"fis said it was the spirit of the land That grew upon them—they were mostly Of birth and culture, whom their native states Had chosen to send forth, ambassadors. From many a favoured shore where truth and light Had made their home, where peaceful arts had shed Their brightest rays; from fields of classic song Whose softening accents ring from age to age, They came to far Cathay—a little band Prepared to bear the torch of progress on And cary it throughout that heathen "was with the noblest purpose the had left eae Such shores as none could leave without Where every' posing day can stir the With throbs unknown to Oriental sloth So all their peers had bade them speed and gave Fair promise of the deeds that they should do.
How, like their forbears, they should help to clear A way through ignorance and vicious To harmouy,—and better thus the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.