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THE BANNER. [ t (WEEKLY.] i | Vol. III. Abbeville C. H., S. C. August 26, 1846. No. 26.i I Published every Wednesday Morning, by ALLEN & KERR. Jleto 2Trrm?. ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS per annum, it paid within three months from the time of subscribing', or TWO DOLLARS after that time. No subscription received for less than six months; and no paper discontinued until all arrearages are paid, except at the option of the editor. Subscriptions will bej continued, unless notice b<? given otherwise previous to the close of the volume. (for the banner ) WHO IS TRULY GREAT. No study can present to the mind more pleasure than the study of man, and the peculiar features which marlc the leading propensities of his character, and disposition. By contemplation, it is easilv observed that there are certain principles in human nature, which teach, that every man is created with various and dissimilar forms of desire, which move to active and persevering exertion. That some are moved to action from pure and laudable principles of philanthopy, while others are inflamed by the jealous pride of power, and dazzled by the vain glories of aspiring demagogues. And that also the seeds of true and real virtue, planted by nature, early springing up, wields at pleasure the evil propensities of the one, and makes him look into his own heart, and from himself learn not alone, the weakness of human nature, but to bound and set limi^ to its natural wants and era vings. Whilst the inordinate love of Jame fires the breast of the other, arouses his slumbering energies, paralyzes his nobler faculties, and prepares him for the horrors and bloody scenes of unholy strife, and to grasp with a hand goary with the blood of in nocency the wreath of transitory fame. But how fleeting are its phantoms. Like a star on the verge of the horuzon, they dazzle in the gaze of the world for a moment and then sink into the abyss o! darkness, " nven the renowned ./Eneas, the terror of the Greeks, and whose magnanimity of soul drove him amid the flaming towers of boasted Troy," bearing upon his back " his old father Axciijses," was " made to wander even an exile from the land he loved ; and is only remembered in the songs" and fictions "of Virgil." No conqueror has ever yet shook the world by arms, or made nations bow suppliant at his feet who was not indeed doomed to go down in the great vortex of revolution. His fame is low and poor compared with the magnanimity of virtue." " It vanishes before the greatness of principle." The martyr, the patriot, and the philanthropist. u The unshrinking adherent to despair, of deserted truth and religion," without a smiling compassionate friend, to extend to him the bairn of consolation, " nor variety of objects to draw his thoughts from himself, with no cheering voice to arouse and nourish energy,"' but yields calmly to the most powerful scurgings of fortune, and perhaps to the most excruciating pain which one word retracted would remove," is as far supe* rior to the bloody conqueror, " as heaven above is superior to all beneath." God then, the maker of heaven and earth, and all things else is alone truly great. And he who aspires to greatness, should with the rest of his conduct, practice christian purity and holiness That greatness is not true, which is gained by the sword of an ambitious and relentless unfeeling conqueror, or by the artful intrigues of the aspiring politician. But he is great, and truly great too, whose generous heart exults with proud delight, and swells at the sametime, with gratitude and benevolence to humanity, for the high distinction to which he may have promoted himself. True greatness is not then, what the WOrld has alwav* annnnsprl if to lip J ? ? But what is it? and in what does it consist? Now it is a subject of peculiar difficult determination. But why is it a subject of difficult determination ? It is so from the fact, that the principle errors which exist concerning it, are real errors of the heart. We mean not, that men have more correct notions of greatness, than of most other subjects, or that any man is fully competent to tell precisely what greatness is, but this much is cer tain, that all are competent to tell what it is not When Simonides was asked by the king, who God was, although not being able to answer the question, after several days of deep and arduous study, considered it certain, beyond a doubt, that God was not a rock, or a piece of wood. So also, no one can tell what greatness really is, but every one, is fully competent to decide, that it is not the child of mad ambition. That it is not the mad and bloody conqueror, although he may have ' scrambled up to thrones, and sat in vestures dripping with o-nrn n?i<1 l?ic: ?>uuu una 11 jo owuiu ui|;|jt;u ill blood ; written his name on lands and cites desolate." He must pass away to the grave, leaving behind no monuments of greatness, but a name of pity, i and a memory profaned and despised. The conqueror must and will be forgotton. His victories sung in artful songs and commemorated by proud monuments of art, and triumphs decked by , the rich trophies of vanquished nations, can never nrocure that nrecious ffcm. * J . . . O 7 which amid the changes and vicissitudes of revolving ages, will endure and grow even brighter and blighter. But men who made ambition their only God, and fame their greatest desire, were looked upon by the ancients, as truly virtuous, and truly great. Valor was the geatest of their virtues. They , would, by the dictates of nature, which is to judge men great, who are mos eminent in virtue, look upon the conquerer as the greatest of men. But their revenrrfi nnri vsilinnf oro *./-?*? ^ - ? v-- ?<? ? V4VVUU V J won J sidered, the greatness of crimes. The freeness with which they expose themselves to clanger, is nothing but despicable madness. The chaste Lucretia, was considered great in Rome, alone for the rash defence which she made for her ( virtue, and for her honor. But suicide is denounced, by both God and man, it is despicable rashness. Gentle forgiveness then, is the first , marks of nobleness of mind and true , greatness of character. Ancient histo- j rians record ! mm trnlir nmnt j nnuoc career were marked by the darkness of death and desolation. The proud usurper. and ambitious destroyer of all human happiness, were considered by the 1 ancients fully and justly entitled to that 1 high distinction, which in truth, but few and very few, deserve. A. L. Krshine College, S. C. {To be continued.) " I Very Cool.?An apparently i -1 - ' iiuowpiuoiiuaicu yoiun wcni into H I refectory a few days since, and j asked for something to appease Iris hunger. The keeper gave 1 him a very good dinner, after ' which the youth said to him ; " If you ever come up our way, ! call." ' " That won't pay. Your dinner , is a quarter." " O, I hain't got no money; but ( if you'll come up to Alleghany , county, 1 11 give you a better din- i ner for not hing." i " Why," sai-1 the keeper, " you are very cool." 1 " Why. yes, I'm a very cool chap, SO much so that mother alvvavs makes me si and in the pantry in ! hot weather to keep the meat ! from spoiling." Love of Children.?Somebody once said, beware of that man who does not love children ; and we have abundant proof that great minds have always been delighted J with the frolics of innocence. The Duke of Wellington was re markable tor his fondness of chil- , dren; and when the veteran i Blucher beheld the children assem- j bled at St, Paul's, the unconscious , tear trickled down the cheek of ' the hardy warrior. The great Burke delighted to unbend his mighty mind amid children's play, and would lie his listless length on the floor, whilst they jumped \ over him in laughing sport; and as for the fairer portion of creation, j Euripides hath long ago declared, j they are " all fond of children." From Hcadley's Napoleon & his Marshals THE LAST DAYS OF MARSHAL NEY. At length a dark object was seen to emerge from the distant wood, and soon an army of 30,000 men deployed in the field of Waterloo, and began to march straight (or the scenes of conflict. Blucher and his Prussians had come, but no Grouchy, who had been left to keep them in check, followed after. In a moment Napoleon saw that he could not Ciidun -L ?C /i ?u^u.u me iiuiuiv. 01 so many iresn troops, if once allowed to forma j; action with the allied forces, and so he determined to stake his fate on one bold cast, and endeavor >o pierce the allied centre with a grand charge of the Old Guard?and thus throwing himself between the two armies, fight them separately. For this purpose the Imperial Guard was called up, which remained inactive the whole day, and divided into two immense columns, which were to meet at the British centre. That under Reille no sooner entered the fire than it 1 i:i? ? uioupjiuuiuu mte misi. jl ne oincr was placed under Ney, the " bravest of the brave," and the order to advance given. Napoleon accompanied them part way down the slope, addressed them in his fiery, impetuous manner. He told them thai the battle rested with them, and that he relitd on their valor. " Vive t'Empereur'!" answered him with a ohnnt tKot xvoo oil ^ J .... ,.uo utaiu an uvi'l lilt; 11C1U of battle. He then left them to Ney, who ordered the charge. Bonaparte has been blamed for not heading this charge himself ; but he knew he could not carry that guard so far or hold them so Ifng before the artillery, as Ney. The moral power the latter carried with him, from the reputation he had gained of be ing the u bravest of the brave," was worth a whole division. Whenever a column saw him at their head, they knew that it was to be victory or annihilation. With the exception of McDonald, I do not know a general in the Iwo armies who could hold his soldiers ?o long in the very face of destruction as tie. The whole continental struggle exhibited no sublimer spectacle than this last effort of Napoleon to save his sink ing empire. Europe had been put upon the plains of Waterloo to be battled for. rhc greatest military energy and skill the world possessed had been tasked to the utmost during the day. Thrones were tottering on the ensanguined field, ind the shadows of fugitive kings flited through the smoke of battle. Bonaparte's star trembled in the zenith?now blazing out in its ancient splendor, now 1~: * :uuui;uiy Jjuicmg UCIU1U IllJj UI1XIOUS Cye A.t length, when the Prussians appeared an the field, he resolved to stake Europe Dn one bold throw. He comrriitted himself and France to Ney, and saw his smpire rest on a single charge. The intense anxiety with which he watched the advance of that colemn, and terrible suspense he suffered when the smoke of battle wrapped it from sight, and the utter despair of his great heart when the curtain lifted over a fugitive army, and the despairing shriek runtr on everv side, " la garde recule, La garde rccule," makes us for the moment forget all the carnage in sympathy with his distress. Ney felt the pressure of the immense responsibility 011 his brave heart, and resolved not to prove unworthy of the great trust committed to his care. Nothing could be more imposing than the movement of that column to the assault. That guard had never yet recoiled before a human foe, and the allied forces beheld with awe its firm and terrible ad vance to the final charge. For a moment the batteries stopped playing, and the firing ceased along the British lines, as, without the beating of a drum, or the blast of a bugle, to cheer their study courage, they moved in dead silence over the plain. The next moment the artillery opened, and the head of that gallant column seemed to sink into the earth, llank after rank went down, yet they neither stopped nor faltered. Dissolving squadrons, and wholo battalions disappearing one after another in the destructive fire, affected not their steady courage. The ranks closed up as before, and each treading over his fallen comrade, pressed firmly on. The horse which Ney rode fell under him, and he had scarcely mounted another, before it also sunk to the earth. Again and again did that unflinching man feel O # O his stood sink down, till fire had been shot under him. Then, with his uniform riddled with bullets, and his face singed and blackened with powder, lie marched on foot with drawn sabre at the head of his men. In vain did the artillery hurl its storm ol fire and lead into that living mass. Up to the very muzzles they pressed, and driving the artillerymen from their own pieces, on through the English lines. But at that moment a file of soldiers who hud lain flat on the ground behind a low ridge of earth, suddenly rose and poured a volley in their very faces. Another and another followed, till one broad sheet of flaine rolled on their bosoms, and such a fierce and unexpected flow, thai human courage could noi withstand it. They reeled, shook, staggered back, then turned and fled. Noy was borne back in the refluent tide, and hurried over the field. J jut for ihe crowd of fugitives that forced him on, he would -.1- .. .. siuuu iuune, anu lailen on his lootsteps. As it was, disdaining to fly, i though the whole army was flying, he formed his men into two immense squares, and endeavored to stem the terrific current, and would have done so if it had not been for the thirty thousand fresh Prussians that pressed on his ex- i hausted ranks. For a long time these j squares stood and let the artillery plough | through them. But the fate oi INapoleon was*rrit, and though Ney doubtless did wlial no other man in the army .11 ? couiu nave done, the decree could not be reversed. The Star that had blazed so brightlv over the world, went down in blood,-and the bravest of the bravo" had fought his last battle. It was worthy of his great name, and the charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, with him at their head, will be pointed to by remo test generations with a shudder. ! We now come to the expiation of his treason by a public execution. The al lies, after they assembled in Paris, demanded some victims to appease their anger. Many were selected, but better counsel prevailed, and they were saved. Ney was a prominent exampie ; he had i routed their armies too frequently and too nearly wrested their crowns from them at Waterloo, to be forgiven. It was intended at first to try him by martial law, but the Marshals of Fiance refused to sit in judgement on so brave, yuuciuus, una neroic a warrior. fcSy a royal ordinance, the Chamber of Peers was directed to try him. Scorning to take advantage of any technicalities of the law, he was speedily found guilty and condemned to death, by a majority of a hundred and fifty-two. Seventeen only were found to vote in his favor. That he was guilty of treason in the charge^ is evident, but not to that extent which demanded his death. No man had done more for Fiance than he, or loved her honor or glory with a higher affection ; and his ignominious death is a aisgrace to tne F rench nation. Justice was the excuse, not the ground of condemnation. To have carried out the principle on which his sentence was based, would have ended in a public massacre^ Ney and Labedoyere were the only victims offered up to appease an unjust hatred. Besides, Ney's person was sacred under a sftlemn treaty that Wellington had himself made. One of the articles of that treaty, expressly declared that U ~ -I 1.1 ?-- l r 1 mu puisun wiouia uu muiusiuu ior nis political conduct during the hundred days." On such conditions was Paris surrendered, and there never was a more flagrant violation ol' national honor than the trial of Ney. The whole afiair, from beginning to endj was a deliberate murder, committed from feelings of revenge alone. Napoleon never did so ua?e an act in nil nis iite?and on Wellingtons forehead is a spot that shall grow darker with time, and cause many a curse to be uttered over his grave. Me should have interfered to have saved so gallant an enemy at the hazzard of his life, but he let his honor go down before the clamor of vindictive enemies, and become a murderer in ihe sight of the world. Nep was publicly shot as a traitor. , His last moments did not disgrace his life. He was called from his bed and a tranquil sleep to hear his sentence read As the preamble went on enumerating his many titles, he hastily broke in? " why cannot you simply call me Michael Ney,?now a French soldier and Advertisements WILL be conspicuously inserted at ?.; cents per square for the first insertion, and 37? cents lor eacli continuance? longer ones charged in proportion. Those not having tliu desired number of insertions marked upon them, will be continued until ordered out, and charged accordingly. For advertising Estrays Tolled, TWO DOLLARS, to ho 1)11 ill l?V t ho A'lj.nrict-i.t" ? , ? ? J-*"*- "j * UiV* For announcing a Candidate, TWO DOLLARS, in advanco. 0^7~ All Idlers or communications must , be directed to the Editor, postage paid. | soon a heap of dust?" The last interview with his wife and children shook his stern heart more than all the battles he had passed through, or his approaching death. In reply to one of his sentinels, who said, " Marshal, you should think of death," he replied, u Do you suppose any one should teach me to die?" 13ul recollecting himself, he added in a milder tone, " Comrade, you are right, send for the Curate of St. Sulpice; I will die as becomes a Christian !" As he alighed from the coach, he advanced towards the file of soldiers drawn tip as executioners, with the same calm mein he was wont to exhibit on the field of battle. >An officer stepping forward to i bandage, his eyes, he stopped him with I the proud interrogation, " Are you ignorant that for twenty-five years 1 have been accustomed to face both ball and bullets?" lie then took off his hat, and with his eagle eye, now subdued and solemn, turned towards heaven, said with the same calm and decided voice that had turned the tide of so many battles, " /1Man: before Hod ami man, that T / i nave never betrayed my country ; may my (Icalk render fu r happy, vive la France. !u lie then turned to the soldiers. and gazing on them a moment, struck one hand upon his heart and said, :t my comrades, Jlre. on me P Ten halls entered him; and he fell dead. Shame upon his judges that lor a single act could condemn one braver and nobler than they all, to so base a death. A sterner warrior never trod a battle field ?a kinder heart never beat iu a human bosom, and a truer patriot never shed his blood lor his country. If France never had a worse traitor, and if she has ]. r 1 i 1 uu wufsu ueienuer, uisgrace will never visit her armies. Says Colonel Napier, in speaking of his death, " thus ho who had fought Jive hundred battles for France?not one against her?was shot as a traitor. ?1 is wife was on her knees before the king praying for his pardon when the fatal news was brought to her, and immediately fainted away, then went into convulsions, which well nigh added another victim to this base murder. I lis father, who loved him tenderly as the son of his pride and the srlorv of his I name, was never told of his ignominious death. He was at this time eightyeight year his age, and lived to be a hundred years old. He saw by the mourning weeds on his family that some catastrophe had happened,and his father's heart told him but too well where the bolt had struck ; but he made no inquiries, and though he lived twelve years after, never mentioned his son's name, and was never told of his fate. He knew he was dead, but he asked not how nor where he died. Habits of Industry.?There is one thing of vital importance iu the education of the young, which is very far from being attended to as it ought. It is training them to habits of useful industry, as exercises to the body, while it interests the mind; Active exertion is essential to health and comfort, 10very physician will tell you so. Indolence begets disease, while it destroys enjoyment. The oil of gladness, says one, " glistens 011 #v? r' 1 ?v. 1-- " " uu; iatu u? lauui' Ulliy. DIH IlOt only so; idleness is a positive vice, and of a very heinous kind. God has created every thing to be useful ; and every faculty of body and mind is a talent conferred under the injunction," occupy till i come." lie who arrives at manhood, without having acquired a habit of industry, lacks a most essential part of education. It is said that a bird suspended near the top of a curtained bedstead, in which people sleep, will generally be found dead in the morning, from impure air. Small close rooms in the habitations of the poor are as ill ventilated as the curtained bedstead. Expenses of War.?According to a statement in the St. Louis New Era, the cost of 500 barrels of pork, with expense of transportation from that city to Santa Fe, is twenty-five thousand doilars,