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twilight of English civilization. The scarred and sturdy tree near " White Lady's," in 

 which the defeated monarch hid himself after his almost miraculous escape at the battle 

 of Worcester — how like a guardian angul it stands in the history of royalty in England. 

 The contemporary of this tree, the wide-spreading oak of Hartford, spared from the 

 primeval forests of America, as imposing and perhaps as ancient as the Pyramids, de- 

 cayed and broken, concealing in its stout heart the Charter of Colonial Privileges — 

 what a cherished and commanding figure it is in the record of freedom on this Continent ! 

 What a tale of valor and proud eiideavor, and the heroism which triumphs where "the 

 battle rtxges long and loud," could that pasture oak tell, which was borne from the fair 

 hillside of Andover, Massachusetts, to become the sternpost of the immortal frigate. Con- 

 stitution 1 



The Elm. 



Call to mind noAV the story of the elm tree, and what a mingling of fable and fiction 

 and interesting fact gathers around it. When Orpheus returned to earth from his melo- 

 dious mission for Eurydice to the dominions of Pluto, and sat him down upon the verdant 

 hill, it was the elm which first i*esponded to his plaintive airs, and oifered him his refresh- 

 ing shade. It gave its name to the imperial city of Ulm, in Germany, and as Elmwood 

 it designates the home of one of the most Inilliant of modern American poets. 



The elm planted by Henry IV., of France, in the Luxembourg gardens of Paris : 

 the elm which Queen Elizabeth planted with her own hands at Chelsea, while waiting for 

 the crown ; the elms planted by Sir Francis Bacon in Gray's Inn walks, will not be for- 

 gotten so long as the memory of these remarkable persons shall endure. And when we 

 turn to the pages of Columella to learn the food most used for cattle in his day ; and to 

 the plays of Plautus to read with what twigs the Roman rogues were beaten ; and to 

 Evelyn to find out what timber made the best pipes, pumps, poles, ship-planks, beneath 

 the water line ; and to Galen and Pliny for a sovereign remedy for all the ills that flesh 

 is heir to — we find that the elm reigns supreme, and is nutritive, corrective, medioinal, 

 and imperishable, alike. To my mind there gathers around this tree, also, historic asso- 

 sociations at once romantic and tender. One hundred and fifty years ago. Captain John 

 Lovewell, of Dunstable, Mass., with a little band of forty-six followers, started in early 

 spring to drive Pangus and his tribe of Piquackets from the fertile lands which they occu- 

 pied near Fryeburg, Maine, and from which they made their murderous assaults on the 

 white settlements. The march was through pathless woods, and the expedition was one 

 which required all the strength and courage which man can possibly command. Chaplain 

 Frye, wlio accompanied the little army, was a younw man, born in Andover, a graduate 

 of Harvard, an exemplary youth, an accomplished scholar, and a devoted servant of 

 Christ, the profession which he had chosen. On that beautiful May morning, when Cap- 

 tain Lovewell's men were ambushed by the Indian warriors of Pangus, on the shore of 

 the Piquackot Pond, Chaplain Frye was one of the first to fall mortally wounded. Wh^a 

 he left his home to join the expedition he planted an elm tree, in that early spring time, 

 on a commanding eminence in his native town, in order, as he said, that he might be re- 

 membered should he fall in battle ; and there it stands at this day, a lofty and noble 

 monument to the devoted young Chaplain, putting on its green robe each year on the an- 

 niversary of his death, and taking on its sad, yellow hue in t\vK autumn as if in mourning 

 for him whose name it bears. And to every son and daughter of America, what a repre- 

 sentative tree this is ! Would you learn its significance 1, Go with me, then, to that 

 ancient farmhouse, stamling as it has stood for more than a century on that sunny slope 

 which our fathers loved so well. That ancient dwelling, with its broad and open front, 

 receiving on its ample brow the sweet south wind, and with its long sloping, defiant roof 

 in the rear, closed firm ag.iinst the invading north, the type of our ancestral architecture. 

 It stands there still, as it has stood for generations, gathered around and supported by 

 the massive chimney, which has so long sustained and warmed its hospitable heart. It 

 is a bright June morning, and the sun is pouring in its flood of light upon the narrow 

 entry, with, its homespun carpet, and its steep and winding stairway, leading to the 

 cheerful chambers, fragrant with sweet herbs and the sweeter air of heaven. From the 

 sunken door-stone, trod into earth by the footsteps of many a hardy and honest genera- 



