"LET US HAVE PEACE"

U.S. Grant July 23, 1885

H. C. BUNNER

His name was a sword and a shield,
His words were armed men,

He mowed his foemen as a field

Of wheat is mowed-and then

Set his strong hand to make the shorn earth smile again.

Not in the whirlwind of his fight,

The unbroken line of war,

Did he the best battle for the right

His victory was more:

Peace was his triumph, greater far than all before.

Who in the spirit and love of peace

Takes sadly up the blade,

Makes war on war, that wars may cease

He striveth undismayed,

And in the eternal strength his mortal strength is stayed.

Peace, that he conquered for our sake—

This is his honor, dead.

We saw the clouds of battle break

To glory o'er his head

But brighter shone the light about his dying bed.

Dead is thy warrior, King of Life,

Take thou his spirit flown;

The prayer of them that knew his strife

Goes upward to thy throne

Peace be to him who fought-and fought for Peace alone.

DAMASCUS

HENRY VAN DYKE

Damascus is the oldest living city in the world; no one knows her birthday or her founder's name. She has survived the empires and kingdoms which conquered her, Nineveh, Babylon, Samaria, Greece, Egypt-their capitals are dust, but Damascus still blooms "like a tree planted by the rivers of water." She has given her name to the reddest of roses, the sweetest of plums, the richest of metal-work, and the most lustrous of silks; her streets have bubbled and eddied with the currents of

the multitudinous folk

That do inhabit her and make her great.

She is the typical city, pure and simple, of the Orient, as New York or San Francisco is of the Occident: the open port on the edge of the desert, the trading-booth at the foot of the mountains, the pavilion in the heart of the blossoming bower,-the wonderful child of a little river and an immemorial Spirit of Place.

Every time we go into the city, we step at once into a chapter of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." It is true, there are electric lights and there is a trolley-car crawling around the city; but they no more make it Western and modern than a bead necklace would change the character of the Venus of Milo. The driver of the trolley-car looks like one of "The Three Calenders," and a gayly dressed little boy beside him blows loudly on an instrument of discord as the machine tranquilly advances through the crowd.

The crowd itself is of the most indescribable and engaging variety and vivacity. The Turkish soldiers in dark uniform and red fez; the cheerful, grinning watercarriers with their dripping, bulbous goat-skins on their backs; the white-turbaned Druses with their bold, cleancut faces; the bronzed, impassive sons of the desert, with their flowing mantles and bright head-cloths held on by thick, dark rolls of camel's hair; the rich merchants in their silken robes of many colors; the picturesquely ragged beggars; the Moslem pilgrims washing their heads

and feet, with much splashing, at the pools in the marble courtyards of the mosques; the merry children, running on errands or playing with the water that gushes from many a spout at the corner of a street or on a wall of a house; the veiled Mohammedan women slipping silently through the throng, or bending over trinkets or fabrics in some open-fronted shop, lifting the veil for a moment to show an olive-tinted cheek and a pair of long, liquid brown eyes; the bearded Greek priests in their black robes and cylinder hats; the Christian women wrapped in their long white sheets, but with their pretty faces uncovered, and a red rose or a white jasmine stuck among their smooth, shining black tresses; the seller of lemonade with his gayly decorated glass vessel on his back and his clinking brass cups in his hand, shouting, "A remedy for the heat."-"Cheer up your hearts.' "Take care of your teeth"; the boy peddling bread, with an immense tray of thin, flat loaves on his head, crying continually to Allah to send him customers; the seller of turnip-pickle with a huge pink globe upon his shoulder looking like the inside of a pale watermelon; the donkeys pattering along between fat burdens of grass or charcoal; a much-bedizened horseman with embroidered saddle-cloth and glittering bridle, riding silent and haughty through the crowd as if it did not exist; a victoria dashing along the street at a trot, with a whip