The daily Mississippi clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1866, 1866-04-20

HUGH Miller recorded his reflections stand
ing on the border line of England and Scot
land. There is wisdom, observes the Phila-
delphia Age, in what he says, as well as
beauty; his thoughts are pensive, tender,
charitable, such as befit the soul of a Chris
tian man and in this day, when it is pro-
posed to use victory as means toward the
conquest and oppression of sister States,
instead of making it avail to the restoration
of the peaceful union of our fathers, timely
lesson may be learned from these medita-
tons of the great Scotchman:
And this was the famous border line, made
good by the weaker against the stronger
national how vast an amount OF blood and
suffering-for more than a thousand years
1t wore to-day, in the quiet sunshine, look
of recluse tranquility that seemed wholly
unconscious of the past A tumbling sea of
dark green hills, delicately checkered with
light and shadow, swelled upward on either
side toward the line of boundary like the
pillows of opposing tideways that rise over
the general level where the currents meet !;
and passing on and away, from wave top to
wave top, like the cork baulk of n fisher
mans net afloat on the swell, ran the sepa-
rating line. But all was still and motionless,
as in the upper reaches of the Baltic when
the winter frost has set in.
We passed on the Scottish side a group of
stalwart shepherds-solid, grave'featured
men, who certainly did not look as if they
loved fighting for its own sake and on the
English side, drove by a few stout, ruddy
hands engaged in driving carts, who seemed
Just as little quarrelsome as their Scotch
neighbors. War must be intrinsically mis-
chievous. 1t must be something very bad,
let us personify it as proudly as we may, that
could have set on these useful, peaceable
people-cast so nearly i'll the same mold,
speaking the same tongue, possessed OF the
same common nature, lovable doubtless in
some points from the development of the
same genial affection-to knock one another
on the head, simply because the one half OF
them had first seen the light on the one side
of the hill, and the other half on the other
side. And vet such was the state of things
which obtained i'll this wild district for
many hundred years.
1t seems, however, especially well for Eng
land, since the quarrel began at all, that 1t
should have been so doggedly maintained by
the weaker peOple-so well maintained, that
the border hamlet, round which they strug-
gled, in the days of the First Edward, as a
piece of doubtful property, is piece OF
doubtful property still, and has in royal
proclamation and i'll act of Parliament Its
own separate clause assigned to it, as the
| ''town called Berwick upon Tweed" 1t is
quite enough for the English, as shown by
| the political history of modern times, that
they conquered Ireland; had they conquered
| Scotland also, they would have been ruined
utterly. Zone such victory more and they
would have been undone." Men have long
| suspected the trade of the hero to be a bad
one; but it is only now they are fairly be
| ginning to learn, that Of all great losses ana
misfOrtunes, his master dckieremeHt-the taking
| Of a natioa-is the greatest and most mc"rab'J
| caIanitOHS.