The Native American

From the Christian Statesman.

OUR CITY.

If there be in the United States, or the world, a more eligible or magnificent site for a city than that selected by the Father of his Country for its Capital, we are ignorant of the fact. Our citizens do not, we imagine, justly appreciate their advantages of situation, or duly consider the beauty, variety and extent of the rich and enchanting scenery by which they are encompassed. Why a view from Arlington House is worth a journey of a thousand miles, we had almost said a voyage across the Atlantic. We have travelled in most of the States of this Union, and know of nothing equal to it. General Lafayette, we are told, thought it surpassed any thing he had seen, either in this country or Europe. Indeed the vast area upon which Washington stands, is embosomed in an amphitheatre of hills of moderate elevation, yet sufficiently commanding, looking down upon our city and the wide and mirror-like Potomac, and affording admirable country seats for those who, while holding daily intercourse with men, love hours of retirement with nature and with God. Truly the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage. What we need here in Washington is, a deeper and more intense love to our City--closer bonds of social union--Public spirit resolution to make this Capital of the Republic, bearing an immortal name, the pride and pattern, and glory of the world. This home sentiment has indeed with our citizens not had time to grow; and, besides, our population has come together from almost every part of the country, if not of the world, and it is not in a moment that opinions and affections that have sprung into being in different societies and circumstances can be wrought into unity and consequent strength of character. But this home sentiment should be cherished. Let us study Architecture, encourage Genius, adorn our grounds and gardens, cultivate the Arts, and build up noble Institutions of Charity and Wisdom--the very ruins and dust of which shall, like those of Athens, be precious in the eyes of all coming time.

"Is there a man who now hears me," says the eloquent Buckminster, "who would not rather belong to an enlightened and virtuous community, than to the mightiest empire of the world distinguished only by its vastness? If there is, let him cast his eye along the records of states. What do we now know of the vast unlettered empires of the East? The far-extended conquests of the Assyrian hardly detain us a moment in the annals of the world, while the little state of Athens will forever be the delight of the historian and the pride of letters; preserving, by the genius of her writers, the only remembrance of the barbarian powers which overwhelmed her. To come down to our own times; who would not rather have been a citizen of the free and polished republic of Geneva, than wander a prince in the vast dominions of the Czar, or bask in the beams of the present emperor of a desolated continent."