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James T. Fields: Canada
Her brother soon hastened to the spot, and bore her remains to a quiet resting-place on the river side. the old battle-ground between New York and Canada, Mystery long hung over the cause of her death, but now, with both colonies under one rule, promising to grow in population and importance with inconceivable rapidity. Settling near Fort Edward, the McCreas became general favorites, and Jane won the heart and devotion of a young man named David Jones.
The fair horizon began to cloud over; war was again the return of Samuel Standish, a picket taken by one of the parties, and a helpless wounded spectator of the scene, removed all doubt.
The loyalist captain never recovered from the shock, he lived a few years, and soon died broken-hearted. to sweep over the frontier. The Revolution began, The First Sabbath of the Pilgrim Fathers and before the revolted Colonies declared independence, when their officers scarcely knew in whose name they acted, their troops were marching, as of old, on the Canada borders. Families divided, friends parted forever, to side with king or colony. in America.
E do not know a more thrilling incident in the history of America than the first Sabbath worship of the Pilgrim Fathers in America.
Young Jones hastened to Canada to give his arm to To a certain extent it was the sanctifying of the Conthe royal cause, and when Burgoyne advanced into tinent-the planting of that glorious seed which was New York, Jones was a captain in a provincial regiment. As the British forces approached the scene of his former life, the spot where she, whom he prized above life, still lingered, his fears were awakened for her safety. And Jane, on her side, lingered at the house of Mrs. McNiel, a widow lady, whose house stood near the foot of a hill, a short distance north of Fort Edward. Captain Jones at last sent some Indians with a letter to her, in which he entreated her to put herself under their guidance, as he saw no other means by which she could safely reach him, any attempt on his own part being too perilous, from the hatred felt for him by his old associates. She accordingly started with Mrs. McNiel, and had proceeded about a quarter of a mile to the summit of the hill, to a fine spring near a huge pine tree.
Here her Indian guides halted, and were suddenly joined by another party, who had attacked a neighboring picket of American soldiers, killing the lieutenant and five others. These men, flushed with victory, and heated by the sight of blood, had, it seems, been included by Captain Jones in those to whom he promised a reward for bringing in Miss McCrea, whom they supposed some prisoner of importance whose person he desired to secure, and not apparently conscious of his real wishes. to bear such a wonderful harvest. A line of adventure had much to do with the settlement of Virginia, but religion and freedom were the controlling motives of the Pilgrim Fathers in their transatlantic emigration. To them the religion evolved by their own thought was all supreme. It contained a scheme of domestic and social life, a civil polity, as part of the preparation for a hereafter. Amid the thousand forms of opinion that had arisen from the time when, tired of unity, the human mind sprang back to the period of creating deities and creeds, these enthusiasts saw their own theories so certain, so true, that nothing could instil into their minds a drop of doubt or suspicion. They had evolved truth in theory and in action. To them was the mission to create a State which should surpass in purity that formed by the Almighty through the ministry of Moses.
Religion was to dominate, and the artist can but feebly depict, with all his ability, the first Sabbath of these men as they gathered on the sterile shore of the land that they had chosen. A bleak winter, a desolate rocky, unpromising land, could not quench in those hearts gratitude, religious fervor, boundless hope.
They were free! No king, no parliament was there to interfere with their experiment. They were free to follow the way which seemed right to their eyes, even They began to quarrel about the fair division of the though the end thereof should be death. The determined character of the men gave them recount her sorrows. She cries, she tears her hair, success. They established a series of commonwealths she refuses all consolation. which, in their spirit, have controlled those influenced by minds less energetic, more tolerant. Differ, as many must, all will respect those stern old enthusiasts, as they bow in reverence to the only Superior they acknowledged.
ON Singular Scene in Pekin, China.
NE of Mr. Burlingame's secretaries has furnished us with a most interesting sketch of a theatrical representation he witnessed in 1867. We give his account verbatim:
The actresses seem quite pretty, but are really boys, the laws of the Emperor Hien-long forbid ling women to appear; but these boys are so well dressed, head. and body, they have so completely the manner of Chinese women, that the deception is perfect.
Then enters the Chinese prince, in love, who comes to carry off his betrothed. Surprise, a duet; then she comes forward, and, with hand on her heart, expresses her joy in a solo, which ends in a shrill note, prolonged for some minutes, to the intense joy of the audience, testified by cries of "Hao!"-good!and drumming on the tables with their pipe-stems. It was given to celebrate the new year by Tchoung- But the Tartar conqueror enters, followed by his louen, the Secretary of State, in the garden of his guards. He struts up and down the stage, brandishpalace in the Tartar city. The theatre was a large ing his sabre in one hand and an ax in the other. rectangular building, like a Greek temple, supported The princess falls on her knees, he repulses her by four columns, colored, like a barber's pole, with blue. yellow and scarlet. The front was adorned with carvings and other ornaments. The stage, wide but not deep, was about six feet above the floor. The silver and embroidery. His eyebrows are as stiff and stage was closed by a series of folding-screens, behind which was the green-room, where the actors dressed and painted. There were no side-screens, and only two or three chairs on the stage. The audience were chiefly in the open air, under no cover but that of the trees. brutally, and loads her lover with chains.
The conqueror is got up in a magnificent costume, exactly representing that of the time, rich with gold, erect as bristles, and an immense beard of black silk hangs in curls over his breast. And so the play goes without intermission till the finale, when, after a supposed lapse of several years, the triumphant conqueror comes to lay his crown at the feet of the princess, and raise her to his side on the throne of her fathers.
We took our places on seats reserved for us, facing the stage. On either side were little houses with bam- In the second piece the actors wore masks. There boo blinds, from which the wives of our host and of were devils, genii, unicorns, fish, dragons; even. his guests witnessed the performance; but even this aquatic flowers, water lilies, were represented, and seclusion did not satisfy the jealousy of Chinese cus- men with head-pieces to resemble a wave came upon. toms; the unseen ladies were veiled. The visitors of the stage to represent the Ocean, while the orchestra. higher rank were seated in fours and fives around supplied old Ocean's roar. The whole terminated, as little tables. Behind them stood the less aristocratic the law required, before sunset, and the audience multitude, the representatives of the lower million retired with great order and no noise. enjoying the munificence of Tchoung-louen. Some of these devoted fathers had two or three children perched on their backs and shoulders. Women I saw none.
At a signal given from our box, the orchestra, which consisted of two flutes, a drum, and a harp, began an overture of fearful vigor and din. Then the screens open, and the actors appear. One advances to announce the plays of the occasion. We were to have first a tragic drama, representing the conquest of China by the Tartars, and a fable in action-the Marriage of Earth and Ocean.