

EARLY RETIRING AND RISING.

DOW, JR.

TEXT. Early to bed, and early to rise,

Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

MY HEARERS: The text I have chosen for my present discourse is most beautifully homely; but it contains the keen kernels of truth, without husk or chaff. All the brute creation close their peepers at the setting of the sun, save such as see best in the dark; and whose deeds are evil: why should man be an exception, since he is not an owl, nor a bat, that sleeps through the day for the want of properly-adapted optics? I see no reason under the planet of Jupiter, why you should not go to bed as soon as Evening empties her soot-bag upon the earth, and get out of it at the first blush of morn. Even ten hours sleep would do you no harm, after you get used to it; and I know that most of you are able to bear almost twice the quantity without a grunt.

My dear friends, look at that man, the early riser. The rose of health blooms upon his cheek; his eye sparkles with the fire and glow of youth; his step is as elastic as though his legs were set with wire spiral-springs, and his body composed of Indian rubber. He is strong, too; ay, stronger than last winter's butter stronger than an argument— stronger than a horse, and tougher than bull-beef. He can outjump, outwalk, outrun, and outlive any human being that never leaves his bed-chamber until nine o'clock, I do n't care where you bring him from whether from the hardy Greenland, or from the soft, sunny clime of the equator. He is infusible. He is not to be fried in his own fat by the melting heat of a midsummer's sun; and he can bare his bosom to the bitter northern blast, with no more sign of a shake or a shiver, than the Bunker Hill Monument in a snow-storm.

Oh, you puny, sickly, saffron-skinned sluggards, that never see the sun rise! You lose a glorious sight an exhibition that affords more delight to both eye and soul than all the shows ever presented to mortal view, the Northern Lights and Barnum's Museum not excepted. I can't paint the picture. When I think of it, discouraged Fancy drops her pencil at once, and says it's no use. Try and get up and take a peep for yourselves, for once in your lives; then, if you think it a humbug, go to bed again and snooze till the day of judgment, for aught I care. But how do you feel, shaking your feathers, with the sun hard upon the meridian? Rather. streaked, I imagine almost afraid to venture into the streets, for fear your shadows should laugh at you. You muster up courage to sally out. "Shocking steamboat accident that, according to the accounts in the morning papers!" says an acquaintance whom you happen to meet. "What ac-oh-oh, yes, shocking, very shocking, indeed!-goodday," and on you speed, with a most nervous rapidity, for fear of being further interrogated about what you ought to have known hours before. You morning sleepers! know you not that you lose by dribblets the very honey of life, the very quintessence of all that is bright, lovely, and joyful in existence? You do, while others are alive, stirring about, securing health, accumulating wealth, happy and merry as larks; you lie as dead as so many logs, intellectually decaying, morally rotting, and corporeally consuming. Arise ye! Arise ye! Shake off sloth, even as the lion shaketh the dew from his mane; go out and behold the beauties of the morn in all their glory and magnificence, and become healthier, wealthier, wiser, and handsomer human beings than you are.

THE COLD WATER MAN.

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

It was an honest fisherman,
I knew him passing well,-
And he lived by a little pond,
Within a little dell.

A grave and quiet man was he,
Who loved his hook and rod,-
So even ran his line and life,
His neighbors thought it odd.

For science and for books, he said

He never had a wish,

No school to him was worth a fig,
Except a school of fish.

He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth,

Nor cared about a name,

For though much famed for fish was he,

He never fished for fame!

Let others bend their necks at sight

Of fashion's gilded wheels,

He ne'er had learned the art to "bob"

For anything but eels!

A cunning fisherman was he,
His angles all were right;
The smallest nibble at his bait

Was sure to prove "a bite!"