Various
Beadle's Dime National Speaker, Embodying Gems of Oratory and Wit, Particularly Adapted to American Schools and Firesides / Speaker Series Number 2, Revised and Enlarged Edition

INTRODUCTION

It is with real pleasure that this second number of the "Dime Speaker" is given to the public. The issue of the first number has been followed with such a demand as to render this additional volume quite necessary to meet the calls of teachers, students, and others. The experiment of "giving a dollar book for ten cents," which should embrace more new and adaptable pieces for reading and rehearsal – in prose and poetry, serious and humorous – than any single work yet offered, has, it is needless to say, proven a success in every respect; and this second number of our Dime Speaker is given to teachers and scholars in the full assurance of its meeting with their approbation in all respects. It will be found to include some unusually valuable and beautiful pieces for the school-stage, both in prose and verse – most of the matter being from speeches and contributions lately given to the world by the best of our living orators and writers. The effort has been to give as great variety as possible – to suit all tastes and capacities, from the child to the man. It is the purpose of the publishers to continue the series in yearly issues, thus to place in the hands of the youth of our land, at the smallest possible price, books which can not fail to expand their tastes for what is best in style and sentiment, while they shall also offer instruction and amusement, as well to the home circle as to the school-room and exhibition.

THE UNION AND ITS RESULTS. – Edward Everett, July 4th, 1860

Merely to fill up the wilderness with a population provided with the ordinary institutions and carrying on the customary pursuits of civilized life – though surely no mean achievement – was, by no means, the whole of the work allotted to the United States, and thus far performed with signal activity, intelligence, and success. The founders of America and their descendants have accomplished more and better things. On the basis of a rapid geographical extension, and with the force of teeming numbers, they have, in the very infancy of their political existence, successfully aimed at higher progress in a generous civilization. The mechanical arts have been cultivated with unusual aptitude. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, navigation, whether by sails or by steam, and the art of printing in all its forms, have been pursued with surprising skill. Great improvements have been made in all those branches of industry, and in the machinery pertaining to them, which have been eagerly adopted in Europe. A more adequate provision has been made for popular education than in almost any other country. There are more seminaries in the United States, where a respectable academical education may be obtained – more, I still mean, in proportion to the population – than in any other country except Germany. The fine arts have reached a high degree of excellence. The taste for music is rapidly spreading in town and country; and every year witnesses productions from the pencil and the chisel of American sculptors and painters, which would adorn any gallery in the world. Our Astronomers, Mathematicians, Naturalists, Chemists, Engineers, Jurists, Publicists, Historians, Poets, Novelists, and Lexicographers, have placed themselves on a level with those of the elder world. The best dictionaries of the English language since Johnson, are those published in America. Our constitutions, whether of the United States or of the separate States, exclude all public provision for the maintenance of religion, but in no part of Christendom is it more generously supported. Sacred science is pursued as diligently and the pulpit commands as high a degree of respect in the United States, as in those countries where the Church is publicly endowed; while the American Missionary operations have won the admiration of the civilized world. Nowhere, I am persuaded, are there more liberal contributions to public-spirited and charitable objects. In a word, there is no branch of the mechanical or fine arts, no department of science, exact or applied, no form of polite literature, no description of social improvement, in which, due allowance being made for the means and resources at command, the progress of the United States has not been satisfactory, and in some respects astonishing.

At this moment the rivers and seas of the globe are navigated with that marvelous application of steam as a propelling power, which was first effected by Fulton. The harvests of the civilized world are gathered by American reapers; the newspapers which lead the journalism of Europe are printed on American presses; there are railroads in Europe constructed by American engineers and traveled by American locomotives; troops armed with American weapons, and ships of war built in American dockyards. In the factories of Europe there is machinery of American invention or improvement; in their observatories telescopes of American construction, and apparatus of American invention for recording the celestial phenomena. America contests with Europe the introduction into actual use of the electric telegraph, and her mode of operating it is adopted throughout the French empire. American authors in almost every department are found on the shelves of European libraries. It is true no American Homer, Virgil, Dante, Copernicus, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton, has risen on the world. These mighty geniuses seem to be exceptions in the history of the human mind. Favorable circumstances do not produce them, nor does the absence of favorable circumstances prevent their appearance. Homer rose in the dawn of Grecian culture; Virgil flourished in the court of Augustus; Dante ushered in the birth of the new European civilization; Copernicus was reared in a Polish cloister; Shakspeare was trained in the green-room of the theater; Milton was formed while the elements of English thought and life were fermenting toward a great political and moral revolution; Newton under the profligacy of the Restoration. Ages may elapse before any country will produce a man like these, as two centuries have passed since the last-mentioned of them was born. But if it is really a matter of reproach to the United States that, in the comparatively short period of their existence as a people, they have not added another name to this illustrious list (which is equally true of all the other nations of the earth), they may proudly boast of one example of life and character, one career of disinterested service, one model, of public virtue, one type of human excellence, of which all the countries and all the ages may be searched in vain for the parallel. I need not – on this day I need not – speak the peerless name. It is stamped on your hearts, it glistens in your eyes, it is written on every page of your history, on the battle-fields of the Revolution, on the monuments of your fathers, on the portals of your capitols. It is heard in every breeze that whispers over the fields of Independent America. And he was all our own. He grew up on the soil of America; he was nurtured at her bosom. She loved and trusted him in his youth; she honored and revered him in his age; and, though she did not wait for death to canonize his name, his precious memory, with each succeeding year, has sunk more deeply into the hearts of his countrymen.

OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE. – Edward Everett's Oration at the Webster Statue Inauguration, 1860

What else is there, in the material system of the world, so wonderful as this concealment of the Western Hemisphere for ages behind the mighty vail of waters? How could such a secret be kept from the foundation of the world till the end of the fifteenth century? What so astonishing as the concurrence, within less than a century, of the invention of printing, the demonstration of the true system of the heavens, and this great world-discovery? What so mysterious as the dissociation of the native tribes of this continent from the civilized and civilizable races of man? What so remarkable, in political history, as the operation of the influences, now in conflict, now in harmony, under which the various nations of the old world sent their children to occupy the new; great populations silently stealing into existence; the wilderness of one century swarming in the next with millions; ascending the streams, crossing the mountains, struggling with a wild hard nature, with savage foes, with rival settlements of foreign powers, but ever onward, onward? What so propitious as this long colonial training in the school of chartered government? and then, when the fullness of time had come, what so majestic, amidst all its vicissitudes and all its trials, as the Grand Separation – mutually beneficial in its final results to both parties – the dread appeal to arms, that venerable Continental Congress, the august Declaration, the strange alliance of the oldest monarchy of Europe with the Infant Republic? And, lastly, what so worthy the admiration of men and angels as the appearance of him the expected – him the Hero – raised up to conduct the momentous conflict to its auspicious issue in the Confederation, the Union, the Constitution?

Is this a theme not unworthy of the pen and the mind of Webster? Then consider the growth of the country, thus politically ushered into existence and organized under that Constitution, as delineated in his address on the laying the corner-stone of the extension of the Capitol – the thirteen colonies that accomplished the Revolution multiplied to thirty-two independent States, a single one of them exceeding in population the old thirteen; the narrow border of settlement along the coast, fenced in by France and the native tribes, expanded to the dimensions of the continent; Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon – territories equal to the great monarchies of Europe – added to the Union; and the two millions of population which fired the imagination of Burke, swelled to twenty-four millions, during the lifetime of Mr. Webster, and in seven short years, which have since elapsed, increased to thirty!

With these stupendous results in his own time as the unit of calculation; beholding under Providence with each decade of years, a new people, millions strong, emigrants in part from the Old World, but mainly bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, the children of the soil, growing up to inhabit the waste places of the continent, to inherit and transmit the rights and blessings which we have received from our fathers; recognizing in the Constitution and in the Union established by it the creative influence which, as far as human agencies go, has wrought these miracles of growth and progress, and which wraps up in sacred reserve the expansive energy with which the work is to be carried on and perfected, he looked forward with patriotic aspiration to the time, when, beneath its ægis, the whole wealth of our civilization would be poured out, not only to fill up the broad interstices of settlement, if I may so express myself, in the old thirteen and their young and thriving sister States, already organized in the West, but, in the lapse of time, to found a hundred new republics in the valley of the Missouri and beyond the Rocky Mountains, till our letters and our arts, our schools and our churches, our laws and our liberties, shall be carried from the arctic circle to the tropics, "from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof."

THE STATESMAN'S LABORS. – Ibid

This prophetic glance, not merely at the impending, but the distant future, this reliance on the fulfillment of the great design of Providence, illustrated through our whole history, to lavish upon the people of this country the accumulated blessings of all former stages of human progress, made Webster more tolerant of the tardy and irregular advances and temporary wanderings from the path of what he deemed a wise and sound policy, than those fervid spirits, who dwell exclusively in the present, and make less allowance for the gradual operation of moral influences. This was the case in reference to the great sectional controversy, which now so sharply divides and so violently agitates the country. He not only confidently anticipated, what the lapse of seven years since his decease has witnessed and is witnessing, that the newly acquired and the newly organized territories of the Union would grow up into free States; but in common with all or nearly all the statesmen of the last generation, he believed that free labor would ultimately prevail throughout the country. He thought he saw that, in the operation of the same causes which have produced this result in the Middle and Eastern States, it was visibly taking place in the States north of the cotton-growing region; and he inclined to the opinion that there also, under the influence of physical and economical causes, free labor would eventually be found more productive, and would therefore be ultimately established.

For these reasons, bearing in mind, what all admit, that the complete solution of the mighty problem, which now so greatly tasks the prudence and patriotism of the wisest and best in the land, is beyond the delegated powers of the general government; that it depends, as far as the States are concerned, on their independent legislation, and that it is of all others a subject, in reference to which public opinion and public sentiment will most powerfully influence the law; that much in the lapse of time, without law, is likely to be brought about by degrees, and gradually done and permitted, as in Missouri, at the present day, while nothing is to be hoped from external interference, whether of exhortation or rebuke; that in all human affairs controlled by self-governing communities extreme opinions and extreme courses, on the one hand, generally lead to extreme opinions and extreme courses on the other; and that nothing will more contribute to the earliest practicable relief of the country from this most prolific source of conflict and estrangement, than to prevent its being introduced into our party organizations, he deprecated its being allowed to find a place among the political issues of the day, north or south, and seeking a platform on which honest and patriotic men might meet and stand, he thought he had found it, where our fathers did, in the Constitution.

It is true that, in interpreting the fundamental law on this subject, a diversity of opinion between the two sections of the Union presents itself. This has ever been the case, first or last, in relation to every great question which has divided the country. It is the unfailing incident of constitutions, written or unwritten; an evil to be dealt with in good faith, by prudent and enlightened men, in both sections of the Union, seeking, as Washington sought, the public good, and giving expression to the patriotic common-sense of the people.

Such, I have reason to believe, were the principles entertained by Mr. Webster; not certainly those best calculated to win a temporary popularity in any part of the Union, in times of passionate sectional agitation which, between the extremes of opinion, leaves no middle ground for moderate counsels. If any one could have found and could have trodden such ground with success, he would seem to have been qualified to do it, by his transcendent talent, his mature experience, his approved temper and calmness, and his tried patriotism. If he failed of finding such a path for himself or the country – while we thoughtfully await what time and an all-wise Providence has in store for ourselves and our children – let us remember that his attempt was the highest and the purest which can engage the thoughts of a Statesman and a Patriot: peace on earth, good-will toward men, harmony and brotherly love among the children of our common country.

TRUE IMMORTALITY. – Ibid

It has been the custom, from the remotest antiquity, to preserve and to hand down to posterity, in bronze and in marble, the counterfeit presentment of illustrious men.

Your long rows of quarried granite may crumble to the dust; the cornfields in yonder villages, ripening to the sickle, may, like the plains of stricken Lombardy, a short time ago, be kneaded into bloody clods, by the maddening wheels of artillery; this populous city, like the old cities of Etruria and the Campagna Romana, may be desolated by the pestilence which walketh in darkness, may decay with the lapse of time, and the busy mart, which now rings with the joyous din of trade, become as lonely and still as Carthage or Tyre, as Babylon and Nineveh, but the names of the great and good shall survive the desolation and the ruin; the memory of the wise, the brave, the patriotic, shall never perish. Yes, Sparta is a wheat field; a Bavarian prince holds court at the foot of the Acropolis; the traveling virtuoso digs for marbles in the Roman Forum and beneath the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demosthenes, and Cato and Tully "still live;" and Webster still lives, and all the great and good shall live in the heart of ages, while marble and bronze shall endure; and when marble and bronze have perished, they shall "still live" in memory so long as men shall reverence Law, and honor Patriotism, and love Liberty!

That solemn event, which terminates the material existence, becomes by the sober revisions of contemporary judgment, aided by offices of respectful and affectionate commemoration, the commencement of a nobler life on earth. The wakeful eyes are closed, the feverish pulse is still, the tired and trembling limbs are relieved from their labors, and the aching head is laid to rest on the lap of its mother earth, like a play-worn child at the close of a summer's day; but all that we honored and loved in the living man begins to live again in a new and higher being of influence and fame. It was given but to a limited number to listen to the living voice of Daniel Webster, and they can never listen to it again; but the wise teachings, the grave admonitions, the patriotic exhortations which fell from his tongue will be gathered together and garnered up in the memory of millions. The cares, the toils, the sorrows; the conflicts with others, the conflicts of the fervent spirit with itself; the sad accidents of humanity, the fears of the brave, the follies of the wise, the errors of the learned; all that dashed the cup of enjoyment with bitter drops and strewed sorrowful ashes over the beauty of expectation and promise; the treacherous friend, the ungenerous rival, the mean and malignant foe; the uncharitable prejudice which withheld the just tribute of praise, the human frailty which wove sharp thorns into the wreath of solid merit – all these in ordinary cases are buried in the grave of the illustrious dead; while their brilliant talents, their deeds of benevolence and public spirit, their wise and eloquent words, their healing counsels, their generous affections, the whole man, in short, whom we revered and loved and would fain imitate, especially when his image is impressed upon our recollections by the pencil or the chisel, goes forth to the admiration of the latest posterity. Extinctus amabitur idem.

LET THE CHILDLESS WEEP. – Metta Victoria Victor

The news is flying along the streets:
It leaves a smile with each face it meets.
The heart of London is all on fire —
Its throbbing veins beat faster and higher —
With eager triumph they beat so fast —
"The Malakoff – Malakoff falls at last!"
Hark to the murmur, the shout, the yell —
"The Malakoff's fallen!" – well, 'tis well!
But let the childless weep.

I am faint and stunn'd by the crowd;
My head aches with the tumult loud.
On this step I will sit me down,
Where the city palaces o'er me frown.
I would these happy people could see
Sights which are never absent from me;
The sound of their joy to sobs might swell,
They would swallow tears – well – it is well!
But let the childless weep.

If they could see my two young sons
Shatter'd and torn by Russian guns, —
The only children God gave me – dead!
With the rough earth for a dying bed.
Side by side, in the trenches deep —
Perchance they would weep as I must weep.
No sons of theirs on that red hill fell,
And so they smile and say, "'tis well!"
But let the childless weep.

I know where in the cottages low
Women's faces grow white with woe;
Where throats are choked with tears unshed
When widows' children ask for bread.
I think of one whose heart has grown
As cold and heavy as this stone.
But cabinets never think so low
As a mother's anguish, and so – and so
Why let the childless weep.

O Queen! your children around you sleep;
Their rest at night is sweet and deep.
Do you ever think of the mothers many
Whose sons you required, and left not any?
Do you think of young limbs bruised and crush'd
And laughing voices forever hush'd?
My soul with a fierce rage might swell,
But grief hath all the place – 'tis well!
Let the childless weep.

Could God have seen with prophet eye,
When He piled the Malakoff hill so high,
That it was to be soaked through and through
With streams and streams of blood-red dew,
And covered over with anguish? – no!
Or He would have leveled it small and low.
It is man who is haughty, fierce, and cruel —
Who heaps on his altar the living fuel!
Let the childless weep.

England! England! haughty and bold!
You still covet what you behold;
To have your own proud will and way
You will make widows, thousands a day.
You buy your power with human life,
And the sobbing child and hopeless wife
Give up their dearest at your call —
But hearts must break and towers must fall
Let the childless weep.

Weep? I can not weep while around
Swells the victory's awful sound.
The Malakoff fell, – but England's way
O'er the bosoms that loved her deepest lay.
Victoria's children laugh in glee! —
Does she remember mine, or me?
Oh, footman, leave me this cold stone —
My sons are dead and I am alone —
The childless can not weep.

OUR COUNTRY'S GREATEST GLORY. – Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, 1860

The true glory of a nation is in an intelligent, honest, industrious Christian people. The civilization of a nation depends on their individual character; a constitution which is not the outgrowth of this is not worth the parchment on which it is written. You look in vain in the past for a single instance where the people have preserved their liberties after their individual character was lost. The ruler represents the people, and laws and institutions are the simple outgrowth of domestic character. It is not in the magnificence of the home of the ruler, not in the beautiful creations of art lavished on public edifices, not in costly cabinets of pictures or public libraries, not in proud monuments of achievements in battle, not in the number or wealth of its cities, that we find pledges of national glory. The ruler may gather around his palace the treasures of the world, amid a brutalized people; the senate chamber may retain its faultless proportions long after the voice of patriotism is hushed within its walls; the marble may commemorate a glory which has forever departed. Art and letters may bring no lesson to a people whose heart is dead; the only glory of a nation is in the living temple of a loyal, industrious, and upright people. The busy click of machinery, the merry ring of the anvil, the lowing of peaceful herds, and the song of the harvest home, are sweeter music than pæans of departed glory or songs of triumph in war. The vine-clad cottage of the hill-side, the cabin of the woodsman, and the rural home of the farmer are the true citadels of any country. There is a dignity in honest toil which belongs not to the display of wealth or the luxury of fashion. The man who drives the plow, or swings his ax in the forest, or with cunning fingers plies the tools of his craft, is as truly the servant of his country, as the statesman in the senate or the soldier in battle. The safety of a nation depends not on the wisdom of its statesmen or the bravery of its generals; the tongue of eloquence never saved a nation tottering to its fall; the sword of a warrior never stayed its destruction. There is a surer defense in every Christian home. I say Christian home, for I know of no glory to manhood which comes not from the cross. I know of no rights wrung from tyranny, no truth rescued from darkness and bigotry, which has not waited on a Christian civilization. Would you see the image of true glory, I would show you villages where the crown and glory of the people was in purity of character, where the children were gathered in Christian schools, where the voice of prayer goes heavenward, where the people have that most priceless gift – faith in God. With this as the basis, and leavened as it will be with brotherly love, there will be no danger in grappling with any evils which exist in our midst; we shall feel that we may work and bide our time, and die knowing that God will bring the victory.

THE UNION A HOUSEHOLD. – Ibid

The great object which the statesmen of the Revolution sought, was the defense, protection, and good government of the whole, without injustice to any portion of the people. Experience had taught them that it was impossible for a great republic to grow up where its every act of public policy was liable to be thwarted by the vote of the individual States; therefore they framed an organic law at the foundation of our common government, which gave the men of Carolina and Massachusetts a name dearer than any sectional name – the name of an American citizen! In that conflict of opinions, by a temper of conciliation and brotherly love, by an earnest loyalty to freedom and profoundest reverence for law, they framed that constitution which has been the admiration of the world.

I yield to no man in my admiration for those noble men whose names are our household words; but in this history I see the hand of God and acknowledge that our nationality was his gift and not the fruits of our fathers' wisdom. Ours is not the only nation who have sought to be free. Strong arms and stout hearts have often failed – the world is filled with the lamentations of the patriots and dirges for the dead. God always gives to a nation its birthright and its name. A nation is not a mere aggregate of households, or villages, or States – national life is something beyond the fact that individual men have banded together for mutual defense. This belonged to the savage tribes who once roamed over this goodly land. They may be strong, daring, freedom-loving men, without national life. There never was a nobler race than the people who dwelt in the fastnesses of Scotland, but their tie was only one of kindred; the family became a clan, separate clans warred with each other in murderous strife, and Scotland was a field of blood. Until the cross was firmly planted in Britain, England had no nationality – it was a land of faction until the law and providence of God became the people's guide, and then the nobler name of Saxon became a Christian name to tell of all that is manly and true. Our national life is the gift of God. No other hand could gather out of other lands millions of people of different tongues and kindred, and mold these into one mighty nation that shall receive into itself the men of every clime, and stamp on them its own mark of individuality, teaching them its language, making them its kin, and binding them as one household under its own constitution and laws.

INDEPENDENCE BELL. – July 4th, 1776

When it was certain that the Declaration would be adopted and confirmed by the signatures of the delegates in Congress, it was determined to announce the event by ringing the old State-House bell which bore the inscription, "Proclaim liberty to the land: to all the inhabitants thereof!" and the old bellman posted his little boy at the door of the hall to await the instruction of the doorkeeper when to ring. At the word, the little patriot-scion rushed out, and, flinging up his hands, shouted "Ring! Ring! RING!"

There was tumult in the city,
In the quaint old Quaker's town,
And the streets were rife with people
Pacing restless up and down;
People gathering at corners,
Where they whisper'd each to each,
And the sweat stood on their temples,
With the earnestness of speech.

As the bleak Atlantic currents
Lash the wild Newfoundland shore,
So they beat against the State-House,
So they surged against the door;
And the mingling of their voices
Made a harmony profound,
'Till the quiet street of chestnuts
Was all turbulent with sound.

"Will they do it?" "Dare they do it?"
"Who is speaking?" "What's the news?"
"What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?"
"Oh, God grant they won't refuse!"
"Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!"
"I am stifling!" "Stifle, then!
When a nation's life's at hazard,
We've no time to think of men!"

So they beat against the portal,
Man and woman, maid and child;
And the July sun in heaven
On the scene look'd down and smiled,
The same sun that saw the Spartan
Shed his patriot-blood in vain,
Now beheld the soul of freedom
All unconquer'd rise again.

See! See! The dense crowd quivers
Through all its lengthy line,
As the boy beside the portal
Looks forth to give the sign!
With his small hands upward lifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation,
Breaks his young voice on the air.

Hush'd the people's swelling murmur,
List the boy's strong joyous cry!
"Ring!" he shouts, "Ring! Grandpa
Ring! Oh, Ring for Liberty!"
And straightway, at the signal,
The old bellman lifts his hand,
And sends the good news, making
Iron-music through the land.

How they shouted! What rejoicing!
How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled
The calm gliding Delaware!
How the bonfires and the torches
Illumed the night's repose,
And from the flames, like Phœnix,
Fair Liberty arose!

That old bell now is silent,
And hush'd its iron tongue,
But the spirit it awaken'd
Still lives, – forever young.
And while we greet the sunlight,
On the fourth of each July,
We'll ne'er forget the bellman,
Who, twixt the earth and sky,
Rung out Our Independence;
Which, please God, shall never die!

THE SCHOLAR'S DIGNITY. – Hon. George E. Pugh July 5th, 1859

The purpose of all genuine effort, beyond the satisfaction of physical wants, should be to enlarge the compass of human sympathy and desire, to purify, elevate, ennoble the intellectual constitution of our race. God has so created us that these results can be attained by simple and even direct agencies. Man is a sympathetic being; and the full discharge of his obligation toward his own family, his friends, his neighbors, is the method by which he can best discharge his duty in other relations; toward God and his country, toward the millions of his fellow-beings now alive, and the millions who will inherit the earth in a course of ages. Hence arise man's real pleasures, and (not less) his noblest responsibilities and actions. But, as our nature is composed of appetites and passions which rightly adjusted, each with another, lift us almost to the dignity of the Godhead, but when disorganized, show us to be meaner than the brutes; so civil society, or the association of mankind pursuant to the Divine order, while capable, in its normal state, of the utmost happiness for all its members, is now disorganized and demoralized, its sweet bells of sympathy turned to discord, even its charities stained by selfishness and base pretension; its capacities for good entirely perverted to the oppression, to the cruel debasements of the multitude, and to the unjust advantage of a few. Here is the field of chivalry for him – scholar and squire who would be something more – conscious of his earnest duty, of the vast rewards which must crown success, and alive to the inspiration of all the past, the present, and the future; here is a field on which he may win the gilded spurs of knighthood, and where, with his own arm, he can truly redress the innocent, rescue the unfortunate, and reclaim even the oppressor to a recognition of the rights of the oppressed. Or, if he would choose a holier part, although less conspicuous, it may be, let him join that valiant array of pioneers which is marching now (as, in time past, it ever has marched) at the head of the generation; hewing down primeval forests of ignorance; bridging the torrents of crime; leveling mountains of doubt and difficulty; filling up quagmires of sorrow; that so, in age after age, the hosts of pilgrims from the cradle to the grave shall traverse their distance without harm, and measurably anticipate, if not realize, the beatitude of toil forever accomplished.

In a true sense, the scholar is a king of the noblest power. Not his that dominion which exercises itself over the bodies of men, subduing alike their happiness and their will, making of his fellow-creatures a mere sport or convenience, but that dominion which exists by the full consent of the governed, and without which, in reality, their happiness and peace can not be secured. [Nam, uti genus hominum compositum ex anima et corpore, ita res cunctæ, studiaque omnia nostra, corporis alia, alia animi naturam sequuntur. Igitur, præclara facies, magnæ divitiæ, ad hoc vis corporis, alia hujuscemodi, omnia brevi dilabuntur; at ingenii egregia facinora, sicuti anima, immortalia sunt. Postremo, corporis et fortunæ bonorum, ut initium, finis est: omnia orta occidunt, et aucta senescunt: animus incorruptus, æternus, RECTOR HUMANI GENERIS, agit atque habet cuncta, neque ipse habetur.] The liberty of men does not stand in rebellion against the truth, nor against the truly-anointed genius of the age:

Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature; God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve th' unwise, or him who hath rebell'd
Against his worthier.

THE CYCLES OF PROGRESS. – Ibid

The world moves in a grand cycle of days, and weeks, and months, and years, susceptible of approximation, but not of exact ascertainment. There are cycles, also, of the human understanding; or, at least, of opinions with regard to the faculties and organism of the human intellect. Locke was thought to have demonstrated, by unanswerable argument, our entire lack of innate ideas; thus demolishing the foundation upon which others had erected so many and such various theories. But now Kant has proven, by a logic far more subtle, and altogether more conclusive, that the mind acts only in certain processes, or by means of certain categories, which are the laws of its organization, and whence result conceptions or ideas not derived from experience, or observation, or confidence in others. Plato arrived at the same conclusion two thousand years ago, although he supposed these conceptions or ideas to be the reminiscences of a former and superior state of intellectual existence. What has Kant accomplished, in all his philosophy, except our remission to the speculations of Plato, as enforced and illustrated by the wisdom of revealed religion? And so, in the world of moral sentiment, there must be cycles of repetition and restoration, but of restoration with new auspices, and informed by principles of higher and pure significance.

The Age of Chivalry was an age of moral improvement, an age of sympathy and generous enterprise, after centuries of darkness, antagonism, and oppression. When scholars, therefore, shall have become true to themselves, true to the mission of their faith and labors, as against the overwhelming allurement of our time; shall have become the actual prophets, and priests, and rulers, which once they were, another Age of Chivalry will arise and dawn upon earth. It will restore us a Government paternal in character, and yet stripped of the usurpations by which government is now rendered oppressive; it will restore us a Church of pristine authority and influence, but authority and influence derived from purity in practice as well as in precept. And with these two elements so long extinct or lost – leaving mankind to all the terrors of tyranny and all the wiles of imposture – with a Church and a Government reflecting the Divine conception of men's duties toward their Creator and toward each other, will Human Society attain, at last, the summit of human perfection. Then will the original brotherhood and equality of our race be forever acknowledged; then will there be work for all, and wages for work, instead of the injustice, the crime, the misery, the wasteful disorder which fill our hearts with so much despondency and woe. This Chivalry is of magnificent design; since to the faith, to the hope, to the steadfastness of our fathers, to their moral excellence and solid greatness, will thus be united the wondrous material achievements for which we have been so distinguished – a Chivalry of splendors enhanced as well as rekindled, or splendors essentially bright, and joyous, and immortal.

History tells us of republics full of promise and full of glory like our own. Such were those which clustered upon the shores of the Mediterranean, in almost the same latitude with us, and accomplished, centuries ago, their rise, their zenith, and their fall. Such were those free states and cities which braved the bleakness and inclemency of the Baltic and German coasts; and which likewise had their increase, and fullness, and extinction. These were all the children of Commerce, and followed her along the borders of the sea. Their ships explored the very ends of the world; laid the Indies under tribute; and on this remote continent, also, planted colonies and outposts of civilization. Alas! those republics and free states and cities have gone to their decay; the armed legions of Despotism tread upon their tombs, and scatter even their sacred ashes to the winds. But may our New World, which inherits their enterprise as well as their liberty, rejuvenate the nations grown old in oppression and despair, and plant upon the Eastern Continent the germs of a Civilization nobler than has yet been recognized – nobler than was ever sung by the poets, or foretold by oracles – a Civilization which shall raise up Labor from its fallen estate, heal its infirmities, cover its nakedness, and enthrone it with honor; as the rescued maniac, by Divine compassion, was seated near the feet of our Saviour, clothed, and in his right mind!

A CHRISTMAS CHANT. – Alfred Domett

It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea!
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o'er the hush'd domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars,
Held undisturb'd their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

'Twas in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,
From lordly revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell
His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;
What reck'd the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago?

Within that province far away
Went plodding home a weary boor;
A streak of light before him lay,
Fallen through a half-shut stable-door
Across his path. He paused, for naught
Told what was going on within;
How keen the stars, his only thought;
The air, how calm, and cold, and thin,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

Oh, strange indifference! low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why;
The world was listening – unawares!
How calm a moment may precede
One that shall thrill the world forever!
To that still moment, none would heed,
Man's doom was link'd, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

It is the calm and silent night!
A thousand bells ring out, and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness, charm'd and holy now;
The night that erst no shame had worn,
To it a happy name is given;
For in that stable lay, new-born,
The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!

STABILITY OF CHRISTIANITY. – Rev. T. H. Stockton, House of Representatives, March 19th, 1860

I contemplate the heaven and earth of the old world: the overrulings of Providence and changes of society there. I think of the passing away of the whole circle of ancient Mediterranean civilization. I think of the dark ages of Europe. I think of the morning of the Reformation, and the fore-gleamings of "the latter-day glory." I think of Art, and her printing-press; of Commerce, and her compass; of Science, and her globe; of Religion, and her Bible. I contemplate the opening of the heaven and earth of the New World: the overrulings of Providence and changes of society here. I think of the passing away of savage simplicities, and of the rude semblances of civilization in Mexico and Peru, and of earlier and later declensions. I think of the gracious reservation of our own inheritance for present and nobler occupancy. I think of our Revolution, and its result of Independence. I think of our first Union, first Congress, first prayer in Congress, and first Congressional order for the Bible; and of our wonderful enlargement, development, and enrichment since. And, in view of all – of the whole heaven and whole earth of the whole world; and of all changes, social and natural, past, present, and future; profoundly and unalterably assured, as I trust we all are, that the truth as it is "in Jesus" is the only stability in the universe – I feel justified, in invoking, this day, your renewal of our common and constant confession – that: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the words of Christ shall never pass away. And, standing where we do, on the central summit of this great Confederacy, unequalled in all history for all manner of blessings, – if we did not so confess Christ; if we did not cherish the simple confidence of His primitive disciples, and hail the coming of our Lord with hosannas; if we could ignobly hold our peace, – the very statues of the Capitol "would immediately cry out;" the marble lips of Columbus, Penn, and Washington, of War and Peace, of the Pioneer, and of Freedom, would part to praise His name; and the stones of the foundation and walls, of the arcades and corridors, of the rotunda and halls, would respond to their glad and grand acclaim.

From Maine to Florida, from Florida to Texas, from Texas to California, from California to Oregon, and from Oregon back to Maine; our lake States, gulf States, and ocean States; our river States, prairie States, and mountain States, all unite in confessing and blessing His name, beholding His glory, surrounding His throne, high and lifted up, and ever crying, like the six-winged seraphim, one to another, far and near, from the North and the South, from the East and the West: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory!"

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