n^ W 4-11(3/ Book. If. OopightN?. COFYRJGHT DEPOSE luvl BY THE SAME AUTHOR The National Primary Speaker. For boys and girls from five to ten years of age. i2mo, boards. Price, 50 cents. The National Junior Speaker. For boys and girls from ten to sixteen years of age. i2mo, cloth. Price, 75 cents. The National Advanced Speaker. For use in High -Schools and Colleges. i2mo, cloth. Price, $1.25. BAKER & TAYLOR, Publishers, New York. THE NATIONAL ADVANCED SPEAKER. A COLLECTION OF CAREFULLY CHOSEN, AVAILABLE, MODERN DECLA- MATIONS AND RECITATIONS; WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO SPEAKERS, APPENDIX OF WORDS OF DIFFICULT PRONUNCIATION. EDITED AND COMPILED BY OLIVER E. BRANCH, M.A AUTHOR OF "THE HAMILTON SPEAKER." NEW YORK: BAKER & TAYLOR. 1886. c-o \ * **%,A COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY OLIVER E. BRANCH. Edward O. Jenkins' Sons, Printers and Stereotypers, 20 North William St., New York. PREFACE It is now generally conceded that declamation and recita- tion as school exercises are productive of many substantial advantages. They improve the manner. They aid in ob- taining self-command. They develop the ability to think and speak extemporaneously or otherwise in public. They strengthen the memory. They help to form a literary taste. They are a practice which, if studiously and systematically pursued, produces a pleasant speaking or reading voice, a distinct articulation, a clear enunciation, accomplishments in any one who possesses them, and of inestimable value to those in public or professional life. A " Speaker " ought, logically, to be constructed with a view to developing and securing these results : and decla- mation and recitation should be, comparatively, as much of a study in schools as spelling or mathematics. Unfortunately, the Speakers now in use are, with few exceptions, of small practical utility as such ; while declaiming and reciting are too generally regarded by pupils as an imposition, or, at best, as only a momentary diversion. In the compilation of Speakers the radical mistakes have been made, (1) of proceeding upon the theory that good speaking-pieces are necessarily and chiefly to be found in the works of a few great orators and writers ; and (2) of presenting selec- tions taken mainly from those writers and orators only. (v) vi PREFACE. The result generally has been that Speakers have been made up of a small number of good pieces that have become un- attractive by familiarity and long use, with a large number ill suited or wholly unsuited to the purpose. Again, the idea has been very prevalent with teachers and pupils, that speaking is a species of drama: that a good speaking-piece is one which affords large opportunity for theatrical attitudes and effects ; and that the best speaking is that which comes nearest the representations and delinea- tions of the stage. Undoubtedly many excellent declama- tions and recitations are more or less dramatic in style, and may be profitably and successfully used with a certain amount of incidental dramatic effect : but it is by no means true that the best speakers are the most dramatic, or that the best selections are the most sensational, or that the final and best results of elocutionary work are in the direction of the stage. The legitimate and proper end of elocutionary training in schools is to produce natural, intelligent, effective speakers, whatever their profession or calling may ultimately be ; and this can be accomplished only by persistent study and prac- tice of pieces varied in thought, style, sentiment, and sen- tential structure. The attempt has been made in preparing this book to bring together a collection of such pieces : pieces selected with reference to their intrinsic literary excel- lence, but primarily and especially with reference to their suitability as declamations and recitations. They have been selected from a large number of authors, and present a wide range of style. They are conveniently short. They are pieces that " speak well," as demonstrated by actual test : and as such will help to make good speakers.. Many of the PREFACE. vii selections are new. Many are from modern and contem- porary orators and writers. Some, taken from well-known authors, are here for the first time made available by abridgment and condensation. All of them, it is believed, possess positive merits as oratorical and rhetorical produc- tions. The compiler is under especial obligations to Harper & Brothers, the Century Company, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Jansen, McClurg & Company, and Good Cheer, for their courteous permission to make selections from works pro- tected by their copyrights. Oliver E. Branch. New York City, 1886. AUTHORS PAGE Abbott, Lyman 128 Acta Columbiana 6 Adams, Charles Francis . . 265 Aldrich, T. B 43, 145 Abnold, Matthew 169 Bachman, K L. F 126 Ballabd, H. H 296 Bancroft, George 282 Bayne, Peteb 259, 279 Beecher, H. W B5 Bellows, H. W. . 263 Beltzhoover, F. E 28 Blackwood's Magazine 247 Blaine, J. G 215 Blair, A. L 22 Branch, O. E..92, 164, 178,201, 219 Bright, John 50, 223 Brooks, Phillips 172, 196 Bbown, H. A 191 Bbown, Frances 239 Bbown, Theron 266 Brownell, H. H 40 Buchanan, Robert 195 Burke, Edmund. . .115, 177, 205 Cable, Geo. W 262 Calhoun, J. C 6 Cableton, Guy 217 Cablyle, Thomas 8, 76, 208, 245, 278 Chambebs' Journal .234 Channing, Wm. E 166 PAGE Collyeb, Robert 295 Coudeet, F. R 31 Cox, S. S 209 Curtis, M. M 190 Curtis, Geo. W. . . . 2, 47, 64, 94, 162, 181, 185, 203 Depew, C. M 118, 275 Desprez, Frank 224 De Witt, Wm. H 102 Dobson, Austin 96 Dommett, Alfred 258 Dublin Univebsity Maga- zine 175 Duval, Harry C 276 Emerson, Ralph Waldo . . . 281 Enos, E. A 16, 188 Ebskine, Lord 157 Everett, Edward 42 Fiske, John 150 Frothingham, O.B 66 Garfield, J. A 89, 206 Gassaway, F. H 59 George, M. W 97, 159 George, Henry 56, 235 Gladstone, Wm. E . 142, 243, 271 Golden Age 108 Good Cheer 293, 296 Greeley, Hob ace 74 Guiney, L. 1 1S6 Hamilton, James 71 Habper's Monthly . 69, 255, 267 Hayne, Robert Y 254 (ix) AUTHORS. PAGE Head, F. H 112 Hitchcock, R, D.. .135, 197,232 Hoar, Geo. F 199 Holmes, O. W 78, 132 Howe, W. W .238 Hott, A. S 61 Hugo, Victor . 52, 99 Jackson, Helen H 211 Janes, C. F 13 Klnglake, Alex. W... .148, 291 Locke, Clinton 52 Long, John D 10, 180 Love, William DeLoss .... 288 Macaulat. . . .40, 86, 134, 168 McAlpine, R. W 69 Meredith, Owen 103 Mommsen, Theodore 286 Mollton, Louise C 285 Nadaud, Gustaye 15 Nye, Bill 57 O'Brien, Fitz James 114 O'Brien, J. W 1 Ohto State Journal 221 Palmer, F. W. 237 Paxton, J. R 83, 229, 250 Pearson, Charles 270 Phillips, Wendell. 27, 100, 123, 147, 163 PAGE Phillips, Charles 139 Porter, L. L 152 Prescott, Wm. H 269 Rame, Louisa De La 160 Reed, T. B 79, 192 Rewey, E. M 54 Robertson, Frederick W..273 Sangster, Margaret E . . . . 293 Schurz, Carl 107 Scoyille, D. C 21 Scrtbner's Monthly 137 Searle, C. H 91, 131 Seymour, Horatio 125 Smith, B. G 174 Stedman, E. C 153 Stimson, H. A 73, 231 Storrs, R. S 38, 110 Stryker, M. W 62, 183 Swing, David 11, 227, 252 Swinburne, A. C 33 Talmage, T. DeWitt 143 Thornbur&, Walter 173 Upson, A. J 120 Vilas, Wm. F 49, 242 Voorhees, D. W..19, 30, 81, 140 Webster, Daniel 4, 261 Whipple, E. P 284 Wood, M. C 121 CONTENTS PAGE Aaron Burr Blair 22 After the Battle Anon 24 Alfred the Great .Pearson 270 America's Debt to France Coudert 31 American Saxon (The) Enos 16 Amende Honorable (The) McAlpine 69 Arrest, Trial, and Death of Danton (The) Carlyle 76 Aristocratic Spirit (The) Curtis 94 Atjx Italiens Meredith 103 Baconian. Philosophy (The) Macaulay 86 Battle of Gettysburg (The) Love 288 Bible in Art (The) . . George 97 Bible in Music (The) George 159 Bird's Death and Burial Rami 160 Black Hole of Calcutta (The) . . .Macaulay 168 Boy in Blue (The) Long 10 Boy in Blue Against, etc Enos 188 Burial of the Dane (The) Broionell 40 By the Passaic Fitz James O'Brien 114 Captain Francisca. . . Stedman 153 Carcassonne Nadaud 15 C^sar.. .* Mommsen 286 Chambered Nautilus Holmes 78 Character of Washington (The) . . Curtis 185 Character of the Oyster (The) . . Reioey 54 Charm of Incompleteness Brooks 196 Charondas Guiney 186 Christmas Hymn Dommett 258 Closing Scene at Waterloo Hugo 99 Comedy and Tragedy Stryker 183 Communism Hitchcock 135 Communistic Socialism Hitchcock 197 (xi) xii CONTENTS. PAGK Contest Against Executive Power (The) Webster 4 Conscience Hugo 52 Corporal at Chancellorsville (The) Paxton 250 Courage an Element of Manli- ness Storrs 38 Cross of Honor (The) Duval 276 Dandy Fifth (The) Gassaway 59 Death of Marat (The) Carlyle 245 Death of Touissant L'Overture. .Phillips 100 Decay of American Commerce Cox 209 " De Pen and de Swoard " Harper's Monthly 255 Decoration Day Branch 178 Decline of the Hebrew Common- wealth Voorhees 19 Doctoring under Difficulties Nye 57 Dumb Maid (The) . . Anon 129 Eagle's Dove (The) Wood 121 Earl of Chatham (The) Macaulay . 46 Empire of Freedom (The) Vilas 242 England's Foreign Policy Bright 50 England's Treatment of Ireland. Gladstone . . 271 Ennobling Recollections of the Revolution Hayne 254 Euthanatos Swinburne 33 Example of Washington (The) Adams 265 Exemplars of Patriotism Everett 42 Fall of the Dutch Republic Voorhees . 30 Fatal Effects of Slavery (The) .Beecher 35 Federalism and the French Rev- olution De Witt 102 Fra Luigi's Marriage Jackson , 211 Freedom the Cure of Anarchy . .Burke 115 Future (The) Arnold « 169 Garfield Hoar 199 General Grant .Blaine 215 General Grant's Administration. Branch 219 Genius of Success (The) Anon 116 German Love of Independence. . . Hoyt 61 Good Character (A) Branch 164 Grant Branch 201 Great Danger of the Republic. .Depew 118 CONTENTS. xiii PAGE Greatness of Napoleon Channing , 166 Greatness op Little Things (The). Talmage 143 Heliotrope Acta Columbiana 6 Heroic Bravery Brooks 172 Home Rule for Ireland Gladstone 142 Honesty Collyer 295 How They Saved the Colors, etc. Buchanan 195 How Two Lives Went Out Ohio State Journal 221 Impulse and Duty Curtis 190 Intemperance Phillips 147 Incident of the Crimean War Kinglake 148 Influence of Dramatic Poetry (The) Stryker 62 Influence of Commerce (The) Smith 174 Instructions to Speakers xvii Insular Strength of England . . . Fislce.. 150 In the Catacombs Ballard 296 Irrepressible Conflict (The) Garfield 89 Is It Come ? Brown „ 289 Jacques Dufour Hoice 238 Jew's Gift (The) Aldrich 145 John Probert's Adventures, etc. .Burke 177 King of England (The) Burke 205 Lady of Castlenore ., Aldrich 43 Lasca . .'. , Desprez 224 Last Struggle for Liberty Brown 191 Last Act of the Coup D'Etat (Tse). Kinglake 291 Legacy of Eome (The) Head 112 Liberty Safe in America Stimson 231 Liberty Surrendered Never, etc . Voorhees 140 Lincoln and his Cabinet Garfield 206 Mahomet and his Religion Carlyle 208 Marie-Antoinette's Trial Carlyle 278 Maureen Cosha Dhas Dublin University Mag'ine 175 Message (A) Scribner's Monthly 137 Miswritten History Reed 192 Morality Rooted in Religion Hitchcock 232 Moral Law for Nations (The) Bright 223 Moral Law the Soul's Guide Swing 252 Napoleon's Russian Campaign Bayne 259 Napoleon in Italy .Bayne 279 National Indebtedness to the Past . . Swing 227 xiv CONTENTS. PAGE Necessity of Government Calhoun 6 New England Curtis 181 Old Clock (The) Carleton 217 Old-Fashioned Man of God Paxton. 83 Old Jones is Dead Moulton 285 Old Letters Chambers' Journal 234 Old Monk in the Belfry Blackwood 247 Only a Stirrup-Cup Anon 88 Paine's Age of Keason ErsTcine 157 Passing of the Puritan Paxton 229 Patriotism Curtis 203 Patriotism of Sentiment Searle 91 Peaceful Influence of Decora- tion Day Branch 92 Perils of Disunion (The) Webster 261 Persistence of Force Golden Age 108 People's Intelligence the Na- tion's Security Vilas 49 Pilgrim Statue (The) Curtis 64 Pilgrims (The) Phillips 27 Piece of Buntlng (A) Palmer 237 Poetry of War Robertson 273 Potency of Spiritual Force (THE).Frothing7iam 66 Power of the Gospel (The) Hamilton 71 Pretension Emerson 281 Progress and Invention Reed ... 79 Protection of American Citizens. Voorhees 81 Puritan Principle and, etc Curtis 2 Rajah's Clock (TnE) Brown 266 Rebel Brigadier Schurz 107 Red-Letter Days Storrs. 110 Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. . Prescott 269 Representative Orator (The) O'Brien 1 Reverence for Law Anon 253 Revolutionary Alarm (The) Bancroft 282 Righteousness Swing 11 Roads a Symbol, etc Janes 13 Robert Rantoul Phillips 123 Roman Principles, etc Gladstone 243 Saratoga Seymour 125 Sargeant Prentiss' First Plea. . .Bachman 126 Selfishness not the Master Mo- tive George 56 CONTENTS. PAGE Sentiment Searle 131 Sirens (The) gangster 293 Slavery George 235 Sockery Setting a Hen Anon 204 Song op the Sea- Wind Dobson 96 Spirit op Inquiry Beltzhoover 23 Stability of American Democracy (The) Bellows 263 Theory and Practice in Govern- ment Cable . o 262 Three Scars (The) Thornburg 173 Trial and Execution op Char- lotte Cord ay Carlyle 8 Truth and Rhetoric Upson 120 Trustworthiness of the People . . Stimson 73 Truth and Victory Sconlle 21 True Reformers Greeley 74 Ultimate America Abbott 128 Unification of Italy Porter 152 War op the States Inevitable. . .Holmes 132 Warren Hastings Macaulay 134 Washington r. Phillips 139 Washington's Military Career. . . Whipple. . . 284 Webster's Success and Failure . . Long ISO Wendell Phillips Curtis 1G2 Wendell Phillips' First Client. Curtis 47" Woman Suffrage .Phillips 1G3 Young Men's Christian Associa- tion (The) Bepew 275 INSTRUCTIONS TO SPEAKERS. Before memorizing your piece, look it through carefully, and ascertain the exact, proper pronunciation of every word. The Appendix to this book will assist you in this. Then read the piece over several times, and take special care to articulate and enunciate every syllable and word dis- tinctly and clearly, particularly terminals like ed, ing, nds, merit, st, sts, th, ths, ly, Is. During this exercise vary the pitch of voice from low to high : the quality of tone from soft to loud; and the rate of speaking from slow to fast, and vice versa. The study above indicated will do a great deal in helping you to memorize your selection. Copying it, first by refer- ring to the text, and afterwards as far as possible from recollection, will quickly fasten it in your memory. Bear in mind the fact that absolutely perfect memorizing of a selection is indispensable to good speaking. If there is a conscious effort of memory to recall the mere ivords, everything con- nected with delivery will be restrained and mechanical. In connection with the foregoing study, analyze each sentence, so that you will understand its exact meaning : for there can be no intelligent expression of the thought em- bodied in a sentence unless the speaker himself is fully pos- sessed of its meaning. Having ascertained the meaning of your selection, you will have the key to its delivery. Read each sentence as you would speak it in conversation ; or as you would naturally speak it if you were the author and were addressing an audience. This will disclose the proper emphasis and in- flections which are the essential elements of delivery. (xvii) xviii INSTRUCTIONS TO SPEAKERS. There are in every sentence certain significant words which convey the main idea or thought. If you will dis- tinguish these by natural, forcible, varied emphasis and inflection, you will readily command the correct delivery of the less important words. These significant words really control the delivery of the whole sentence ; and the easy rendering of long or involved sentences can be accomplish- ed only by making them the points upon which stress is especially laid. Accompany your speaking by occasional gestures, such as are suggested by the sense, and add force to its expression. Gestures should be made along curved lines. The hand should be naturally open ; and the arms free and uncon- strained. Except while used in making gestures, the hands should hang by the sides. They should not be placed be- hind the back. Stand erect, assuming natural, easy positions. Move about quietly from time to time upon the floor. Look at the audience, not at the floor or the ceiling. Having thoroughly memorized your selection, and be- come entirely familiar with pronunciation, articulation, and enunciation of every word : having settled upon the mean- ing and the consequent natural delivery of the sentences with the accompanying gestures, you will be ready for re- hearsing. This should be continued until every detail has become positively mastered. Study to secure variety, which is the charm of good speaking. A word may have several inflections, any one of which is entirely natural. In such an instance opportunity is afforded to secure variety. Use the colloquial or conver- sational tone in the less important passages. This compels variety in many directions. Vary the pitch and volume of the voice, modulation, rate, emphasis, and inflection. Bow easily and respectfully to your audience after com- ing upon the floor, and before leaving. Avoid the absurdity of commencing your speaking by addressing some imagi- nary " Fellow-Citizens," "Mr. Speaker," or "Mr. Chair- INSTRUCTIONS TO SPEAKERS. x i x man." Do not make a gesture as soon as you commence to speak. Do not yell, nor rant, nor stamp, nor swing your arms aimlessly : but " speak the speech " as though it were your own, and as though you felt and meant every word of it. O. E. B. New Yokk City, 1886. 1 ' So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." — JSTehemiah viii. 8. THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE REPRESENTATIVE ORATOR. Feom the earliest age of the world peculiar honor and power have been the reward of the successful orator. He is a factor not to be omitted in computing the causes of human action. No fame is so resplendent, no power so al- luring as his. His field extends from where the story-teller of the East recites in raptured ears his matchless tales, to where in stiff and stately dignity the British House of Lords sits hedged about by ancient usages. No one sweeps every chord of human passion as does he. He revives the sinking spirit, puts hope into the hopeless, gives determination to the undecided, and firmness to the wavering. No graceful language, no splendid declamation alone can earn for one the title of representative orator. He must come speaking from soul to soul. He must be charged with ideas. He need not be a profound thinker, he need add nothing to literature; but he must be a true man, he must add something to history. He must be thoroughly imbued with the principles and sentiments of his age and people. He must be a man of large brain and large heart, of broad views and generous impulses. He must have in- flexible courage, for it is often his to be a John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. He must often breast the current of popular disapprobation, borne up by a principle, assured that he will at last triumph. In him, oratory rises to the TEE ADVANCED SPEAKER. full grandeur of its mission. It faces Philip with Demos- thenes: it sends the flower of a continent through un- known, untried dangers with Peter the Hermit : it tears down thrones with Mirabeau : it sounds freedom's trumpet- call with Henry. Hampden hurling defiance at England, O'Connell speaking for down-trodden Ireland, Phillips for the Slave, these are representative orators. John W. O'Brien. PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND PLUCK. Note 1. The growing millions of this American republic are the heirs of Puritan principle and Puritan pluck, and what do we propose to do with our splendid heritage ? To be worthy of it, what can we do but apply it to our circumstances as our fathers did to theirs ? They followed the apostolic in- junction to do with all their might what their hands found to do; whether they prayed, or planted, or fought, they did it with all their soul and strength. Cotton Mather tells a story of a Boston divine who went to preach to the fisher- men of Marblehead and who exhorted them earnestly not to forget religion, which was the main end of the settle- ment. "Oh, no," said one of the fishermen, "not at all; he thinks that he is preaching in Boston. Religion is all very well; that is the main end in Boston. But here at Marble- head our main end is fishing." Marblehead fished for cod as diligently as Boston fished for souls. The Pilgrim Fa- thers fought relentless winter, every kind of personal priva- tion, the wild beasts of the forest, and savage men. But the frost, and beasts, and remorseless foes with which the Pilgrim children must contend, are of another kind. If Puritan principle and pluck have largely cleared the conti- nent, and inspiring other influences have in concert with them founded a free Church and a free State, and decreed the equal rights of the people, it is the business of that PURITAN PRINCIPLE AND PLUCK. principle and pluck now to keep the Church and the State free, the Government pure, politics honest, and as our prin- ciples defended the people from ancient forms of tyranny, to protect them from new forms of tyranny as they may arise. If, for instance, anybody or any power should ven- ture to lay hostile hands on the free, non-sectarian public schools, let Puritan principle warn them to beware, and Puritan pluck stand ready to enforce the warning. If any man or any body of men in high official position, in order to conciliate a political support which they despise, seek to prostitute the Government to direct or indirect countenance of crime, let Puritan principle teach them that the corner- stone of English and American liberty is loyalty to law, and Puritan pluck show them that the loss of public and private respect is the price of pandering to ignorance and brutal passion. If any conspirators should seek to control parties and politics for venal purposes and personal ambition, let Puritan principle unmask them and remind them that Pur- itan pluck cut off the head of King Charles and sent King- James spinning out of the three kingdoms. If under our political forms unworthy candidates are offered for our votes, or worthy candidates by unworthy methods, let Pur- itan principle bolt the nomination, and Puritan pluck scratch the ticket. If in our administrative systems, national, or state, or municipal, abuses of every kind have accumulated into Augean heaps of fraud and corruption, let Puritan principle firmly hold the light of investigation and exposure in the darkest places, and Puritan pluck with a broom of fire sweep them clean. If newer forms of the old problems arising from the difference of human condition, vast cor- porate capital, for instance, upon one side, and individual poverty upon the other, tax more and more the wisdom and humanity of a great people, let Puritan principle recall the last words which the Pilgrim Fathers heard from John Rob- inson, that there is more light to break forth from God's word, and Puritan pluck stand ready to walk steadfastly iu the way which that light shall illuminate. Be this the spirit THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. of this great people, and America will indeed tower aloft, incarnate Liberty enlightening the world.* Puritan principle and Puritan pluck ! Whether you con- template the one or the other, you see but different forms of the same thing. In the old fable, whether the knight looked at the golden side or the silver side, it was still the same resplendent shield. So whether it was John Pym moving the Grand Remonstrance in Parliament, or John Milton touching the loftiest stop of epic song, or Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides raising the mighty battle-cry at "Worcester and Dunbar, " Arise, O Lord, and scatter Thine enemies," then putting spur and sweeping forward like a whirlwind to scatter them ; or that immortal company of men and women who before Pym and Milton and Cromwell bore their triumphant testimony and renewed upon the wild New England shore the miracle of Moses in the earlier wilderness, making Plymouth Rock like the rock of Horeb, a fountain of refreshment for all the people — all this long line of light in history, like the milky way compact of stars across the sky, is the splendid story of Puritan principle and Puritan pluck. George William Curtis. THE CONTEST AGAINST EXECUTIVE POWER. The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from ex- ecutive power. Whoever has engaged in her sacred cau^e, from the days of the downfall of those great aristocracies which had stood between the king and the people, to the time of our independence, has struggled for the accomplish- ment of that single object. On the long list of the champions of human freedom there is not one name dimmed by the reproach of advocating the extension of executive authority : * This selection may end hero. THE CONTEST A GAINST EXEC UT1 VE PO WEB. 5 on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of all such champions has been to limit and restrain it To this end the spirit of liberty, growing more and more enlightened, and more and more vigorous from age to age, has been battering for centuries against the solid butments of the feudal system. To this end, all that could be gained from the imprudence, snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured, and hoarded, as the rich treasures, the very jewels of liberty. To this end, popular and repre- sentative right has kept up its warfare against prerogative with various success, sometimes writing the history of a whole age in blood, sometimes witnessing the martyrdom of Sidneys and Russells ; often baffled and repulsed, but still gaining, on the whole, and holding what it gained with a grasp which nothing but the extinction of its own being could compel it to relinquish. At length, the great con- quest over executive power in the leading Western States of Europe has been accomplished. The feudal system, like other stupendous fabrics of past ages, is known only by the rubbish which it has left behind it. Crowned heads have been compelled to submit to the restraints of law, and the people, with that intelligence and that spirit which made their voice resistless, have been able to say to prerog- ative : " Thus far shalt thou come, and no further." Into the full enjoyment of all which Europe has reached only through so slow and painful steps, we sprang at once, by the Declaration of Independence, and by the establish- ment of free, representative governments, governments bor- rowing more or less from the models of other free States, but strengthened, secured, improved in their symmetry, and deepened in their foundation by those great men of our own country, whose names will be as familiar to future times as if they were written on the arch of the sky. Daniel Webster. THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE NECESSITY OF GOVERNMENT. Society can no more exist without government, in one form or another, than man without society. The political, then, is man's natural state. It is the one for which his Creator formed him, into which he is impelled irresistibly, and the only one in which his race can exist and all his fac- ulties be fully developed. It follows that even the worst form of government is better than anarchy; and that indi- vidual liberty or freedom must be subordinate to whatever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy within or destruction without. Just in proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, de- based, corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger with- out, the power necessary for the government to possess, in order to preserve society against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater and greater, and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest condition is reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary on the part of the government, and individual liberty becomes extinct. So, on the contrary, just as a people lise in the scale of intelligence, virtue, and patriotism, and the more perfectly they become acquainted with the nature of government, the ends for which it was ordered and how it ought to be ad- ministered, the power necessary for government becomes less and less, and individual liberty greater and greater. John C. Calhoun. HELIOTROPE Aim) the chapel's chequered gloom She laughed with Dora and with Flora, And chattered in the lecture-room — The saucy little Sophomora ! HELIOTROPE. Yet while (as in her other schools) She was a privileged transgressor, She never broke the simple rules Of one particular professor. But when he spoke of varied lore, Paroxytones and moods potential, She listened with a face that wore A look half fond, half reverential. To her that earnest voice was sweet, And, though her love had no confessor, Her girlish heart lay at the feet Of that particular professor. And he had learned, among his books, That held the lore of ages olden, To watch those ever-changing looks, The wistful eyes, and tresses golden, That stirred his pulse with passion's pain And thrilled his soul with soft desire, Longing for youth to come again, •Crowned with its coronet of fire. Her sunny smiles, her winsome ways, Were more to him than all his knowledge, And she preferred his words of praise To all the honors of the college. Yet " What am foolish I to him ? " She whispered to her one confessor. " She thinks me old, and gray, and grim,'* In silence pondered the professor. Yet once, when Christmas bells were rung Above ten thousand solemn churches, And swelling anthems, grandly sung, Pealed through the dim cathedral arches — THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Ere home returning, filled with hope, Softly she stole by gate and gable, And a sweet spray of heliotrope Left on his littered study-table. Nor came she more, from day to day, Like sunshine through the shadows rifting ; Above her grave, far, far away, The ever-silent snows were drifting : And those who mourned her winsome face, Found in its stead a swift successor, ^.nd loved another in her place — ■ All, save the silent, old professor. But, in the tender twilight gray, Shut from the sight of carping critic, His lonely thoughts would often stray From Vedic verse and tongues Semitic — Bidding the ghost of perished hope Mock with its past the sad possessor Of the dead spray of heliotrope That once she gave the old professor. From " Acta Coujmbiana." TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY. Note 2. (Abridged.) On "Wednesday morning, July 17, 1793, the thronged Palace of Justice and Revolutionary Tribunal can see the face of Charlotte Corday, beautiful and calm. A strange murmur ran through the hall at sight of her, you could not say of what character. Tinville has his indictments and tape-papers. The cutler of the Palais Royal will testify that he sold her the sheath-knife. " All these details are need- less," interrupted Charlotte. '' It is I that killed Marat." " By whose instigation ? " " By no one's." " What tenrpted TRIAL AKB EXECUTION OF CHARLOTTE C0RBA7. 9 you then ? " " His crimes ! I killed one man to save a hun- dred thousand : a villain, to save innocents: a savage wild beast, to give repose to my country. I was a Republican before the Revolution ; I never wanted energy ! " There is therefore nothing more to be said. The public gazes astonished. The hasty artists sketch her features. The men of law proceed with their formalities. The doom is death as a murderess. She thanks her advocate in gentle phrase, in high-flown, classical spirit. To the priest they send her she gives thanks, but needs not any shriving, any ghostly or other aid from him. On this same evening therefore, about half-past seven, from the gate of the Conciergerie to a city all on tip-toe, the fatal cart issues : seated on it a fair young creature, sheeted in the red smock of a murderess : so beautiful, serene, so full of life, journeying toward death : alone amid the world. Many take off their hats, saluting reverently. Others growl and howl. Adam Lux, of Mentz, declares that she is greater than Brutus : that it were beautiful to die with her. The head of this young man seems turned. At the guillotine the countenance of Charlotte wears the same still smile. As the last act, all being now ready, the execu- tioners take the neckerchief from her neck. A blush of maidenly shame overspreads that fair face and neck : the cheeks were still tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed head to show it to the people. In this manner have the beautifulest and the squalidest come in contact, and mutually extinguished each other. Jean Paul Marat and Marie Anne Charlotte Corday, both, suddenly, are no more. O ye hapless two, mutually extinct- ive, the beautiful and the squalid, sleep ye well in the mother's bosom that bore you both. Adam Lux goes home, half delirious, to pour forth his apotheosis of her in paper and print ; to propose that she have a statue with this inscription : " Greater than Brutus." Friends represent his danger : Lux is reckless : thinks it were beautiful to die with her. Thomas Cablyle. 1* 10 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE BOY IN BLUE. Note 3. (Abridged.) As if it were but yesterday, you recall the " boy in blue." He had but turned twenty. The exquisite tint of youthful health was in his cheek. His pure heart shone from frank, outspeaking eyes. He had pulled a stout oar in the college race, or walked the most graceful athlete on the village green. He had just entered on the vocation of his life. The unreckoned influences of the great discussion of human rights had insensibly moulded him into a champion of free- dom. He had passed no solitary and sleepless night watch- ing the armor which he was to wear when dubbed next day with the accolade of knighthood. But over the student's lamp or at the fireside's blaze he had passed the nobler ini- tiate of a heart and mind trained to a fine sense of justice and to a resolution equal to the sacrifice of life itself in be- half of right and duty. He knew nothing of the web of politics, but he knew instinctively the needs of his country. His ideal was Phillip Sidney, not Napoleon. And when the drum beat, he took his place in the ranks and went forward. You remember his ingenuous and glowing letters to his mother, written as though his pen were dipped in his very heart. How graphically he described his sensation in the first battle, the pallor that he felt creeping up his face, and then the utter fearlessness when once the charge began and his blood was up ! How gratefully he wrote of the days in hospital, of the opening of the box from home, of the gener- ous distributing of delicacies that loving ones had sent, of the gentle nurse whose eyes and hands seemed to bring to his bedside the summer freshness and health of the open window of his home. You remember when he came home on furlough, how manly and war-worn he had grown. But he soon returned to the ranks and to the welcome of his comrades. They loved him for his manliness, his high bearing, his fine sense RIGHTEOUSNESS. \\ of honor. They recall him now alike with tears and pride. In the rifle-pits around Petersburg they heard his steady voice and firm command. It was a forlorn hope, that charge of the brave regiment to which be belonged, reduced now by three years'-long fighting to a hundred veterans, consci- ous that somebody had blundered, yet grimly obedient to duty. But there was no flinching as he charged. He had just turned to give a cheer when the fatal ball struck hiim His eyes, pleading and loyal, turned their last glance to the flag. His lips parted. He fell dead, and at nightfall lay with his face to the stars. Home they brought him, fairer than Adonis, over whom the goddess of Beauty wept. They buried him in the village church-yard under the green turf. His picture hangs on the old homestead walls. Chil- dren look up at it and ask to hear his story told. It was years ago : and the face is so young, so boyish, so fair, that you cannot believe he was the hero of twenty battles, a veteran in the wars, a leader of men, brave, cool, command- ing, great. Do you ask who he was ? He was in every regiment and every company. He went out from every village, from hundreds of quiet farm-houses. He sleeps in every Northern burying-ground. Recall romance, recite the names of heroes of legend and song : there is none that is his peer. John D. Long. RIGHTEOUSNESS. Note 4. The scientific minds are trying to show that the human race has been living upon this earth for half a million years, coming up slowly in all that long flight of time. But I am not sure that Mercy ought not to hope all such estimates to be false ; for when we remember what man has been in the historic period, we cannot help hoping that the six thou- sand years are all, and that there were no ages before of cruelty less m3rciful, of barbarism still more barbarous. 12 TEE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Unrighteousness is the great foe of the human race. Issu- ing from private life and injuring our neighbor, or issuing from the bench and perverting justice, or issuing from the legislature and grinding a community, or issuing from a throne and making a nation drip in blood, unrighteousness has always been the chief sorrow and disgrace of man's career. How beautiful upon its dark background all deeds of righteousness appear ! Whether you recall all the ten- derness that has been in the world between parents and children, between friends, between rulers and subjects, each fact will reveal at once the divineness of righteousness, its whiteness, its sweetness. In estimating the worth of right, it is a great mistake if you limit this righteousness to the obedience of statute or common laws. Such limitation gives an honest man or a law-abiding citizen, but not a righteous man. There is an ideal law out of the statute and above it, to which the deed conforms, and so far back as Sophocles, the existence of this ideal law was confessed in the words of Antigone : " No ordinance of man can e'er surpass The settled laws of nature and of God." When the humane woman of our age reveals the spirit of this Greek sister, and flies to the hospital of Scutari or Memphis ; when Grace Darling launches her boat upon the mad water, these go at the command of righteousness ; for the human heart, tossing in the anguish of the hospital or struggling for life in the sea, is surrounded by divine right to the helping hand. When the great Justinian defined justice as " a constant and urgent wish to render to every man that which is his own," did he mean only that man must respect landmarks and pay debts ? Oh, no ! but when a man is struggling for life in the waves, your hand ceases to be your own, it be- comes partly his. No other definition of justice would have been handed down by the bar and bench as worthy of Jus- tinian or of legal philosophy. ROADS A SYMBOL OF THE AGE. 13 How grand a principle in human nature this righteous- ness may be, one may read by looking back at the sacred names of the past, and by seeing that the most sacred are those that were most honorable. From Fabricius to Yv 7 " ash- ington, from the Saviour to the honest tinker Bunyan, or the obscure dairyman's daughter, there is no radiance so bright as that which shines from a name crowned with the halo of justice ; and the lustre of riches, of office, of beauty fades away, compared with this sun of virtue set eternally in the heavens. David Swing. ROADS A SYMBOL OF THE AGE. Note 5. The roads of a country are an accurate test of its intelli- gence. The printing press, a common coinage, or the use of a single language, would be of little benefit to a nation, if its means of intercommunication were obstructed. Bar- barism is the lot of a people where roads are unknown. Their construction is one of the first indications of emer- gence from a savage state. Their improvement keeps pace with the advances of a nation in wealth, industry, and science. The Roman Empire was the embodiment of centraliza- tion. All power centred at Rome. From her imperial gates went forth decrees that governed the world. Thence ra- diated in every direction those roads, whose ruins yet re- main, binding the remotest province to the power of the conqueror. Along those giant arteries coursed the wealth, the power, the commerce of the world. From Scotland to Antioch the Roman could travel by post, interrupted only by the English Channel and the Hellespont. The Seven- crowned City held in her grasp lines that bound distant na- tions. An insurrection, a voice of discontent, was instantly heard ; and her invincible legions marched to quell the disturbance. The second era of modern civilization began, the long, 14 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. dark, intermediate age. Law was thrown aside ; might made right. Every one feared the power of his neighbor, and castles werte built in which robber-barons defended themselves, and from which they directed their thieving ex- peditions. Isolation became the law ; the grand old Roman roads were destroyed. City walls were reared : ditches dug : rocks and logs piled upon highways : bridle-paths alone were left to the bold traveller. Barbarism was the natural offspring of such an age. At length a better era dawned. The old methods of war- fare and government were discarded, and the safety of the individual merged in national security. Material interests opened the thoroughfares of nations, and the last great era of modern civilization was ushered in. The influence and character of the present age, as displayed in its roads, is evi- dent to the most casual observer. What was the lesson taught to the nations of Europe by the famous Simplon, con- necting France and Italy by ties stronger than conquest '? What is the lesson of Great Britain, and our own country, each bound by a network of railways ? It is the lesson of unity. Isolation demanded castles on inaccessible rocks, with ditch and drawbridge and portcullis. Union throws wide every door, cultivates fields, builds factories, estab- lishes homes. Isolation feared a forest path. Union demands iron horses on iron roads. It is impossible to live longer in a state of secluded selfishness. The age requires, and our roads secure the co-operation of every citizen, in the pursuit of mutual interests. The age of roads is the age of inroads upon the domains of prejudice, local customs, and ignorance. Motion is the sign of life. Life implies new ideas. The age of roads is the age of ideas, of peace, of reciprocal interests, of liberty, and national prosperity. C. F. Janes. CARCASSONNE. 15 Note 6. .CARCASSONNE. I'm growing old, I've sixty years ; I've labored all my life in vain : In all that time of hopes and fears, I've failed my dearest wish to gain. I see full well that here below, Bliss unalloyed there is for none, My prayer will ne'er fulfilment know, I never have seen Carcassonne, I never have seen Carcassonne ! You see the city from the hill, It lies beyond the mountains blue, And yet, to reach it, one must still Five long and weary leagues pursue, And to return, as many more ! Ah ! had the vintage plenteous grown ! The grape withheld its yellow store ! I shall not look on Carcassonne, I shall not look on Carcassonne ! They tell me every day is there Not more nor less than Sunday gay ; In shining robes and garments fair, The people walk upon their way. One gazes there on castle walls As grand as those of Babylon, A Bishop and two Generals ! I do not know fair Carcassonne, I do not know fair Carcassonne ! The vicar's right : He says that we Are ever wayward, weak and blind ; He tells us, in his homily, Ambition ruins all mankind ; 16 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Yet could I there two days have spent, While yet the autumn sweetly shone, Ah me ! I might have died content, "When I had looked on Carcassonne, When I had looked on Carcassonne ! Thy pardon, Father, I beseech, In this my prayer, if I offend ; One something sees beyond his reach, From childhood to his journey's end. My wife, our little boy Aignan, Have travelled even to Narbonne ; My grandchild has seen Perpignan, And I have not seen Carcassonne. And I have not seen Carcassonne ! So crooned one day, close by Limoux, A peasant double-bent with age. " Bise up, my friend," said I : " with you 111 go upon this pilgrimage." We left, next morning, his abode, But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way on The old man died upon the road : He never gazed on Carcassonne. Each mortal has his Carcassonne ! GUSTAVE NADAUD. THE AMERICAN SAXON. Note 7. A chemist once in the Middle Ages, after years of labo- rious research and midnight study, produced in his labo- ratory a fluid which he firmly believed would change all baser metals into gold. There it lay in the alembic, rain- bow-hued, clear as crystal, shining like a jewel. Before making his final experiment, the chemist stepped out for a THE AMERICAN SAXON. 17 moment, and in his absence his servant entered. Filled with curiosity and longing, and thinking that in one brief moment he might reap the reward of his master's years of study, he seized the glittering chalice, raised it to his lips, drained it at a draught,' and fell dead on the laboratory floor. The wine of free, representative government is a most precious fluid. In the laboratory of the ages it has been distilling slowly, drop by drop. No doubt it is a most potent and tempting beverage. But the practical question is, Can a race be found to whom this elixir may be safely- trusted — whom the intoxication of power shall not drive at last to national suicide ? Is there a perfect form of gov- ernment? "Yes, yes," cry the poets and dreamers, the prophets and sages who have been the mouth-pieces of their times, and in their utterances have voiced the higher aspirations of mankind. But again : Can a people be found with such a depth of root and strength of stock as to bear of its own accord the wondrous blossoms of representative government ? and History from the battle-fields of dying States, answers, "No!" But is the verdict of history thus far final ? Not necessarily so, I answer ; for history which repeats itself, is something more than repetition. It is rep- etition with development. Its track is not a common circle, but a spiral coil. There is an onward and a widening flow. Every coil is larger than its predecessor. And so when that Parrott shot went through the walls of Sumter and a na- tion of peaceful citizens sprang to arms, the event had something more than a local importance. History was about to repeat itself with a diameter of coil such as the world had never seen. There were new elements and new combinations ; and these might develop into something altogether unexpected and surprising. No wonder that the world was nervous in '61 ! A race was on trial, but it was not the Anglo-Saxon race. Herein lay our fears ; and herein, too, lay our hopes. The Saxon race has been so long upon the stage of history, that we know, now, with tolerable certainty what it can do, and 18 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. what it cannot do. It is a race of force and stamina ; of great strength and great weakness ; endowed with large capacities, but holding these in union with certain defects and limitations that are central and radical. Many and many a time that race has been on trial. Its heavens are studded with stars of glory and of shame.* When Harry the Eighth kept every man in England under arms all summer against emperor, king, pope, and devil ; and at Bembridge Down and Shoreham sent the minions of Francis hurtling back across the Channel, the Saxon race was tried. And again, when Cromwell's broom swept the plains of Marston Moor, and the Commonwealth crowded monarchy and its Norman banners into the Ger- man Ocean, the Saxon race was tried. So, too, in our conflict with the mother country, it was a Saxon race, perhaps, or a modified Saxon race, that was on trial. Under "Washington and Greene, in Massachusetts and Carolina, at Bunker Hill and by the Brandywine, that race was tried. But from the flag-ship of Cornwallis to the ' ■ Star of the West " — from 1781 to 1861 — a new nationality had been growing up ; a new and unique race was in pro- cess of development. That development, it is true, began much further back ; but the last eighty years brought changes, forward-flying, with accelerated swiftness and strength. Frequent transplantings were beginning to tell. For consider : this race had been once transplanted from the continent to England ; a second time, from Old England to New England ; a third time, from New England to the great Middle and Western States of the Union. Three times transplanted ; many generations removed from its original stock ; grafted in with foreign shoots ; conditioned by new air ; watered and fed from alien soil, — the old stock was actually turning into something new and strange. The men who were on their way to the Potomac five days after the President's call, were an altogether different type of * This selection may end here. DECLINE OF THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH. 19 men from those who fought at Naseby, or even from those who stood at Concord bridge and on " the green " at Lex- ington. They were the American Saxons, of the National type, and to their hands, at that high, momentous hour, was committed the destiny of free, representative govern- ment. Edgae A. Enos. THE DECLINE OF THE HEBREW COMMONWEALTH. Note 8. The principles of self-government are of ancient origin. They were not created by the authors of the American Con- stitution. They were adopted by those wise and gifted minds from the models of former times, and applied to the wants of the American people. Far back in the gray, un- certain dawn of history, in the land of mystery and of mir- acles, the hand of Almighty benevolence planted the seeds of constitutional government by which life, liberty, and property were made secure. Abraham and Lot each gov- erned his household, and his herdsmen, by law ; and, al- though they became offended at each other, yet, under the divine sanction, they refrained from the pleasures of con- quest, subjugation, confiscation. They divided the country before them by a primitive treaty, and the grass continued to grow for their flocks unstained by fraternal blood, and uncrushed by the hoof of war. And in long after-years, when the descendants of the patriarchs bioke their prison doors in Egypt, and lay encamped in the wilderness, the Omniscient Presence came down, and gave them a frame- work of fundamental law, in which the popular will was largely recognized. A system of jurisprudence was devised for the people of Israel which protected liberty, and admin- istered justice. Under its influence the feeble fugitives, and homeless wanderers, without bread, and without water in the desert, became an empire of wisdom, of wealth, and of power. The liberal institutions of the Jewish theocracy pro- 20 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. duced statesmen, poets, historians, and warriors, who will continue to challenge the admiration of posterity by the splendor of their achievements as long as generations come and go. They lived within the immediate jurisdiction of Jehovah They possessed the ark of the covenant, and took counsel with ministering angels directly from the portals of Paradise. "With all these evidences of celestial favor in their behalf, it is not to be wondered that they claimed an ex- emption from the changes and mutations of human affairs, and boasted that the seal of perpetuity had been impressed by the Divine hand on the pillars of their government. But public virtue became debauched ; the popular heart cor- roded with the lust of conquest, and of gain ; primitive pur- ity faded away under the baleful breath of embittered fac- tions ; the fires of patriotism were smothered by rankling hate, and the thirst for revenge ; and all these evil passions broke forth in the voice of a malignant majority clamoring for a king. In that hour of disastrous eclipse, the spirit of liberty took her flight forever from the hills of Judea. Thou- sands of years have rolled away since then. The Holy Land has been the theatre of conflicts which rocked the world as the throes of an earthquake. Genius and heroism have there blazed as stars in the Eastern skies. There, too, was enacted the sublime tragedy of redemption — that tragedy which summoned the inhabitants of all worlds as its witnesses, and filled nature with agony. The eyes of mankind have been turned back, and fixed upon those scenes of immortal inter- est for more than thirty centuries. But who has lifted up and restored her fallen system of liberal institutions ? The people surrendered their rights, their franchises, their self- control, and welcomed the power of one man. That base act has never been reversed. As the tree fell, so it lies. It died at the root. Despotism reigns undisturbed and unbroken, in darkness and silence, where once the light and music of freedom gladdened the souls of the stately sons and dark- eyed daughters of Israel. Daniel W. Voorhees. TRUTH AND VICTORY. 21 TRUTH AND VICTORY. Note 9. The face of the world is changing. When crazy old John Coffin went down to the Battery, and looking eastward over New York Bay called out, " Attention, Europe ! Nations ! by the right, wheel ! " he saw what sane men see now. Nations are discovering there is something more terrible than armies, something more reliable than battalions and bayonets, something wiser than senates, something greater than royalty, something sweeter than liberty. Through the gospel of Peace and through the gospel of War one name is sounding over the continents. Truth ! inspires the student of history ; Truth ! is the watchword of science ; Truth ! is the victorious cry of Christianity. Graven on the intellect of the statesman, burned into the brain of the philosopher, blazoned upon the standard borne in the van of the army of progress, Truth ! is the animating shout of the ages. In these days of political corruption, while one after an- other of our trusted leaders falls before the righteous and reJentless indignation of public sentiment, it helps him who despairs of the future to remember that company in whose veins flows the young blood of the nation, in whose eyes kindle the fires of a pure faith, and from whose hearts ra- diate the strong purposes that make nations and direct civ- ilization. These shall rise up when need is, and go into life's great battle with unfaltering heroism ; and under their banner shall gather the world's best and bravest youth. In the terrible battle of Balaklava two British regiments were calmly awaiting the advance of twelve times their number of Kussians. It was a fearful moment. The Eng- lish and French generals and thousands of soldiers looked from the heights above upon this heroic handful of silent, motionless men who, with sublime courage, held the honor of Britain in that supreme hour. The glittering lines of Russians came confid • itly on. They halted in very wonder- ment at the heroism of the devoted band of English. Sud- 22 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. denly the British trumpets sounded the charge, and the Scotch Greys dashed at the foremost line of Russians. It yielded and broke. Again the heroic little band gathered its thinned and broken ranks, and flung itself against the second line. " God save them ! They are lost ! " cried a thousand of their comrades from the heights. It seemed madness, it was madness ; but it was madness which knows nothing but success. Ten minutes of the agony of suspense, and then a wild, spontaneous, tumultuous cheer burst from the watching thousands on the hills, and Balaklava was won. There on the spot where victory rewarded valor, they lifted tenderly up a dying Highlander. He plucked from his breast a cross of honor, through which the fatal bayonet had crashed. " Take this to mother," said he, " and tell her I was struck when we charged the first line, but I could not die till we had carried the second." And so, in the infinitely nobler battle of life, remember, as you stand single and unsupported in the conflict of Truth, that the hosts of Heaven, whose cause is that day in- trusted to your keeping, are watching you with infinite so- licitude. Heed not the odds against you. Ask for no allies. Depend upon no reinforcements. Against all the world, against wrong government, against corrupt society you alone are invincible, you alone irresistible. D. C. Scoville. AARON BURR. Note 10. The fourth of March, 1801, was a day of rejoicing throughout the Union. It witnessed the success of Democ- racy, and the overthrow of federalism and monarchy. It was the inaugural day of Jefferson and Burr. Thirty-five years later, on a beautiful September morning, the remains of the latter were borne by a few friends to a dishonored grave. These two scenes mark high and low tide in the fortunes of Aaron Burr. AARON BUBB. 23 The question raised by Tacitus, whether impartial biog- raphy can best be written in the brightness and glare of the morning, or the shadow and uncertain light of the even- ing of a man's career, has never yet been answered. But certain it is, while each year has credited new exaggerations of the virtues of our early favorites, it has made more diffi- cult and precarious a just estimate of Burr. The military services of Burr were invaluable : his patriotism unques- tioned. With no encouragement for his surpassing energy and ability, subject to continual slights and humiliation, he rose steadily in rank and rendered services never to be for- gotten. His professional career was characterized by suc- cesses as commendable and far more brilliant than those of his contemporaries. Had his life terminated here, his career would have been rational and complete. Parton says that " the choice of politics was Burr's fatal error." Undoubtedly ; but the effect of this choice uppn the nation, however, was far different. An alchemist was found dead beside his crucible ; the lid was raised, aud within was found a metal, the discovery of which revolu- tionized science and became the guide to future research. So with the labors of Burr : disastrous to himself, but benefi- cent to his country. The last of the eighteenth century was a time of great perils. The French revolution had created distrust of j)opular government in this country. John Adams leaned toward aristocracy. The Cabinet had little faith in the Constitution, and was favorable to royalty. Federalism, adverse to popular rule, was triumphant. The adherents of Democratic principles were without a leader, dissatisfied, powerless, disheartened. On the other side were organization and discipline. Against this combination of wealth, talent, power, Burr contended and was successful. He organized, equipped, and led to victory the party that preserved freedom. He built the fortress of Democracy, which has never surrendered, though the siege has been long and persistent. This was the crowning effort of his life. Thenceforth fortune was adverse, remorseless. The 24 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. disastrous encounter between Burr and his vanquished rival should have awakened something different than indiscrim- inate condemnation of the one and eulogy of the other. The crime was magnified, while the guilt of that sentiment of society which sanctioned duelling was entirely over- looked. Not the death of Hamilton, but the fickleness of public favor ruined Burr. There is more than ordinary sadness connected with the life of this unfortunate- man. His success was so rapid, brilliant, unprecedented ; his fall so sudden, unforeseen, disastrous. The charity, bravery, and fortitude of the gentleman, soldier, and statesman did not forsake the man who was branded by his enemies " traitor and homicide." He was neither a coward, nor a misanthrope. An exile, he was no Arnold ; an outcast, no Timon. His country owed him little but gratitude. This it withheld. His triumphs were national, his defeats and dis- grace his own. A. L. Blair. AFTER THE BATTLE. Hold the lantern aside, and shudder not so ! There's more blood to see than this stain on the snow ! There are pools of it, lakes of it, just over there, And faces all streaked, and crimson-soaked hah' ! Did you think, when we came, you and I, out to-night To search for our dead, it would be a fair sight ? You're his wife ; you love him ; you think so ; and I Am only his mother : My boy shall not lie In a ditch with the rest, while my arms can bear His form to a grave that my own may soon share ! So, if your strength fails, best go sit by the hearth, While his mother alone seeks his bed on the earth. Will you go ? then no fainting ! Give me the light, And f ollow my f ootsteps ! My heart will lead right ! AFTER THE BATTLE, 25 Ah, God ! What is liere ? A great heap of the slain, All mangled and gory ! What horrible pain These beings have died in ! Dear mothers, ye weep, Ye weep, oh ! ye weep, o'er the terrible sleep ! There's the moon through the clouds : Oh ! Christ, what a scene ! Dost Thou from Thy heavens o'er such visions lean And still call this cursed world a footstool of Thine ? Hark ! A groan : then another : here in this line Piled close on each other. Ah, here is the flag, Torn, dripping with gore ! Pah ! they died for this rag ! Here's the voice that we seek : Poor soul, do not start : We're women, not ghosts. What a gash o'er the heart ! Is there aught we can do ? A message to give To any beloved one ? I swear if I live To take it for sake of the words my boy said, "Home," "Mother," "Wife" — ere he reeled down 'mong the dead! But first, can you tell where his regiment stood ? Speak, speak, man, or point ! 'Twas the Ninth ! Oh, the blood Is choking his voice ! What a look of despair ! There, lean on my knee, while I put back the hair Prom eyes so fast glazing ! Oh, my darling, my own, My hands were both idle when you died alone ! He's dying ! He's dead ! Close his lids : let us go. God's peace on his soul ! If we only could know Where our own dear one lies ! My soul has turned sick ! Must we crawl o'er these bodies that he here so thick ? I cannot ! I cannot ! How eager you are ! One might think you were nursed in the red lap of War. He's not here ! And not here ? What wild hopes flash through My thoughts as foot deep I stand in this dread dew, 2 26 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. And cast up my prayer to the blue, quiet sky ! Was it you, girl, that shrieked ? Ah, what face doth lie Upturned toward me there, so rigid and white ! Oh, God, my brain reels ! 'Tis a dream ! My old sight Is dimmed with these horrors : My son ! Oh, my son ! Would I had died for thee, my own, only one ! There, lift off your arms ; let him lie on the breast Where first he was lulled, with my soul's hymn, to rest ! Your heart never thrilled to your lover's fond kiss As mine to his baby touch ; was it for this f He was yours, too ; he loved you ? Yes, yes, you're right ! Forgive me, my daughter ; I'm maddened to-night ! Don't moan so, dear child ; you're young, and your years May still hold fair hopes ; but the old die of tears ! Yes, take him again ! Ah, don't lay your face there ! See ! the blood from his wound has stained your loose hair. How quiet you are ! Has she fainted ? Her cheek Is as cold as his own. Say a word to me ! Speak ! Am I crazed ? Is she dead ? Has her heart broke first ? Her trouble was bitter, but sure, mine is worst ! I'm afraid ! I'm afraid ! Alone with these dead ! Those corpses are stirring ! God help my poor head ! I'll sit by my children until the men come To bury the others, and then well go home ! Why, the slain are all dancing ! Dearest, don't move ! Keep away from my boy ! He's guarded by love ! Lullaby, lullaby : Sleep, sweet darling, sleep ! God and thy mother will watch o'er thee keep ! THE PILOBIMS. 27' THE PILGRIMS. Note 11. When we undertake to criticise the Pilgrims, we ought first to ask ourselves the question : Where would they be to-day ? Indeed, to be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. Thee and thou, a stationary hat, bad grammar and worse manners, with an ugly coat, are not George Fox to-day. You will recognize him in any one who rises from the lap of artificial life, flings away its softness, and startles you with the sight of a man. Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America ; it only crops out here. It has cropped out a great many times in our history. You may recognize it always. Old Putnam stood upon it at Bunker Hill, when he said to the Yankee boys : " Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes." Ingra- ham had it for ballast when he put his little sloop between two Austrian frigates, and threatened to blow them out of the water if they did not respect the flag of the United States in the case of Martin Koozta. Jefferson had it for a writing-desk when he drafted the Declaration of Inde- pendence and the " Statute of Eeligious Liberty " for Vir- ginia. Love joy rested his musket upon it when they would not let him print his paper at Alton, and he said : " Death or free speech ! " Ay ! it cropped out again. Garrison had it for an imposing-stone when he looked into the faces of seventeen millions of angry men, and printed his sublime pledge, "I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." If I were going to raise a monument to the Pilgrims, I know where I should place it. I should place one corner- stone on the rock, and the other on that level spot where fifty of the one hundred were buried before the winter was over ; but the remainder closed up shoulder to shoulder as firm, unflinching, hopeful as ever. Yes, death rather than compromise of Elizabeth. I would write on their monu- ment two mottoes : One, " The Right is more than our 28 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Country ! " and over the graves of the fifty : " Death, rather than Compromise ! " How true it is that the Pilgrims originated no new truth ! How true it is, also, that it is not truth which agitates the world ! Plato in the groves of the Academy sounded on and on to the utmost depth of philosophy, but Athens was quiet. Calling around him the choicest minds of Greece, he pointed out the worthlessness of their altars and shame of public life, but Athens was quiet. It was all speculation. When Socrates walked the streets of Athens, and, question- ing every-day life, struck the altar till the faith of the passer-by faltered, it came close to action ; and immediately they gave him hemlock, for the city was turned upside down. What the Pilgrims gave the world was not thought, but action. Men, calling themselves thinkers, had been creeping along the Mediterranean, from headland to head- land, in their timidity ; the Pilgrims launched boldly out into the Atlantic and trusted God. That is the claim they have upon posterity. It was action that made them what they were. Wendell Phillips. THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY. Note 12. On the roof of Agamemnon's palace, in Argos, a watch- man sat from year to year, waiting and watching the north for the great signal of fire which should bring the glad tidings of the fall of Troy. Long years had elapsed, and lo ! as it drew near morning there was a light in the sky, and the watchman cried aloud, and messengers ran abroad throughout Argos, bidding men to burn thank-offerings and incense on the altars. More than three thousand years have rolled away since this grand and rugged and stalwart telegraphic line of light lit up the mountain-tops of the world over lands and seas, to carry the tidings of great national victory and joy. THE SPIRIT OF INQ TJIR Y. 29 What a sublime and prophetic picture of the future did that old majestic king of men paint on the sky on that eventful night, as he sent the war news flashing on gold pinions of fire from Mount Ida to the Saronic Sea. Those great signal fires have long ago gone out on Ida and Athos, and the cliffs of Cithseron are silent and dark, but the immortal spirit of inquiry which kindled the light that gilded all their glorious summits, cannot die. In all ages it has dared the terrors of unknown and savage seas, and invaded the wilds of untrodden lands, and filled the world with the imperishable monuments of its increasing search for knowledge. It has seized the speed and power of steam, and bridled the lightning to bear its winged words from land to land. Its conquests achieved under the genius of liberty have girdled the earth with fires of intel- ligence which burn not for an hour or a day or a year, but perennial in their brightness. It chained Prometheus to the rock. It burned the mar- tyrs of the press at Tyburn and Smithfield. It was the silent pular of cloud by day and of fire by night which led the heroes of humanity through the long, dark, despotic years of the past up to freedom. There are no more flam- ing swords to bar the way of man to knowledge. There is no tyrannical Jupiter to impale the impious mortal who dares to seize the bolts of thought. There are no stakes and racks and tortures for the followers of heroic John Twyn. It is now the greatest glory of life to think, and the grandest liberty to utter ; and he who highest dares to scale the mountainous, craggy steeps of thought, or dives the deepest into the eternal abyss of unsolved doubt, stands as the world's real hero. F. E. Beltzhoover. 30 THE AD VANGEB SPEAKER. THE FALL OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. Note 13. Modern history contains no exception to the rule which the fate of ancient republics has established. Aspirations for freedom have at different periods ascended from almost every portion of modern Europe. A system of confeder- ated states built up and nurtured the free institutions of Holland for more than three hundred years, while the night of despotism lay thick and heavy on all the surrounding horizon. As revolted colonies, as states in rebellion, the Dutch Republic maintained a defensive war for thirty years against the whole power of Spain when Phillip II. controlled the councils and commanded the wealth of the civilized world. Their proudest cities were besieged and fell a prey to pillage and murder. In pitched battles they seldom tri- umphed over the superior numbers and equipments of the powerful Spaniard. Their country was trodden underfoot, tbeir houses plundered, their fields laid waste, and the wild boar and the wolf roamed unmolested through the streets of once populous towns. But the endurance and patriot- ism of a people, to whom no terms were offered except ab- ject, unconditional submission, outlived and broke the rage of their oppressors. A free commonwealth, the United States of Holland, arose and extended the spirit of enter- prise, commerce, and refinement into all the four quarters of the earth. She conquered the sea and subdued distance. The peaceful victories of her trade were celebrated at the Cape of Good Hope, and in the harbor of New York, in the Indies of the East, and in every latitude of the Western Hemisphere. Nor was she less renowned in war. The broom at the masthead swept the ocean of her enemies, and the only guns of a foreign power whose hostile roar ever penetrated the Tower of London, were the guns of the free States of Holland. Louis XIV., the grand monarch of im- perial France, when Turenne and Luxembourg and Conde led his armies, poured the torrents of his power against her AMERICA'S DEBT TO FRANCE. 31 for conquest and subjugation ; but they were poured in vain. She fought with the inspiration of freedom, and made her history secure and illustrious as long as a gener- ous heart shall be found to throb in sympathy with the wel- fare and happiness of a heroic people. But where now is that noble prodigy of liberal institutions ? Why does she lift her beautiful head to the heavens no longer? Her glories declined under the burden of unbounded wealth and overflowing prosperity. Her people relaxed the vigil- ance of their guard over the citadel of their liberties, and slumbered at their posts, while unlawful power fortified it- self beyond successful attack. Thus she perished ignobly by her own hand, having throughout her whole career de- fied and held at bay a world in arms. And how still and heavy has been her long repose ! No awakening convul- sions shake her rigid limbs, or disturb her frozen arteries. Once fallen, and forever lost is the mournful epic of her fate. Daniel W. Vooki AMERICA'S DEBT TO FRANCE. Note 14. It may perhaps be suggested that the fact that France lavished her favors on the American people in the past does not explain her present action. Logically — the objector may say — America should send bronze statues to France, not France to America. We never sent armed men to her aid when all Europe was banded against her. While her land was overrun, and German, Kussian, English armies swept over her fields and towns, leaving a track of ruin behind them, only French blood was shed in her behalf. Our ships did not go down with French ships at Trafalgar, our treasure did not melt away in the fiery furnace of French tribulation and German triumph. If we are paying 32 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. taxes to support our credit and diminish our debt, no part of that debt was incurred to save French interests or French territory. True — but he knows little of the hidden springs that control human action who does not know that there is no gratitude like that which is felt by the benefactor. It is far easier to forget the favors that we have received than those that we have conferred. That pattern of shrewd worldly wisdom, Benjamin Franklin, ingenuously tells us that when he wanted to secure the good- will of influential men, he always sought to place himself under some slight obligation ; he borrowed (and returned) a book, or asked some small service. The obligation incurred was never heavy enough to trouble him, but it always encouraged the other party to renewed bounty. The habit of generosity is apt to grow with exercise, and it is precisely because France was the friend and loyal ally of America upward of a cen- tury ago, that she is now ready and always has been to testify the warmth and fidelity of her attachment. And if there ever has been at any time, on the face of our friend- ship, coldness or estrangement, or the appearance of it, such a change has never been exhibited by France. If I were called upon to pick out from the mass of con- curring testimony proof of the priceless value of French aid to the American colonies, I should go to that dark and dreary winter at Valley Forge, when even the stoutest hearts were despondent. All that makes victory possible was absent except courage and faith, and they were fast failing before the cruel blows of adverse fortune. What must other men have thought of the future and its prom- ises when Washington from the midst of his shivering, half-clad, and half -fed followers, wrote this : " Unless some great and capital change takes place the army must be in- evitably reduced to one or other of three things — starve, dissolve, or disperse." Only a miracle could save the cause ! Who would help the struggling band of enthusiasts that had nothing to offer as a reward for the aid which they prayed for ? Was it EUTHANATOS. 33 not against all history and experience that the vanquished cause should so commend itself to the world that troops, and money, and friends, and sympathy from strangers — ■ strangers in blood, in tastes, in language — should be pro- vided as though a rich return were sure to follow ? It all came, and strangely enough, the prime mover in the battle against monarchy was a king, the volunteers in the people's fight were nobles, the treasury that made success possible came from a well-nigh bankrupt State ! If logic had had a voice in French councils, and French sentiment had not guided French action, Lafayette would have stayed at home, Louis XVI. would have closed his royal ear to these earnest appeals, French gold would have remained in French hands, and the galaxy of bright, brave, loyal, chiv- alrous Marquises, Dukes, and Counts would never have fought, flirted, suffered, danced, and — died on American soil. Frederic R. Coudert. EUTHANATOS. Forth of our ways and woes, Forth of the winds and snows, A white soul soaring goes, Winged like a dove ; So sweet, so pure, so clear, So heavenly tempered here, Love need not hope or fear her changed above. Ere dawned her day to die, So heavenly, that on high Change could not glorify Nor death refine her ; Pure gold of perfect love, On earth like Heaven's own dove, She cannot wear above a smile diviner. 2* 34 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Her voice in Heaven's own choir Can sound no heavenlier lyre Than here ; no purer fire Her soul can soar ; No sweeter stars her eyes In uniraagined skies Beyond our sight can rise than here before. Hardly long years had shed Their shadows on her head ; Hardly we think her dead, "Who hardly thought her Old ; hardly can believe The grief our hearts receive, And wonder while they grieve, as wrong were wrought her. But though strong grief be strong, No word of thought or wrong May stain the trembling song, Wring the bruised heart, That sounds or sighs its faint Low note of love ; nor taint Grief for so sweet a saint, when such depart. A saint whose perfect soul, "With perfect love for goal, Faith hardly might control, Creeds might not harden ; A flower more splendid far Than the most radiant star Seen here of all that are in God's own garden. Surely the stars we see Rise and relapse as we, And change and set, maybe THE FATAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY. 35 As shadows too ; But spirits that man's lot Could neither mar nor spot, Like these false lights are not, being heavenly true. Not like these dying lights Of worlds whose glory smites The passage of the nights Through Heaven's blind prison ; Not like their souls who see If thought fly far and free No heavenlier Heaven to be for souls re-risen. A soul wherein love shone Even like the sun, alone, "With fervor of its own And splendor fed ; Made by no creeds less kind Towards souls, by none confined, Could Death's self quench or blind, Love's self were dead. Algernon C. Swinburne. THE FATAL EFFECTS OF SLAVERY. Note 15. This continent lay waiting for ages for the seed of civil- ization. At length a sower came forth to sow. While he sowed the good seed of liberty and Christian civilization an enemy, darkling, sowed tares. They sprang up and grew together. The Constitution cradled both slavery and lib- erty. While yet ungrown they dwelt together in peace. They snarled in youth, quarreled when half grown, .and fought when of full age. The final catastrophe was inevi- table. No finesse, no device or compromise could withstand 36 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. the inevitable. The conflict began in Congress; it drifted into commerce; it rose into the very air, and public senti- ment grew hot and raged in the pulpit, the forum, and in politics. The South, like a queenly beauty, grew imperious and exacting; the North, like an obsequious suitor, knelt at her feet, only to receive contempt and mockery. Both parties, Whig and Democrat, drank of the cup of her sorcery. It killed the Whig party. The Democrat was besotted. A few like John the Baptist were preaching repentance, but, like him, they were in the wilderness, and seemed rude and shaggy fanatics. If a wise moderation had possessed the South, if they had conciliated the North, if they had met the just scruples of honest men, who, hating slavery, dreaded the dishonor of breaking the compacts of the Constitution, the South might have held control for another hundred years. It was not to be. God sent a strong delusion upon them. Nothing can be plainer than that all parties in the State were drifting in the dark, without any comprehension of the elemental causes at work. Without prescience or sagacity, like ignorant physicians, they prescribed at random; they sewed on patches of new compromise upon old garments, sought to conceal the real depth and danger of the gathering torrent by crying peace, peace, to each other. In short, they were seeking to medicate volcanoes and stop earth- quakes. The wise statesmen were bewildered and politicians were juggling fools. The South had laid the foundation of her industry, her commerce, and her commonwealth upon slavery. It was slavery that inspired her councils, that engorged her philan- thropy, that corrupted her political economy and theology, that disturbed all the ways of active politics, broke up sym- pathy between North and South. As Ahab met Elijah with, " Art thou he that troubleth Israel ? " so slavery charged the sentiments of freedom with vexatious meddling and unwar- rantable interference. THE FATAL EFFECTS OF SLA VEM Y. 37 The South had builded herself upon the rock of slaveiy. It lay in the very channels of civilization, like some flood rock lying sullen off Hell Gate. The tides of controversy rushed upon it and split into eddies and swirling pools, bringing incessant disaster. The rock would not move. It must be removed. It was the South itself that furnished the engineers. Arrogance in council sunk the shaft, vio- lence chambered the subterranean passages, and infatuation loaded them with infernal dynamite. All was secure. Their rock was their fortress. The hand that fired upon Sumter exploded the mine, and tore the fortress to atoms. For one moment it rose into the air like spectral hills — for one moment the waters rocked with wild confusion, and then settled back to quiet, and the way of civilization was opened ! * "The spark that was kindled at Fort Sumter fell upon the North like fire upon autumnal prairies. Men came together in the presence of this universal calamity with sudden fusion. They forgot all separations of politics, parties, or even of religion itself. It was a conflagration of patriotism. The bugle and the drum rang out in every neighborhood, the plow stood still in the furrow, the hammer dropped from the anvil, book and pen were forgotten, pulpit and forum, court and shop, felt the electric shock. Parties dis- solved and re-formed. The Democratic party sent forth a host of noblemen, swelled the Republican ranks, and gave many brave leaders and irresistible energy to the hosts of war. The whole land became a military school, and officers and men began to learn the art and practice of war. When once the North had organized its armies there was soon disclosed an amiable folly of conciliation. It hoped for some peaceable way out of the war ; generals seemed to fight so that no one should be hurt ; they saw the mirage of future parties above the battle-field, and anxiously consid- ered the political effect of their military conduct. They * This selection may end here, and the remainder used separately. 38 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. were fighting' not to break down rebellion, but to secure a future Presidency — or Governorship. The South had smelted into a glowing mass. It believed in its course with an infatuation that would have been glorious if the cause had been better ! It put its whole soul into it and struck hard ! The South fought for slavery and independence. The North fought for union, but for political success after the war. Thus for two years, not unmarked by great deeds, the war lingered. Lincoln, sad and sorrowful, felt the mod- eration of his generals, and longed for a man of iron mold who had but two words in his military vocabulary, Victory or Annihilation. He was coming ! He was heard from at Henry and Donelson. Henry Ward Beecher. COURAGE AN ELEMENT OF MANLINESS. Note 16. Eckermann tells us, in his interesting report of talks with Goethe, that once, when looking with him at some engrav- ings, the poet said : " These are really good things. You have before you the works of men of very fair talents, who have learned something, and have acquired no little taste and art. Still something is wanting in all these pictures — the Manly. Take notice of this word and underscore it. The pictures lack a certain urgent power which in former ages was generally expressed, but in which the present age is deficient, and that with respect not only to painting, but to all the other arts." One of the principal elements which must combine to constitute and complete a manly spirit, is courage. Cour- age, as denoting not merely that instinct of battle which displays itself boldly in stimulating excitements, in the heat of contest, or in passionate championship of favorite opin- ions, but as representing what is ampler than this — strength GO JIB AGE AN ELEMENT OE MANLINESS. 39 of heart ; strength to endure as well as resist ; to pursue and achieve, as well as to attempt ; to sacrifice self altogether, on behalf of any justified conviction, a thorough consent of judgment, conscience, imagination, affection, all vitalized and active; and a certain invincible firmness of will — this is implied in a really abounding and masterful Courage. It is not impatient. It is not injurious. It is not the creature of fractious and vehement will-power in man. It is never allied with a passionate selfishness. It is associ- ated with great convictions, has its roots in profound moral experiences ; is nourished by thoughts of God and the here- after. It forms the base of sympathies, generosities, rather than defiances. Its language is that of courtesy, always ; never of petulance or of egotistic arrogance. A chivalric manner is natural to it, especially toward such as are weak or alarmed ; as natural as is his carol to the song-bird, or its interplay of colors to flowering tulip. Such courage as this is everywhere at home, and is natu- rally master of all situations. Conspicuous on the battle- field, it may equally be shown in the journal, or in the pulpit. It shines on the platform as clearly as in the Senate ; is as manifest in the frank and unswerving announcement of principles which men hate, in the face of their hatred, as it is when the tempestuous winds, tearing the wave-tops into snow drift, have caught the reeling ship in their clutch and threaten to bury it in the deep. And wherever it is shown, it has in it something of the morally superlative. "We know how History delights to turn from eloquent debates or picturesque pageants to present even partial por- traits of this ; as in the English soldier biding the shock at Waterloo, wholly disdainful of the military science which declared him to be beaten, unshaken in his spirit and hold- ing by that spirit his reeling standards to their perilous place, in spite of the tremendous, successive assaults of artillery and cavalry which Napoleon hurled upon his rent and shattered squares ; in "William of Nassau, with treachery around him, a price on his head, a few divided provinces at 40 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. his back, crowded almost literally into the sea and clinging with hardly more than his finger-tips to the half-drowned land, yet fronting without one sense of fear or sign of hesi- tation the utmost fury and force of Spain, though the arma- ments of that exasperated empire were pushed to their relentless onset by the subtlety of Philip, the fierce energy of Alva, and the unwearied genius of Parma ; in the Witten- berg monk going to the Diet with unfaltering step, though the veteran soldier told him as he passed that the pathway was more perilous than his own had been in the imminent deadly breach. Nothing else in biography or in history impresses us more than this sovereign courage ; assured, unyielding, without impetuosity, but ready for any service or sacrifice. It has been not unfrequently the infrangible diamond-pivot on which destinies have turned. Whether or not connected with consequences so large and important, in its own majesty, it lifts prosaic and commonplace pages above the level of rhythmic ethics. It makes us aware of the vast possibilities infolded in our nature. It knits the man in whom it appears with whatever is freest and lordliest in the universe. Richard S. Storks. THE BURIAL OF THE DANE. Blue Gulf all around us, Blue sky overhead: Muster all on the quarter, We must bury the dead. It is but a Danish sailor, Bugged of front and form ; A common son of the forecastle, Grizzled with sun and storm. THE BURIAL OF THE DANE. 41 His name, and the strand he hailed from, We know — and there's nothing more ! But perhaps his mother is waiting On the lonely Island of Fohr. Still, as he lay there dying, Keason drifting awreck, " Tis my watch," he would mutter, " I must go upon deck ! " Ay, on deck — by the foremast ! — ■ But watch and lookout are done ; The Union-Jack laid o'er him, How quiet he lies in the sun ! Slow the ponderous engine, Stay the hurrying shaft ! Let the roll of the ocean Cradle our giant craft: Gather around the grating, Carry your messmate aft ! Stand in order, and listen To the holiest page of prayer ! Let every foot be quiet, Every head be bare: The soft trade-wind is lifting A hundred locks of hair. Our captain reads the service (A little spray on his cheeks), The grand old words of burial, And the trust a true heart seeks: " We therefore commit his body To the deep " — and, as he speaks, 42 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Launched from the weather railing Swift as the eye can mark, The ghastly, shotted hammock Plunges, away from the shark, Down, a thousand fathoms, Down into the dark ! A thousand summers and winters The stormy Gulf shall roll High o'er his canvas coffin; But, silence to doubt and dole ! There's a quiet harbor somewhere For the poor a-weary soul. Free the fettered engine, Speed the tireless shaft ! Lose to'gallant and top-sail, The breeze is fair abaft ! Blue sea all around us, Blue sky bright o'erhead: Every man to his duty ! We have buried our dead. Henry Howard Brownell. EXEMPLARS OF PATRIOTISM. Note 17. How is the spirit of a free people to be formed, anima- ted, and cheered, but out of the storehouse of its historic recollections? Are we to be forever talking of Marathon and Thermopylae, and going back to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin of the exemplars of virtue ? We can find them nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil. Strains of the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man, are breathing to us out of every page of THE LADY OF-CASTLENORE. 43 our country's history, in the native eloquence of our mother tongue. We are willing to pay our tribute of applause to the memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his country in the face of the foe. But when we trace him to his home, we are confounded at the reflection that that same Spartan hero- ism to which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylae, would have led him to tear his own child from the bosom of its mother, and give it to be eaten by wolves. We feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at Marathon by the ten thousand champions of invaded Greece ; but we cannot forget that a tenth part of the num- ber were slaves unchained from the workshops and door- posts of their masters to go and fight the battles of freedom. I do not mean that these examples are to destroy the in- terest with which we read the history of ancient times. They possibly increase the interest by the very contrast they exhibit. But they warn us, if we need the warning, to seek our great practical lessons of patriotism at home, out of the exploits and sacrifices of which our own country is the theatre, out of the characters of our own fathers. Them we know, citizen-heroes. We know what happy fire- sides they left for the cheerless camp. We know with what pacific habits they dared the perils of the field. There is no mystery, no romance, no madness under the name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute, manly resistance for the sake of conscience and of liberty. Edward Everett. THE LADY OF CASTLENORE. (a.d. 1700.) i. Bretagne had not her peer. In the Province far or near, There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless hand : She had youth, and she had gold, she had jewels all untold, And many a lover bold wooed the Lady of the Land. 44 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. ii. But she with queenliest grace, bent low her pallid face, And, " Woo me not for Jesus' sake, fair gentlemen," she said. If they woo'd, then, with a frown she would strike their pas- sion down : She might have wed a crown to the ringlets on her head. in. From the dizzy castle-tips, hour by hour she watched the ships, Like sheeted phantoms coming and going evermore, While the twilight settled down on the sleepy seaport-town, On the gables peaked and brown, that had sheltered kings of yore. IV. Dusky belts of cedar-wood partly clasped the widening flood ; Like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill ; In the hostelry below, sparks of light would come and go, And faint voices strangely low, from the garrulous old mill. v. Here the land in grassy swells gently broke ; there sunk in dells With mosses green and purple, and prongs of rock and peak ; Here in statue-like repose, an old wrinkled mountain rose, With its hoary head in snows, and wild roses at its feet. VI. And so oft she sat alone in the turret of gray stone, And looked across the moorland, so wof ul, to the sea, That there grew a village-cry, how her cheek did lose its dye, As a ship, once, sailing by, faded on the sapphire lea. THE LADY OF CASTLENORE. 45 Her few walks led all one way, and all ended at the gray And ragged, jagged rocks that fringe the lonesome beach; There she would stand, the Sweet ! with the white surf at her feet, While above her wheeled the fleet sparrow-hawk with startled screech. vni. And she ever loved the sea, Grod's half -uttered mystery, "With its million lips of shells, its never-ceasing roar; And 'twas well that, when she died, they made her a grave beside The blue pulses of the tide, by the towers of Castlenore. is. "Now, one chill November morn, many russet autumns gone, A strange ship with folded wings lay dozing off the lea ; It had lain throughout the night with its wings of murky white Folded, after weary flight, the worn nursling of the sea. Crowds of peasants flocked the sands, there were tears and clasping hands ; And a sailor from the ship stalked through the kirk-yard gate ; Then amid the grass that crept, fading over her who slept, How he hid his face and wept, crying, Late, alas ! too late ! XI. And they called her cold. God knows. Underneath the winter snows, The invisible hearts of flowers grow ripe for blossoming ! And the lives that look so cold, if their stories could be told, Would seem cast in gentler mould, would seem full of love and spring. T. B. Aldrich. 46 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. Note 18. Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not in both Houses of Parliament ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions he had made to repair his errors. But death restored him to his old place m the affection of his country. Who could hear unmoved of the fall of that which had been so great and had stood so long ? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar vener- ation and tenderness. The few detractors who ventured to murmur, were silenced by the indignant clamors of a nation which remembered only the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undisputed services of him who was no more. For once all parties were agreed. A public funeral, a pub- lic monument were eagerly voted. The debts of the de- ceased were paid. The city of London requested that the remains of the great man whom she had so long loved and honored, might rest under the dome of her magnificent cathedral. But the petition came too late. Everything was already prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey. Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the church, in a spot which has ever since been appropriated to states- men, as the other end of the same transept has been to poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery do so many great citizens lie within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his ef- figy, graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face WENDELL PHLLLLPS' FIRST CLIENT. 47 and outstretched arm, to bid England to be of good cheer, and hurl defiance at her foes. The generation which reared that memorial of him has disappeared. The time has come when the rash and indiscriminate judgments which his contemporaries passed on his character may be calmly reviewed by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehement, high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce that among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name. Macatjlay. WENDELL PHILLIPS' FIRST CLIENT. Note 19. The time during which Phillips was studying law, was the hour of the profoundest moral apathy in the history of this country. The fervor of revolutionary feeling was long since spent, and that of the final anti-slavery contest was but just kindled. The question of slavery, indeed, had never been quite forgotten. There was always an anti- slavery sentiment in the country ; but there was also a slavery interest, and the invention of the cotton-gin in 1789 gave slavery the most powerful and insidious impulse ihat it had ever received. At once commercial greed was allied with political advantage and social power, and the active anti-slavery sentiment rapidly declined. When "Wendell Phillips was admitted to the bar in 1834, the slave interest in the United States, entrenched in the Constitution, in trade, in the Church, in society, in historic tradition, and in the prejudice of race, had already become, although uncon- sciously to the country, one of the most powerful forces in the world. The grasp of England upon the American Col- onies before the Revolution was not so sure, and was never so menacing to liberty upon this continent, as the grasp of slavery upon the Union in the pleasant days when the youug 48 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. lawyer sat in his office, careless of the anti-slavery agita- tion, and jesting with his old college comrades over the clients who did not come. But in an October afternoon in 1835, while he was still sitting expectant in his office, the long-waited client came ; but in what amazing form ! The young lawyer was espe- cially a Boston boy. He loved his native city with that lofty pride and intensity of local affection which is peculiar to her citizens. " I was born in Boston," he said, long afterward, " and the good name of the old town is bound up with every fibre of my heart." In the mild afternoon his windows were open, and the sound of unusual disturbance drew him from his office. He hastened along the street, and sud- denly, a stone's throw from the scene of the Boston mas- sacre, in the very shadow of the Old South, he beheld, in Boston, a spectacle which Boston cannot now conceive. He saw American women insulted for befriending their inno- cent sisters, whose children were sold from their arms. He saw an American citizen assailed by a furious mob in the city of James Otis, for saying, with James Otis, that a man's right to liberty is inherent and inalienable. Himself a cit- izen soldier, he looked to see the majesty of the people maintaining the authority of law ; but, to his own startled surprise, he saw that the rightful defenders of Jaw against the mob were themselves the mob. The city, whose dauntless free speech had taught a country how to be independent, he saw raising a parricidal hand against its parent — Liberty. It was enough. As the jail doors closed upon Garrison to save his life, Garrison and his cause had won their most powerful and renowned ally. With the setting of that Oc- tober sun vanished forever the career of prosperous ease, the gratification of ordinary ambition which the genius and the accomplishment of Wendell Phillips had seemed to foretell. Yes, the long-awaited client had come at last. Scarred, scorned, and forsaken, that cowering and friendless client was wronged and degraded humanity. The great soul saw and understood. PEOPLE'S INTELLIGENCE, NATION'S SECURITY. 49 " So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When duty whispers low, Thou must ; The youth replies : I can." Geokge William Curtis. THE PEOPLE'S INTELLIGENCE, THE NATION'S SECURITY. Note 20. He does not know his countrymen who distrusts their intelligent understanding of the principles of their liberty. It has cleared and widened, and still increases with every year. The source and mainspring of our growth and hap- piness, it keeps pace with our rising pride of citizenship. Quick, penetrating, jealous, yet calm, conservative, and res- olute, the wisdom of the people has proven a safer stay of government, a surer sanction of law, a trustier guardian of rights, than any throne ever planted on the necks of men. If we turn from intellect to character — the higher safe- guard — our trust must be undiminished. The fruit of heroic labor, this people was birthmarked with the noble traits of manhood. Devotedly to stand to his duty, reckless of peril, is every free American's one religion, whether he has another or not. Look to the men who, in vast number now, serve with steam in ministry to the puissant arts of our life. Day and night, keenly conscious of their trusts, they confront death with intrepid serenity. Heroic poetry is not richer in heroism than our common life. Has the great heart of the nation lost from its birthright of charac- ter its belief in the future, its readiness to face it ? This generation, now so swiftly passing, has momentously an- swered. All unprepared for strife, it was waked, liks one attacked in sleep, to gigantic combat for life and liberty. I appeal to the illustrious captain, in whose hands were se- curely rested the destinies of the nation in her mortal trial : 3 50 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. when he bade them climb the heights of Vicksburg, or pointed to the cloud-topped ramparts of the enemy before Chattanooga, did our freemen then evade the debt of in- heritance by shunning death for their posterity ? Let him who thinks the virtues of the fathers faded repair to the nation's hallowed ground at Arlington. Among the " frail memorials " in that " bivouac of the dead," as he shall read the frequent inscription " Unknown," let him kneel before that self-sacrificing patriotism which no roll-call of glory can distinguish, and honor the names of the blessed who died for their country and fellow-men. Though not by them deputed, I stand here for a king- domf ul of Western Pilgrims from Old New England, whose hearts thrill with filial tenderness for the well-remembered land of youth. The peaceful home of boyhood is before their eyes again. The rugged landscape, the spring on the hillside, the vine above the door, the old hearthstone. And there again their mother : sweet as a dream of Heaven her memory. Her helpful teaching, unforgotten, swells the heart again. Sharers in your pleasing meditation, kindling with your inspiration, your brethren by birthplace join from every quarter of our common land in the honorable senti- ment in which you pledge your fellow-countrymen, affirm- ing the manly faith that posterity shall receive in bettered value our inheritance from the fathers. Wm. F. Vilas. ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY. {Abridged.) Note 21. About one hundred and twenty years ago, there happened in this country what we have always been accustomed to call a "Glorious Revolution"; a revolution which had this effect, that it put a bit into the mouth of the monarch, so that he was not able to do, and he dared no longer attempt ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY. 51 to do, the thing's which his predecessors had done without fear. But if at the Revolution the Monarchy of England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the great territorial families were enthroned ; and from that period until 1832 they reigned with almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the industries of the people of these kingdoms. A new policy was then adopted ; for while before we had endeav- ored to keep ourselves free from European complications, we now began to act upon a system of constant entangle- ment in the affairs of foreign countries, as if there were neither property, nor honors, nor anything worth striving for, to be acquired in any other field. We have been at war since that time, with, for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. We have been all around Europe, and across it, over and over again ; and after a policy so distinguished, so pre-eminent, so long continued, and so costly, we have a fair right to ask those who are in favor of it to show us its visible result. Europe is not at this moment, speaking broadly, more free politi- cally than it was before. And what has been the result in England ? I understate the sum when I say that in pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp — "the liberties of Europe" and " the balance of power " — there has been extracted from the industry of the people of this small island no less an amount than two billion pounds sterling ! The more you examine this matter, the more you will come to the conclusion, that this foreign policy, this regard for the " liberties of Europe," this excessive love for " the balance of power," is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the aristocracy of England. When I think of that vast sum of two billion pounds ster- ling a vision passes before my mind's eye. I see the peas- ant laborer delve and dig, sow and reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old before the winter's blast. I see the noble mechanic, with his manly counten- ance and matchless skill, toiling at his bench or forge. I see one of the workers in our factories of the north, a 52 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. woman, a girl, it may be, gentle and good, intent upon the spindle, whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye fails to detect them, or watching the alternate flight of the unrest- ing shuttle. I turn again to another portion of our popula- tion, which, " plunged in mines forgets a sun was made," and I see the man who brings up from the chambers of the earth the elements of the greatness and riches of his coun- try. When I see all this, I have before me a mass of prod- uce and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend than that two billion pounds ; but I behold in it the hide- ous error of your government, whose fatal policy consumes in some cases a half, never less than a third, of all the results of that industry which God intended should f ertilize and bless every home in England ; but the fruits of which are squandered in every part of the surface of the globe, without producing the smallest good to the people of Eng- land, John Bright, 1858. CONSCIENCE. {Translated from Hugo's Legend des Siecles.) Cain fled before the Lord, and with him went His children, skin-clad, all with storm besprent. The evening fell. The sad man sought repose Where from the desert, a great mount arose. His wife, exhausted, and his sons, outworn, Slept on the ground, while he, the man forlorn, Sat thinking, sleepless, at the mountain's base. He raised his head, and right before his face, Staring, wide open, in the blackened sky, He saw regarding him a moveless Eye. "I am too near," he said, and shook with fright, Then waked the tired flock, and in the night He fled away into the nameless space, And thirty days and nights, with ceaseless pace, CONSCIENCE. 53 He marched and marched, and shivered as he went, Furtive and dumb, on every noise intent ; No rest, no sleep. At last upon the strand Of ancient seas, where now is Syrian land, He stood. " Stay here. In this asylum sure, Here let us rest. The world goes on no more." And as he sat, there flamed upon the sky In that same far-off spot, the changeless Eye. Ah, how he trembled in that Horror's grip ! " Hide me," he cried ; and finger on their Up, His sons gazed sadly on their father fierce. Cain said to Jubal, prince of those who pierce Deep in the desert with their tents of shin, "Pitch here thy tent, and fence me safely in." He did. He quick outspread the floating wall, Staying its corners with the leaden ball. " Dost see it now ? " said Zillah, fairest child, The daughter of his son, like morning mild. " I see the Eye again," replied her sire. Jubal, the chief of those who strike the lyre And beat the drum amid the crowded street, And sound the horn, with silver note and sweet, Cried loud and long, "I swear to bar it out." He made a wall of bronze, and, scorning doubt, Placed Cain behind, who cried, " I see the Eye." Then Enoch spake : " Let us build towns high, So terrible that nothing will come near : Build up a city with a donjon drear." Then Tubal Cain, the father of the forge, Built up a city, horrible and large. And while he labored, in the plain beneath His brothers hunted down the sons of Seth, Put out the eyes of all they took in w.ir, And shot their arrows at the evening star. The tents gave place to walls of solid stone, Each block kept steady by an iron zone. The city seemed a very pit of hell. 54 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The walls were thick as mountains, and the swell Of monstrous towns made all dark as night. And on the door they carved in letters bright, " God shall not enter here." When all was done They shut their grandsire in a town of stone, Haggard and sorrowful. Then Zillah said, "It is no longer there, that Eye so dread." But he replied, " I see It now as then, Oh, close me in some subterranean den. Entomb me. As one dead, so let me be. I shall see no one. Nothing shall see me." They built a vault, and Cain said, " It is good," Descended, sat him down in happier mood. They walled the mouth, but it was all in vain, The Eye was in the tomb, and looked at Cain. Clinton Locke. THE CHARACTER OF THE OYSTER. Note 22. It is difficult to ascertain with certainty the true character of any inhabitant of our globe ; and for certain reasons it is peculiarly difficult to understand what may be the true character of the oyster. In the first place, let us, if we can, find out exactly what the oyster is. Webster defines the oyster as a " bivalvular testaceous, animal." The oyster is certainly bivalvular, and for all we know to the contrary, testaceous also. Webster says he is : and let us not question the authority of that ancient book-worm. But Webster is peculiarly happy in the use of the word " animal." By using the word he has left us a very broad field. We therefore propose to con- sider the oyster in three different aspects : first, as a fish ; second, as a beast ; and third, as a bird. The oyster is a calm fish. He generally remains quietly at the bottom of the sea, and seldom rises to the surface THE CHARACTER OF THE OYSTER. 55 to blow. He is never seen in a storm, as his fins are not large enough to enable him to swim against the waves. He is not a fast swimmer, and cares little for the mad whirl of the race. As a beast, the oyster is not a success. He is too peaceful and serene. It is very evident, on slight consideration, that he was never planned for a carnivorous animal. Like the angleworm, he has no teeth ; but he has a powerful gum. Yet for all this, he never uses any " gum-games." He is not wary. Reposing peacefully on the bed of the ocean, he takes no thought for the morrow. But if any beast ventures inside his gums, he awakes to the stern realities of life ; he touches a spring on the back of his neck, and shuts himself up. He thus craftily keeps his victim from escaping, and after a time succeeds in starving it to death. He then sits on it until it becomes a part of his own body. This, we admit, is but an ingenious supposition ; but as the oyster has no teeth, this is probably the way in which he acts. If it be asked why the animal itself does not feed on the oyster, instead of starving, we reply that we are not here to an- swer petty conundrums, but for scientific investigation. Then as a bird. The oyster is a sedate bird. He be- longs to the tribe of wingless birds. Has the oyster then no wings? No. Neither the oyster nor the mud-turtle have wings. How then do we know that the oyster is a bird ? This is not a matter of knowledge, but a matter of inference. Birds have no teeth. We have also seen that the oyster has no teeth. Hence we have a right to infer that the oyster is a bird. But it may be objected that the oyster does not sing. Nor yet do all birds sing. Neither the owl, the butterfly, or the duck, sing. The objection therefore is not well taken. The 0} T ster is of a singularly melancholy disposition. He lives in a constant state of anxiety : for he knows not at what moment he may be called aloft — and " butchered to make a Roman holiday." E. M. Rewey. 56 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. SELFISHNESS NOT THE MASTER MOTIVE. (Abridged.) Note 23. Short-sighted is the philosophy which counts on selfish- ness as the master motive of human action. It is blind to facts of which the world is full. It sees not the present and reads not the past aright. If you would move men to action, to what shall you appeal ? Not to their pockets, but to their patriotism ; not to selfishness, but to sympathy. Self-interest is a mechanical force, potent, it is true, capable of large and wide results. But there is in human nature that which may be likened to a chemical force : which melts, and fuses, and overwhelms : to which nothing seems impossible. "All that a man hath will he give for his life "; that is self-interest. But in loyalty to higher interests men will give even life. It is not selfishness that enriches the annals of every peo- ple with heroes and saints. It is not selfishness that on every page of the world's history bursts out in sudden splendor of noble deeds, or sheds the soft radiance of be- nignant lives. It was not selfishness that turned Gautama's back to his royal home, or bade the Maid of Orleans lift the sword from the altar ; that held the Three Hundred in the Pass of Thermopylae,, or gathered into Winkelried's bosom the sheaf of spears ; that chained Vincent de Paul to the bench of the galley, or brought little starving children dur- ing the Indian famine tottering to the relief- stations with yet weaker starvelings in their arms ! Call it religion, pa- triotism, sympathy, the enthusiasm for humanity, or the love of God ; give it what name you will : there is yet a force which overcomes or drives out selfishness ; a force which is the electricity of the moral universe ; a force be- side which all other forces are weak. Everywhere that men have lived it has shown its power, and to-day, as ever, the world is full of it. To be pitied is the man who has never seen, never felt it. Look around ! Among common DOCTORING TJNDEU DIFFICULTIES. 57 men and women, amid the care and the struggle of daily life, in the jar of the noisy street and amid the squalor where want hides, everywhere is the darkness lighted with the tremulous play of its lambent flames. He who has not seen it, has walked with shut eyes. He who looks may see, as Plutarch says, that " the soul has a principle of kindness in itself, and is born to love, as well as to perceive, to think, or to remember." Heney Geokge. DOCTORING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. " We went over from Larmy in July, eight years ago — ■ four of us. There was me and Charcoal Brown and old Joe and young Joe Connoy. We had just got comforiable down on the Lower Fork, out of reach of everybody and sixty miles from a doctor, when Charcoal Brown got sick. Well, we had a big time of it, You can imagine yourself something about it. Long in the night Brown began to groan and whoop and holler, and I made a diagnosis of him. He didn't have much sand anyhow. He was trying to get a pension from the Government on the grounds of desertion and failure to provide, or some such thing or another, so I didn't feel much sympathy for him. But when I lit the gas and exam- ined him I found that he had a large fever on hand, and there we were without a thing in the house but a jug of emigrant whisky and a paper of condition powders for the mule. I was a good deal puzzled at first to know what the dickens to do fur him The whisky wouldn't do him any good, and, besides, if he was goin' to have a long spell of sickness, we needed it for the watchers. " Wall, it was rough. I'd think of a thousand things that was good fur fevers, and then I'd remember that we hadn't got 'em. Finally old Joe says to me : 'James, why don't ye soak his feet ? ' says he. ' Soak nuthin',' says I, ' what would ye soak 'em in ? ' We had a long-handled frying- 3* 58 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. pan, and we could heat water in it, of course, but it was too shaller to do any good anyhow, so we abandoned that syn- opsis right off. First I thought I'd try the condition pow- ders in him ; but I hated to go into a case and prescribe so reckless. Finally I thought about a case of rheumatiz that I had up in Bitter Creek years ago, and how the boys filled their socks full of hot ashes and put 'em all over me till it started the persbyterian and I got over it. So we begun to skirmish around the tent for socks, but I hope to die if there was a sock in the whole syndicate. Ez fur me, I never wore 'em ; but I did think young Joe would be fixed. He wasn't, though ; said he didn't want to be considered proud and high-strung, so he left his socks at home. " Then we begun to look around, and finally decided that Brown would die pretty soon if we didn't break up the fever, so we concluded to take all the ashes under the camp- fire, fill up his cloze, which was loose, tie his sleeves at the wrists and his pants at the ankles, give him a dash of con- dition powders and a little whisky to take the taste out of his mouth, and then see what ejosted nature would do. " So we stood Brown up agin a tree and poured hot ashes down his back till he begun to fit his cloze pretty quick, and then we laid him down in the tent and covered him up with everything we had in our humble cot. Everything worked well till he begun to perspirate, and then there was music. That kind of soaked the ashes, don't you see, and made a lye that would take the peeling off a telegraph pole. " Charcoal Brown jest simply riz up and uttered a shrill whoop that jarred the geology of Colorado, and made my blood run cold. The goose flesh riz on old Joe Connoy till you could hang your hat on him anywhere. It was awful. " Brown stood up on his feet and threw things, and cussed us till we felt ashamed of ourselves. I've seen sickness a good deal in my time, but I never seen an invalid stand up in the loneliness of the night, far from home and friends, with the concentrated lye oozing out of the cracks in his boots, and reproach people the way Charcoal Brown did us. THE BAND Y FIFTH. 59 " He got over it, of course, before Christmas, but lie was a different man after that. I've been out campin' with him a good many times sence, but he never complained of f eelin 5 indisposed. He seemed to be timid about tellin' us even if he was under the weather, and old Joe Connoy said mebbe Brown was afraid we would prescribe fur him or sumthin'." Bill Nye. THE DANDY FIFTH. " I was one of those who enlisted first, The old flag to defend ; With Pope and Halleck, with " Mac " and Grant I followed it to the end ; And 'twas somewhere down on the Bapidan, When the Union Cause looked drear, That a regiment of rich young bloods Came down to us from here. " Their uniforms were by tailors cut ; They brought hampers of good wine ; And every squad had a nigger, too, To keep their boots in shine ; They had naught to say to us dusty vets, And through the whole brigade, "We called them the kid-gloved, Dandy Fifth, When we passed them on parade. " Well, they were sent to hold a fort The rebs tried hard to take, 'Twas the key to all our line, which naught While it held out could break. But a fearful fight we lost just then ; The reserve came up too late ; And on that fort and the Dandy Fifth Hun&' the whole division's fate. 60 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. " Three times we tried to take them aid, And each time back we fell, Though once we could hear the fort's far guns Boom like a funeral knell, Till at length Joe Hooker's corps came up, And then straight through we broke ; How we cheered as we saw those dandy coats Still back of the drifting smoke. " With the bands all front, and our colors spread, "We swarmed up the parapet, But the sight that silenced our welcome shout I shall never in life forget. Four days before had their water gone, They had dreaded that the most ; The next, their last scant rations went, And each man looked a ghost, " As he stood, gaunt-eyed, behind his gun, Like a crippled stag at bay, And watched starvation, though not defeat, Draw nearer every day. Of all the Fifth not fourscore men Could in their places stand, And their white lips told a fearful tale, As we grasped each bloodless hand. " The rest in the stupor of famine lay, Save here and there a few In death sat rigid against the guns, Grim sentinels in blue ; And their Colonel, he could not speak or stir, But we saw his proud eye thrill As he simply glanced at the shot-scarred staff, Where the old flag floated still. " Now, I hate the tyrants who grind us down While the wolf snarls at our door, GERMAN LO VE OF INDEPENDENCE. 61 And the men who have risen from us, to laugh At the misery of the poor ; But I tell you, mates, while this old, weak hand I have left the strength to lift, It will touch my cap to the proudest swell "Who fought in the Dandy Fifth ! Frank H. Gassaway. GERMAN LOVE OF INDEPENDENCE. Note 24. One element " shines like the stars " from Teutonic history — the love of personal independence. It is a bold, free spirit, but never turbulent and restless under the restraints of wholesome law. It seeks equality of rights, not of con- ditions. While the peasants of France and Italy were wrapped in the sleep of political death, their comrades of Germany were in active revolt against federal tyranny. This spirit has cherished the growth and influence of the free cities, taken shape and voice in the printing-press of Guttenberg, and made possible the supremacy of heart and brains. It is the grand secret of their national lif e, and will raise an effective protest to the repressive tendencies of all future Bismarcks. It is the very soul of their religion. It opened the sealed book in the cell of the Monastery and made it the dear old Bible of every German heart. It nailed the theses to the church door of Wurtemberg and proclaimed the liberty of conscience. Hear the voice which rises to-day from Catholic Europe. Dollinger leads it and his bold words seem the echoes of that other German priest whose pen shook to its centre the throne of corrupt Chris- tianity. This Teutonic instinct for liberty and law, for arts and thought, has gone forth a true knight-errant for the con- quest of the globe. In Holland it inspired the heroic re- 62 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. sistance of William the Silent, and drew from Carlyle his noble tribute to Dutch bravery. It crossed the Channel and sprung up in English evil with more electric energy. The Mayflower brought it to Plymouth and gave an unconscious benediction from the Old to the New. America, latest born of many generations, would rear a grateful memorial to Hengist and Horsa, her German ancestors. Thus have the two races impressed their f eatures on the pages of their histories. The one describes a people gay and gallant, and brilliant beyond all rivalry and all example. Their keen logic and intuitive perception have made them the world's interpreters of science and philosophy. Their sympathetic nature joined with a transparent lauguage has placed them in the vanguard of modern civilization ; but their checkered career sadly reveals the want of those im- perial traits, love of truth and duty. Vanity and fickleness have made them a by- word among nations, and caused their brightest lives to go out in strange lands or in fratricidal strife. Behold a contrast ! Reverence for the sacred and the true, imaginations to bless the humblest toil or enrich the noblest conceptions, tenderness for the affection and purity of domestic life, patience to discover the most hidden truths, courage to avow every deliberate conviction, charity toward every form of honest belief, these are now, as they have ever been, the vital elements of the Teutonic character. Arthur S. Hoyt. THE INFLUENCE OF DRAMATIC FOETRY. Note 25. Dramatic poetry is sympathetic, elevating, imaginative. Not an arbitrary growth. Its elements are moulded to give expression to the passions and innate wants of human na- ture. These faculties are of the deepest forces of man's heart, asserting his mutual dependence, his destiny, and his power. Human action or suffering, unselfish, courageous, THE INFL UENGE OF DRAMA TIC POETE T. 63 patient, or heroic, lays hold of humanity universal. If high historic character serves as example and guide, much more shall its concentrated representation move and inspire. Does not Cassar breathe more strongly in the page of the drama than in history ? Is not Shylock the Jew of the cen- turies ? Does not Richelieu live most real and vivid life in Bulwer's picture ? It is objected against the poetry of the drama, that it "aims to inspire passion without appeal to the judgment"; that it " blunts susceptibility and deadens sympathy." In estimating any value, we are to consider it in its highest type and most perfect application. The power of art is not to be judged by any average between purest ideal of beauty and extreme of mediocrity. It claims praise not in its daubs and plaster casts, but in its Titians and Angelos. So be it of dramatic poetry. Else than beautiful and true, the drama deserves not the name ; is a mongrel creation un- worthy of perpetuity or respect. It "stands for judgment" in no drapery of treacherous doggerel or fantastic sham, but upon the merits of its noblest, purest forms. We reply then, that the true drama, stripped of artificiality and deceit, can awaken the sympathy that it makes more delicate, only where judgment assents. If the likeness is to the life, the feeling must be natural and just. Does the heroic seem less sublime because of Prometheus fettered to Caucasus ? Does the heart execrate villainy the less, having read of Iago, or treachery because of Duncan's murder ? Does it grow harder over Prince Arthur pleading for his eyes? Is purity, or sacrifice, or fidelity, less beautiful because Miranda and Cordelia and Desdemona have lived and loved ? Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history ; teaching- man the distauce between his wishes and his powers. The proof of truth in the drama is the finding one's self in it ; in its realizing the ideal of life ; in its sympathy with the heroic hunger of our dreams. Age becomes young again in recollection. Youth girds itself anew for the long race. Manhood rouses with holier ambition. It finds a perfect 64 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. reception in each heart, because the universal heart of hu- manity beats through it. Impressing all that lives so full and warm in life, it is the mirror of the soul, as the soul is the mirror of the Infinite God. M. "W. Strykeb. THE PILGRIM STATUE IN CENTRAL PARK. Note 36. The Puritan came to America seeking freedom to wor- ship God. He meant only freedom to worship God in his own way, not in the Quaker way, not in the Baptist way, not in the Church of England way. But the seed that he brought was immortal. Freedom to worship God is uni- versal freedom, a free State as well as a free Church, and that was the inexorable but unconscious logic of Puritanism. Holding that the rule of religious faith and worship was written in the Bible, and that every man must read and judge for himself, the Puritan conceived the Church as a body of independent seekers and interpreters of the truth, dispensing with priests arid priestly orders and functions ; organizing itself and calling no man master. But this sense of equality before God and toward each other in the relig- ious congregation, affecting and adjusting the highest and most eternal of all human relations, that of man to his Maker, applied itself instinctively to the relation of man to man in human society, and thus popular government flowed out of the Reformation, and the Republic became the natu- ral political expression of Puritanism. Banished, moreover, by the pitiless English persecution, the Puritans, exiles, and poor in a foreign land, a colony in Holland before they were a colony in America, were compelled to self-government, to a common sympathy and support, to bearing one another's burdens, and so by the stern experience of actual life they were trained in the virtues most essential for the fulfilment of their august but unimagined destiny. The patriots of the Continental Congress seemed to Lord Chatham impos- THE PILGRIM STATUE IN CENTRAL PARK. 65 ing beyond the lawgivers of Greece and Rome. The Con- stitutional Convention a hundred years ago was an assembly so wise that its acconixilished work is reverently received by continuous generations as the children of Israel received the tables of the law which Moses brought down from the holy mount. Happy, thrice happy, the people which to such scenes in their history can add the simple grandeur of the spectacle in the cabin of the Mayflower, the Puritans signing the compact which was but the formal expression of the Government that voluntarily they had established — the scene which makes Plymouth Rock a stepping-stone from the freedom of the solitary Alps and the disputed liberties of England to the fully developed constitutional and well- ordered Republic of the United States.* In our second historical epoch, that of the Union, the essential controversy, under whatever plea and disguise, was that of the fundamental principle of free government with a social, political, and industrial system to which that principle was absolutely hostile. There was but one force which could oppose the vast and accumulated power of slavery in this country, and that was the force which in other years and lands had withstood the consuming terrors of the hierarchy and the crushing despotism of the crown — the conscience of the people ; a moral conviction so un- daunted and uncompromising that endurance could not exhaust it nor suffering, nor wounds, nor death appall. The great service of the Puritan in the second epoch was the appeal to this conscience which prepared it for the con- flict. Here in this sylvan seclusion, amid the sunshine and the singing of birds, we raise the statue of the Pilgrim, that in this changeless form the long procession of the gener- ations which shall follow us may see what manner of man he was to the outward eye, whom history and tradition have so often flouted and traduced, but who walked undis- mayed the solitary heights of duty and of everlasting ser- vice to mankind. Here let him stand, the soldier of a free * This selection may eud here, and the remainder used separately. 66 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Church, calmly defying the hierarchy, the builder of a free State serenely confronting the continent which he shall settle and subdue. The unspeaking lips shall chide our unwor- thiness, the lofty mien exalt our littleness, the unblenching eye invigorate our weakness, and the whole poised and firmly planted form reveal the unconquerable moral en- ergy — the master force of American civilization. So stood the sentinel on Sabbath morning guarding the plain house of prayer w T hile wife and child and neighbor worshipped within. So mused the pilgrim in the rapt sunset hour on the New England shore, his soul caught up into the dazzling vision of the future, beholding the glory of the Nation that should be. And so may that Nation stand forever and for- ever, the mighty guardian of human liberty, of godlike justice, of Christlike brotherhood. Geokge William Cuktis. THE POTENCY OF SPIRITUAL FORCE. Note 27. Do we seek a clearer sign of the validity of spiritual force ? See what it has done in the form of architecture. The great buildings of the world, the costliest, most ma- jestic, most beautiful, as creations of skill the most won- derful, as monuments of art the most splendid and en- during, are the temples of religion, the houses of the spirit. The Old World, as we call it, owes to them a large part of its present interest and fame. The lands where the greatest races have flourished, the lands where the great races had their origin, bear on their bosom, either as miracles of grandeur and marvels of loveliness, or as stu- pendous mysteries of ruin, these triumphs of creative genius. In erecting them, millions gave their labor, gen- erations gave their time, kings gave their treasure, mas- ter-minds gave their thought ; the earth gave the gleam of its marble, the strength of its iron, the glory of its sil- THE POTENCY OF SPIRITUAL FORGE. 67 ver and gold, the lustre of its gems ; and all was done under the working of the invisible hands of faith and love. Admit that ignoblest motives played their part, admit that the basest passions, the most abject fears, the most sordid interests had their share in the work, still the activity of these must be accounted for, and their presence, yet more their submission, attests the controlling influence of the sentiments of aspiration and worship, the feeling of the reality of divine things which is so sig- nificant an element in the human constitution. The kings' palaces sink into insignificance by the side of these amaz- ing structures ; cities have disappeared and left them standing ; civilizations have perished, and they remain ; tribes of men have passed away from the scene of their conquest and pride, and bequeathed only these ruins to tell where and what they were. The monuments of their adoration alone bear witness to their past existence. How can one, remembering the rock temples of Hindostan, the gigantic remains of Thebes, the mournful beauty of the Parthenon of Athens, or the loveliness of the Temple of Neptune on the solitary promontory of Pa?stum, speak of the spiritual imbecility of man? for in these structures faith has indeed proved itself equal to the task of taking up mountains in its invisible hands. Turn to literature. The literature of the race is thus far its greatest achievement. And of all literatures exist- ing among men, the spiritual literatures are the grandest. The richest books, those that attest the highest intellect- ual power, the deepest insight, the widest observation, the warmest enthusiasm, the most indomitable faith in man and his destiny, are the Bibles. They are monumental, eternal books. The scientific mind has produced great works ; the philosophical mind has filled libraries with its speculative thought. But, in both quantity and quality of productiveness, the spiritual mind outdoes them all. What beliefs have ever ruled the world as spiritual beliefs have ? "What ideas have ever so made themselves the an- THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. imating spirit of epochs? Theology, that intellectual and literary fact which so many cling to, and so many assail, revere it or despise it, honor it or hate it as we will, is a fact of the spiritual order, and stands as a permanent witness of the action of powers that are neither to be discredited nor condemned.* But there is another test that to some will be more con- vincing than any of the foregoing, to which allusion at least must be made. I mean the test of character, f Character is disciplined will, said Novalis. Might it not be better said that character is condensed aspiration, compacted and or- ganized fidelity ? Character is the greatest human achieve- ment, greater than creeds, theologies, bibles, cathedrals. On a friend's estate, by the seaside, all alone in a rocky cleft, a ruin of jagged rocks all about it, no earth visible within yards, exposed to the fiercest winter blasts from the ocean, to the fiercest summer heats, to snow and tempests and bitter spray, I saw an old cedar-tree. It had stood there probably four or five hundred years. It is a strange object to see, gnarled and twisted, without bark, its wood hard as iron, its fibres bound round and round its trunk like masses of cord, its boughs huddled together as if for mutual protection, griping each other closely, interlaced so compactly as to form a network hardly pervious to the swift wind or the driving rain, every atom of vitality in it brought into use for safety against the elements, and its broad crest flat and thick, green as emerald, and in appearance soft as young grass, yet so solid that a man might sit upon it as upon firm ground. It was an emblem of vitality resisting the pressure of outward circumstances. It was the result of the conflict between the compacted force of aerial currents, the fine tricklings of sap and the wild destructive powers of the surrounding nature. The tree was an emblem of rugged manhcod. As we look over the records of history, we see human beings who in certain aspects resemble that ancient * This selection may end here, and the remainder beginning- at. the t used separately under the title, " Character." THE A3IEXDE HOXORABLE. 69 cedar. The spiritual vitality in them, their faith, their love, their reverence, self-respect, adoration of qualities that seemed noble, have triumphed over the wild elements about them, and made them invulnerable to outward assault. These are the people of character. The discoverers and in- ventors, the men illustrious in art, music, statesmanship, lit- erature, are less numerous than these. The fine saints out- number the fine sages. Character is a larger fact than genius. O. B. Frothingham. THE AMENDE HONORABLE. Note 28. ( By permission. ) Captain McQuack was a warlike man, And a positive man was he : He had travelled from Carrick to Killtogran, From Ballyknocknolly to Ballyboshan, And all that he did not see You might pack in a thimble or hide in the pod Of the tiniest kind of a pea. He was a warrior, through and through, And always ready to fight ; But never trained with the cowardly crew That war upon women and children, too, "With deadly dynamite. Like many a warrior, brave as he, As facile in feats of war, "Whose nouns and verbs do better agree, Who has travelled three times as far, The Captain would sometimes tell a tale — And many a tale he told — Hard to believe, for, like a sieve, The water it would not hold. He would tell o." gondolas flying about In the forest of Turkestan : 70 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Of gargoyles shot in the very spot "Where he lassoed a catamaran : Of the seal he captured at Jubbulpoor, And an hour later lost In the diamond mine near Kindookoor, A hundred and seventeen miles, or more, Below the limit of frost. One day, in covering the ground Of gastronomic art, From the roasting of an ibex round To the baking of a tart, Of anchovies he chanced to speak. " You will find," said the travelled man, " No better, if through the world you seek, From Mulligan's meadow to Mozambique, Than thim that grows, in thropical snows, On the threes all over Soudan." To him a hearer dared to say, " Nay, Thim does not grow on threes ; Thim is a fish that swums the say : And the lave of the wealth I own to-day — That's f our- and-siven -pence — I will lay That Father Coyle agrees." " Bother the praist ! " said brave McQuack, " It's that I lie, ye'd hint." To the field forthwith they took the track, And each man picked his flint. Then, at the word, two bullets sped ; One through the viewless air Over the gallant Captain's head ; One, meeting an obstacle rare, Was cleverly caught, as it were, on the fly, By the Captain's rash antagonist's thigh. Then followed a season of spring and swear ; THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. 71 For it's very hard, you can't deny, The pain of a bullet's sting to bear, Without a yell and a spring in air, E'en with your foeman standing by. The Captain's second was first to speak. " How he capers ! " said he, with a smile. " Holy Moses ! " cried Mac, with a blaze on his cheek ; " It was Capers I mint all the while ! " Then, like a gentleman true that he was, He offered his hand to his foe. " Shake, sir," said he, " I ax pardon, because Of a blunder I'm guilty, I know. You war right : I war wrong, sir, but what should we care ? In calling it up there's no profit. I've called you out, and we'll both call it square, And nayther will think more of it." " But what," said the wounded man, " what of my thigh? And what of the bullet that's in it ? " " Niver moind," said McQuack ; " there's a docthor near by, And he'll twist out the ball in a minute." R. W. McAlpine, in Harpers' Monthly. THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL. Note 29. Of all the powers and faculties of the human mind, the noblest is the one which God has created for Himself ; and if that reverential or adoring faculty do not exist or be by suicidal hands extirpated, the world will soon cease to feel the man who had no fear of God. And thus, while the Voltaires and Rousseaus of Atheist memory are waxing old, and vanishing from the firmament of letters, names of less renown, but more religion, brighten to a greater lustre. 72 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. No man can long keep a hold of his fellow-men, unless he himself has hold of God. But if a sincere and strenuous theism be thus important, such natural faith in God as buoyed the wing of Plato in his long and ethereal flights, or sustained the Saxon muscle of Shakespeare in his might- iest efforts, incomparably more prevalent is that intellectual prowess which a spiritual faith produces. The Gospel, beyond all controversy, was Milton's poetic might ; and the Gospel was the torch which, on the hills of Renfrewshire, fired a Pollock till Britain spied the light and wondered at the glowing beacon. Digging in the Pompeii of the Middle Age, Lorenzo and Leo found the lamps in which the old classic fires had burned ; but they had long since gone out. For models of candelabra and burners, there could be found no better than Livy and Horace, and Plato and Pindar ; but the faith which once filled them, the old pagan fervor, was long since extinct, and the lamps were only fit for the antiquary. It was then that, in the crypt of the convent, Luther and Zwingli and Melancthon saw a line of supernatural light, and with lever and mattock lifted the gravestone, and found the gospel which had long been buried. There it had flamed, " a light shining in a dark place," through unsus- pected ages, the long-lost lamp in the sepulchre. Jupiter was dead, and Minerva had melted into ether, and the most elegant idols of antiquity had gone to the moles and bats. But there is One who cannot die, and does not change ; and the fountain of learning is He who is also the fountain of life. Prom His book it was that the old classic lamps were again kindled ; and from that book it was that Bacon and Locke and Milton, and all the mighty spirits of modern Europe, caught the fire which made them blaze the meteors of our firmament, the marvels of our favored time. If any one is ambitious to be the lasting teacher or the extensive light of society, to paint, to think, or to sing for a wider world than our railway readers, let him remember that nothing can immortalize the works of genius if there THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE PEOPLE. 73 be no Gospel in them. The facts of that Gospel are the world's main stock of truth. The fire of that Gospel is the only Promethean spark which can ignite our dead truths into quenchless and world-quickening powers. James Hamilton. THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF THE PEOPLE. Our public affairs have never been controlled, or even shaped, by our great men. We have had no Caesar or Cromwell or Napoleon or Luther. Even "Washington's in- fluence is hard to trace. Neither he nor John Adams nor Franklin looked for separation from England three months before Lexington and Concord, as neither Lincoln nor Sew- ard anticipated a long war at the outbreak of the Kebellion. Popular sentiment never has been, with us, the voice of great leaders. The eloquence of Otis and Patrick Henry, the wisdom of Hamilton and Madison, the consecration of Sam- uel Adams and of Washington, if not kindled at the hearths of the people, found there the prepared material without which they would have spoken in vain. The farmers who hastened to Concord Bridge needed no call of a trumpet. The rattling fire of their flint-locks proclaimed the spon- taneous uprising of the people, as the first lapping of the wave on the beach proclaims the oncoming rush of the tide. Many of you will remember the attempt made, a few years ago, to repudiate the obligation to pay our national debt in gold. It was an attempt so plausible as to beguile statesmen like Senator John Sherman. It seemed to be about to carry the nation into the abyss of liars and cheats. What delivered us ? I listened, one evening, to the reason- ing of General Butler, as, in the town hall of a Massachu- setts village, he tried to persuade the people to support re- pudiation. Coming out, I walked behind a farmer and his wife. The woman was much perplexed. "What will they 4 74 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. do about it ? " at last she said. " Do about it ? " answered the old man. " They'll pay the bonds in gold, of course." It was this sturdy integrity of the common people, which no sophistry could delude, and no base appeal to self-interest could shake, that swept the Devil behind its back and held the Government to the letter of its bond. It has long been the fashion of some to sneer at the wis- dom of the people. Mr. Matthew Arnold has of late dep- recated the influence among us of what he terms the "numbers." He builds his hope for our future upon the rule of the elect remnant that may still exist. Carlyle crammed his contempt into the phrase, " A certain people, once upon a time, voted, by overwhelming majority, ' Not this man, but Barabbas.' " Nevertheless, our national his- tory is one long testimony to the general trustworthiness of the common people ; and when that ceases to be the fact, the nation will soon cease to be. Henry A. Stimson. TRUE REFORMERS. To the rightly constituted mind, to the truly developed man, there always is, there always must be, opportunity : opportunity to be and to learn, nobly to do and to endure ; and what matter whether with pomp and sound of trumpets and shout of applauding thousands, or in silence and seclu- sion, beneath the calm, discerning gaze of Heaven? No station can be humble on which that gaze is approvingly bent ; no work can be ignoble which is performed uprightly, and not impelled by sordid and selfish aims. Not from among the children of monarchs, ushered into being with boom of cannon, and shouts of reveling millions, but from amid the sons of obscurity and toil, cradled in peril and ignominy, from the bulrushes and the manger, come forth the benefactors and saviors of mankind. So, when all the babble and glare of our age shall have passed TRUE REFORMERS. 75 into a fitting oblivion ; when those who have enjoyed rare opportunities, and swayed vast empires, and been borne through life on the shoulders of shouting multitudes, shall have been laid at last to rest in golden coffins, to molder forgotten, the stately marble their only monuments, it will be found that some humble youth, who neither inherited nor found, but hewed out his opportunities, has uttered the thought which shall render the age memorable, by extend- ing the means of enlightenment and blessing to our race. The great struggle for human progress and elevation pro- ceeds noiselessly, often unnoted, often checked, and appar- ently baffled. In that struggle, maintained by the wise and good of all parties, all creeds, all climes, bear ye the part of men. _ Heed the lofty summons, and, with souls serene and constant, prepare to tread boldly in the path of highest duty. So shall life be to you truly exalted and heroic ; so shall death be a transition neither sought nor dreaded ; so shall your memory, though cherished at first but by a few humble, loving hearts, linger long and gratefully in human remembrance, a watchword to the truthful, and an incitement to generous endeavor, freshened by the proud tears of admiring affection, and fragrant with the odors of heaven ! "We need a loftier ideal to nerve us for heroic lives. To know and feel our nothingness, without regretting it ; to deem fame, riches, personal happiness, but shadows, of which human good is the substance ; to welcome pain, privation, ignominy, so that the sphere of human knowl- edge, the empire of virtue, be thereby extended — such is the soul's temper in which the heroes of the coining age shall be cast. When the stately monuments of mightiest conquerors shall have become shapeless and forgotten ruins, the hum- ble graves of earth's Howards and Frys shall still be fresh- ened by the tears of fondly admiring millions, and the proud- est epitaph shall be the simple entreaty, — " Write me as one who loved his fellow-men." Horace Greeley. 76 THE ADVANCED SPEAEEB. ARREST, TRIAL, AND DEATH OF DANTON. (Abridged.) Note 30. When Danton, hastily summoned by Camille, returned to Paris, friends trembling at the result of a quarrel between him and Robespierre, brought them to meet. " It is right," said Danton, swallowing much indignation, " to repress the Royalists ; but we should not strike except where it is useful to the Republic ; we should not confound the innocent and the guilty." "And who told you," replied Robespierre, with a poisonous look, " that one innocent person had per- ished ? " " What ? " said Danton, turning round to juryman Fabricius ; " What, not one innocent ? What say you of it, Fabricius ? " Friends of Danton urged him to fly. His wife urged him. "Whither fly?" answered he. "If freed France cast me out, there are only dungeons for me else- where ! One does not carry his country with him at the sole of his shoe." The man Danton sat still. On the night of the 30th of March, juryman Fabricius came rushing in, haste looking through his eyes. A clerk of the Committee has told him Danton is to be arrested this very night. " They dare not ! " replies Danton ; and murmuring, " They dare not ! " he goes to sleep as usual. And yet, on the morrow morning, strange rumor spreads over Paris city. Danton and Camille are both arrested! The Convention clusters itself into groups, wide-eyed, whis- pering, " Danton arrested ! " Who, then, is safe ? He had but three days to lie in prison. " What is your name ? — place of abode ? " and the like, Tinville asks him, when brought to the bar, according to formality. "My name is Danton," answers he, " a name tolerably known in the Revolution. My abode will soon be Annihilation ; but I shall live in the Pantheon of History ! " Some five months ago, the trial of the twenty-two Giron- dists was the greatest that Tinville had then done ; but here ABREST, TRIAL, AND DEATH OF D ANTON. 77 is a still greater to do, a thing which makes the very heart of him waver. For it is the voice of Danton, which now reverberates from these domes ; in passionate words, pierc- ing in their wild sincerity, winged with wrath. He raises his huge stature ; he shakes his huge black head, fire flashes from the eyes of him, piercing to all Eepublican hearts ; so that the very galleries, though filled by ticket, murmur sym- pathy. " Danton hidden on the 10th of August ? " rever- berates he, with the roar of a lion in the toils. " Where are the men who had to press Danton to show himself that day ? Where are these high-gifted souls of whom I bor- rowed energy ? Let them appear, these accusers of mine. I have all the clearness of self-possession when I demand them. I will unmask the three shallow scoundrels, who fawn on Robespierre, and lead him toward his destruction ! Let them produce themselves here. I will plunge them into noth- ingness, out of which they ought never to have risen ! " The agitated President agitates his bell ; enjoins calmness, in a vehement manner. " What is it to thee how I defend my- self ? " cries the other ; " the right of dooming me is thine always ; the voice of a man speaking for his honor and his life may well drown the jingling of thy bell ! " Danton carried a high look in the death cart, carnivorous rabble howling round, palpable, and yet incredible, like a madman's dream. " Calm, my friend," said he to Camille, " heed not that vile canaille." At the foot of the scaffold he was heard to ejaculate : " Oh, my wife, my well beloved, I shall never see thee more, then ! " — but interrupting him- self : "Danton, no weakness ! " "Thou wilt show my head to the people ! " said he to the headsman ; " it is worth showing ! " So passed, like a gigantic mass of valor, ostentation, fury, affection, and wild revolutionary force and manhood, this Danton, to his unknown home. He had many sins ; bat one worst sin he had not, that of cant. No hollow formalist, deceptive and self-deceptive, was tins ; but a very man. With all his dross, he was a man — fiery-real, from the great 78 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. fire-bosom of nature herself. He saved France from Bruns- wick. He walked straight his own wild road, whither it led him. He may live some generations yet in the memory of men. Thomas Caklyle. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. {By permission of Houghton & Mifflin.) This is the ship of pearl which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main : The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purple wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare ; Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell Where its dim-dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed : Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed. Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread the lustrous coil : Still as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining doorway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, PROGRESS AND INVENTION. 79 Cast from her lap, forlorn ! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton "blew from wreathed horn ! "While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life' s unresting sea. Oliver W. Holmes. PROGRESS AND INVENTION". Note 31. The reason why the race of man moves slowly is because it must move all together. The poor, the ignorant, the down- trodden are always saying to the rich and educated, inartic- ulately too often, but with a voice which brooks no deny- ing, " If you advance, you must take us with you." It is not the knowledge of the great men, the skill of the great ora- tors, the philosophy of the great sages that make civiliza- tion. There are no orators to-day as persuasive as Cicero, no philosophers or wise men greater than Aristotle or Plato. Yet civilization was not of their day, but of ours. The sun- light of knowledge for us has got beyond the hill-tops. The valleys of to-day are not as beautiful as were the hills of yore, but they teem with life and health and ver- dure. All inventions are subject to the same law. "We owe them not to one, but to many. Man has thus far created no greater thing than the steam-engine. With that invention the name of James Watt is synonymous in the popular mind. To him alone that great benefaction 80 THE AD VANGED SPEAKER. is attributed ; just as the grandeur of England under the Puritans is attributed to Cromwell Both ascriptions of praise are false alike. Man did not leap at one bound from the simmering tea-kettle to the roaring steam-engine. *From Hero to James Watt were scores of inventors whose names are known, and thousands of whom we know noth- ing, each struggling for the one step in advance possible to his age and time until after thousands of years the full-grown locomotive, twenty thousand strong, whirls eight hundred thousand men every day, in houses more capacious than Hero lived in, all over a continent of which Hero never dreamed. In inventions each man helps his successor. Had Jacquard never been summoned to Paris by Carnot he might never have seen Vaucanson's machine, and might have spent his life in vain studies for his fam- ous loom. Not only does one invention have to wait upon another, but all inventors have to wait upon the progress of the world. Kailroads had to wait until enough men could afford to travel, until men were civilized enough to let them alone. It took a world with myriads of people in it to make the telephone what it is. In James Watt's time and just before, all the inventive minds were intent on the problem of steam. Why was this then and not before ? You can see why if you examine the industrial condition of England at that epoch. They had reached the point of progress where only the steam-engine was needed to drag countless wealth out of the bowels of the earth, to make fabrics which should glut the market of the world. Why is it that in America we first reached those wonder- ful improvements in agricultural implements which have revolutionized the cultivation of the soil ? It was because our vast prairies were beyond the hoe and the rake. To-day thousands and thousands of minds are at work on electricity. A hundred years ago you might have counted them with your fingers. A hundred years have made the world rich enough to have electric lights to make their cities blaze with illumination. T. B. Reed. PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 81 PROTECTION OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. Note 32. It is said by the apologists of British, arrogance and Amer- ican pusillanimity that under the act of Parliament, known as the coercion act, it is lawful for men and women to be arrested, sentenced, and indefinitely imprisoned who have committed no crime, and are charged with none, but who have fallen under the suspicion of the spies and informers of the British Government. We hear these unfortunate captives styled " suspects," not criminals, but " suspects." They are not alleged to have violated any law, but they are suspected of an intention to discuss those questions, as old as human existence, which involve the scant measure of bread on their poor tables, and the hard beds on which they and their children sleep. The law of sworn accusation, in- dictment, public trial, and conviction before imprisonment under sentence, has given way to the law of suspicion. There can be no more atrocious system of jurisprudence than this ; there can be no blacker crime committed by a Gov- ernment against its own citizens, or those who happen to so- journ within its barbarous jurisdiction. Tiberius, imprison- ing and slaughtering Roman citizens upon suspicions poured into his ears by his infamous parasite, Sejanus, presented not such a spectacle of horror as the British Government in its policy toward Ireland now presents. The evil-minded tyrant of Borne lived in a darker age than this. He was a heathen ; this is the nineteenth cen- tury of the Christian era, and near its majestic close. Such an enactment as the coercion act now in operation in Ire- land cannot be law at this period of the world ; it is the subversion of law ; it openly assaults every element of jus- tice, human and divine ; it grapples with and seeks to over- turn those immutable, eternal, inherent rights of man which are higher and stronger than all the acts of repressive legis- lation in the entire annals of despotism. If it is claimed that a government has the right to legislate for its own 4* 82 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. citizens as it pleases: even this cannot be admitted without qualification. The civilized nations of the earth are not compelled to stand silently by and see one of their number convert itself into a prison or a charnel-house. Interna- tional law recognizes a point where they may interfere in the interests of humanity. But I am only insisting now that Great Britain shall not be allowed to consign American cit- izens to chains and death, whatever she may do with her own, by virtue of an act which uproots, overturns, and an- nihilates every vestige of freedom and law. I am insisting that when the American, " be he a native- born or naturalized citizen," goes abroad in the peaceful pursuit of his own affairs, whether of business or pleasure, the nationality which he carries shall protect him as well from judicial as from clandestine murder ; from the illegal acts of foreign governments as well as from the brutal con- duct of foreign mobs. Under existing treaties with foreign powers American citizens who happen within their jurisdic- tion are entitled to the best, not the worst, treatment which these powers can furnish to their own people. Less than this would render our citizenship a delusion and a snare to all who relied upon it in the hour of need ; Let us look this momentous question plainly in the face. We can less afford to ignore it or trifle with it than any other government on the globe. All our interests, tradi- tions, and every sentiment of sacred honor bind us to the most vigilant protection of our citizens wherever they may be and whatever their nativity. The American Republic was established by the united valor and wisdom of the lov- ers of liberty from all lands. The Frenchman with his gay disregard of danger, the German with his steady courage, the Pole with his high enthusiasm, and the Irishman with all these qualities combined were here in the long and bloody contest for American independence. Lafayette, the beloved of Washington ; Hamilton, who rode by his side and assisted to organize the Government ; Pulaski, who fell at the head of his legion at Savannah ; DeKalb, who died THE OLD-FASHIONED MAN OF GOD. 83 upon the field with his sabre wounds in front ; Montgom- ery, who gave up his life in the storm of Quebec ; Steuben, the accomplished military organizer ; Kosciusko, with his genius and daring ; and large numbers of their followers and associates, were born under alien skies and came to the banquet of battle and death because of their love of human freedom. On every battle-plain of the Revolution, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, the bones of their countrymen have long since crumbled to dust ; and at every subsequent period of American history the foreign-born citizen, in council and in field, has been faithful to the common cause for which his ancestry bled. Daniel W. Voorhees. THE OLD-FASHIONED MAN OF GOD. (Abridged.) Note 33. The old-fashioned man of God was and still is a tremen- dous force in the world. We are now living on his virtue, such as we have. We are now directing our children to walk in the paths he cut out for us, though we wander away a good deal ourselves. Strength is necessary ; refinement is optional ; righteousness and justice are the only founda- tions, while culture and art are only ornamentation. In the race of life Isaac beats Ishmael, Jacob, Esau. "A short distance the sense is omnipotent," said a Yankee sage ; but for all that the spiritual qualities rule the world and the old Puritans, who feared God and paid attention to conduct, have never been whipped. If the sycophants were too many for him in England, he sailed to Plymouth Rock, waited 150 years, and took his revenge at Bunker Hill and Yorktown. Matthew Arnold fancies Shakespeare on board the Mayflower and insinuates he would have found the Pil- grims uncongenial company and very duh**" Perhaps, for Shakespeare was as shrewd in money-making as any Con^ 84 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. necticut transplanted Yorkshireman, and well he knew that if the Puritans got into power in England there would be no more play- houses, no sale for his " Merry Wives of Windsor," and his occupation and livelihood would be gone. Shake- speare had a grudge against Puritans and dogs. Possibly in the mad days of his youth, when he went poaching, he acquired his poor opinion of dogs ; and as for the Puritan — he was a standing menace to his purse. We who live now would doubtless find the Puritan tiresome company. A very good man is seldom interesting. He is all one color. There is no contrast — no black and white. Let us grant that the Puritans did not know how to make the best of this world, and that they would weary and irritate the ener- vated and revived Pompeiian instinct, so strong in this gen- eration. Well, he was not pleasant to live with, this old Puritan, from our point of view. Our tastes do not run in his direction nowadays. We go with the Cavaliers in taste ; but our principles are still with the Eoundheads and old- fashioned men of God. We like pleasure, but we reverence virtue. We are fond of a good fellow, but we admire and esteem only the strong man — the heroic soul — the servant of duty and God. And we cannot get on long in this world without him, without an occasional uprising of the Puri- tan to set things right ; society would not hold together, but would rot in incurable selfishness and sensuality and fall to pieces. Man is neither all senses nor all soul, but both, a complicated creature played upon by the motion of two contradictory natures. And since we can live without pleasure or beauty, but must perish without righteousness and truth, then the palm of preference, the verdict of superiority, the highest meed of admiration and praise must be given to Moses, Socrates, Paul, Milton, and not to Alexander, Epicurus, Napoleon, or Shakespeare. For men of the spirit, who hearken for the voice of Duty, keep the body under, side with conscience against convenience, prefer death with truth to life with lies. These men have created all the decency and order there is THE OLD-FASHIONED MAN OF GOD. 85 in the world, and they alone can preserve them. This world, with all its heroism and splendor and sublimation of daring and deed, achievement and character, has never surpassed and rarely equalled the genuine old Puritan. At a feast, on pleasure bent, we do not care to have his company. But if a State is to be founded, a society organized, a battle fought against Xerxes or the devil, then we want a Puritan, a man of iron and blood, who has abandoned the flesh, whose soul has no room in it except for the idea of God and conscience, who is strong in duty, who enthrones worship on the do- mestic hearth, truth before the tribunals, honesty in the counting-house, labor in the workshop, and puts conscience and truth into everything he does. He sniggled his Psalms, but he never counted the odds against him in any battle. He wrestled all night in prayer to ring from God the assent that his name was down in the roll of the elect ; but next morning he sent a messenger to Italy commanding a Pope " to let my brethren in Christ alone," or the Ironsides would scale the walls of San Angelo and sack the Vatican.* The Puritan was one gigantic, colossal man — fire, force, feeling, conviction ; and conviction and force conquer and dominate. An age of culture can never be an age of mar- tyrdom. Pessimism will never lead a forlorn hope. Ag- nosticism will never build a Pantheon. And science, by putting out the old stars, by silencing the authoritative voice of command, by advocating a gospel of dirt and pro- toplasm, has rendered it impossible, and made the Pilgrim Father a venerable name, a glorious memory, but no longer a present fact or a contemporary force. When shall we see his like again ? — that Corporal Valley-of -Dry-Bones harangu- ing a regiment, exhorting his colonel to greater zeal and reproving his major for lukewarmness ; weeping and wailing like a lost soul over his sin ; then rising up to pick his flint, dry his powder, rush upon the enemy with irresistible vol- ume — at last to put his foot on a king's neck. * This selection may end here, and the remainder used separately under the title, "Puritanism." 86 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The world is still in deep debt to Plymouth. Rock. Chiv- alry refined manners ; Puritanism created manliness and fortified the soul in virtue. Chivalry feared dishonor ; Pu- ritanism feared only to do evil. Chivalry advanced life ; Puritanism quickened life, renewing conscience, truth, duty, and G-od. Chivalry died for a lady's glove, a stolen kiss, a night intrigue ; Puritanism died for human rights, justice, freedom, and truth. Let us bless God that so much stern, unbending righteousness as he exhibited has been lived out in our land for our encouragement in well-doing. He was not nice. He had no amicable pleasantness, except Holland gin. He never suspended discipline even long enough to laugh at the pranks of a monkey, or to steal a kiss from his sweetheart before marriage. He was an angular, grim, unjoyous man ; persecution pursued him, even in Zion. He never opened the shutter on his soul. He had no summer in his religious year. His mind had no southern slope to it ; his nature no Greek element to it. He lived for duty and abandoned the flesh ; he was as strong as a Roman hero, and to him we owe the genius of our institu- tions and the greatness and glory of the Republic. John R. Paxton. THE BACONIAN PHILOSOPHY. {Abridged.) Note 34. Suppose that Justinian, when he closed the schools of Athens, had called on the last few sages who still haunted the Portico, and lingered round the ancient plane-trees, to show their title to public veneration. Suppose that he had said : " A thousand years have elapsed since, in this famous city, Socrates posed Protagoras and Hippias : during those thousand years a large proportion of the ablest men of every generation has been employed in constant efforts to bring to perfection the philosophy which you teach : that philos- THE BA GONI AN PHIL SOPHY. 87 ophy has been munificently patronized by the powerful : its professors have been held in high esteem by the public : it has drawn to itself almost all the sap and vigor of the human intellect : and what has it effected ? What profitable truth has it taught us which we should not equally have known without it ? " Such questions we suspect would have puz- zled Simplicius and Isidore. Ask a follower of Bacon what the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind and his answer is ready. We have sometimes thought that an amusing fiction might be written in which a disciple of Epictetus and a disciple of Bacon should be introduced as fellow travellers. They come to a village where the small-pox has just begun to rage, and find houses shut up, intercourse suspended, the sick abandoned, mothers weeping in terror over their chil- dren. The stoic assures the dismayed population that there is nothing bad in the small-pox, and that to a wise man dis- ease, deformity, death, the loss of friends, are not evils. The Baconian takes out a lancet and begins to vaccinate. They find a body of miners in great dismay. An explo- sion of noisome gas has just killed many of those who were at work ; and the survivors are afraid to venture into the cavern. The stoic assures them that such an accident is nothing but a mere apoproagmenon. The Baconian, who has no such fine word at his command, contents himself with devising a safety-lamp. They find a shipwrecked mer- chant wringing his hands on the shore ; his vessel and cargo have gone down, and he is reduced in a moment from opulence to beggary ; the stoic exhorts him not to seek happiness in things which lie without himself, and repeats a whole chapter of Epictetus. The Baconian constructs a diving-bell, goes down in it, and returns with the most precious effects from the wreck. This is the difference between the philosophy of thorns and the philosophy of fruit, the philosophy of words and the philosophy of works. Macaulay. 88 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. ONLY A STIRRUP-CUP. Note 35. " Fill up ! One glass before you go ! The moon is young, the night is keen, The creek-ford lies half hid between The drifting ice and whirling snows, And the wind is as fierce as a Eussian knout ; But here is a draught that will keep it out. Drain it, and feel how your heart will glow ! " " Only a stirrup-cup now. Good-night ! Here's to good-luck, till we see you again ! The mare only waits for the loosening rein ; She'll make you five miles with the speed of a kite. Good-bye ! " And the horse and his rider were gone ; But the revelers stayed till the faint winter dawn Touched the world with its finger of light. Some miles away, in the morning gray, A wife looked out o'er the sheeted world, Weary with heaping the hearthstone old, Weary with watching from dark to day, With hushing the children, who cried in their sleep : " Listen for father ! The snow is so deep, And he comes through the dark and cold." When the clock in the corner chimed slowly for three, And the windows all creaked in the grijj of the blast, A sound like the neigh of a horse went past, And a faint, faint voice; as of dread or dree. But fiercely the wind wrenched the door from her hold, And all she could hear were its tones manifold, And naught but the snow could she see. Night melted away in the cup of the sun, The joy of the day made forebodings seem vain, The tea-kettle bubbled and sung on the crane. The heart may be heavy, but tasks must be done ; THE IRBEPBESS1BLE CONFLICT. 89 So the cattle were fed and the platters were laid, The children went out for a lamb that had strayed, And the mother's day's spinning begun. Whirr, whirr went the wheel, in monotonous round, And it seemed that its echo beat in on her brain, Till a voice calling "Mother!" again and again, Pierced her quick, like a voice that is heard in a swound. Swift, swift to the creek-side — the children were there — And there, with the ice frozen thick in his hair, Lay a snow-shrouded form on the ground. ""Who is it ? " she cried. And the whinny replied, For the mare, faithful Polly, stood guard at his feet. Wan and pale was his face, and his armor of sleet Eattled roughly each time when the wind lightly sighed. Ah ! never again to those lips or those eyes Would the wife or the child bring a smile of surprise. Oh ! the dumb, parted lips ! Oh ! the eyes staring wide ! Little fatherless children ! The woman bereft, The pale one, so robbed of your soul in the dark ! To your dumb accusations there's One sayeth " Hark ! I will drive my sickle from right unto left Till the vine-wreathen pillars shall fall at its stroke, At the wine -wetted portals the ravens shall croak, And the head of this demon be cleft." THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. In the year 1620 there were planted upon this continent two ideas irreconcilably hostile to each other. Ideas are the great warriors of the world ; and a war which has no ideas behind it is simply brutality. The two ideas were landed, one at Plymouth Kock from the Mayflower; and the other from a Dutch brig at Jamestown, Virginia. One 90 THE AD VANCEB SPEAKER. was the old doctrine of Luther, that private judgment in politics as well as religion, is the right and duty of every man ; and the other, that capital should own labor, that the negro had no rights of manhood, and the white man might justly buy, own, and sell him and his offspring forever. Thus, freedom and equality on the one hand, and on the other the slavery of one race, and the domination of another, were the two germs planted on this continent. In our vast expanse of wilderness, for a long time, there was room for both ; and their advocates began the race across the continent, each de- veloping the social and political institutions of their choice. Both had vast interests in common; and for a long time neither was conscious of the fatal antagonisms they were developing. For nearly two centuries there was no serious collision ; but when the continent began to fill up, and the people began to jostle against each other ; when the Eoundhead and Cavalier came near enough to measure opinions, the irreconcilable character of the two doctrines began to ap- pear. Conscientious men studied the subject, and came to the belief that slavery was a crime, a sin, or, as Wesley said, " the sum of all villainies." This belief dwelt in small mi- norities. It lived in the churches and vestries. Later, it found its way into the civil and political organizations of the country, and finally into the Congress of the United States. And so the contest continued : the supporters of slavery believing honestly and sincerely that slavery was a divine institution : that it found its high sanctions in the living oracles of God, and in a wise political philosophy ; that it was justified by the necessities of their situation. "We are so far past the passions of that early time that we can study the progress of the struggle as a great and inevitable development, without sharing in the crimination and recrimination that attended it. If both sides could have seen that it was a contest beyond their control : if both parties could have realized that " unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations," much less for the fate of political parties, the bitterness, the sorrow, the tears, THE PATRIOTISM OF SENTIMENT. 91 and the blood might have been avoided. But we walked in the darkness, our paths obscured by the smoke of the con- flict, each following his own convictions through ever-increas- ing fierceness, until the debate culminated in " the last argu- ment to which kings resort." James A. Garfield. THE PATRIOTISM OF SENTIMENT. Did any people ever display a more earnest, a more pas- sionate love of country, than that wild race our fathers found on this continent ? Who does not know with what persistent heroism, what grand sacrifices they defended their homes ? Why did they resist thus madly all attempts to push them farther into the wilderness ? Limitless hunt- ing grounds stretched away behind them, as rich in game, as grand in scenery as those they must leave. The air was as pure and healthful, the forests as majestic, the rivers as deep and wide. But these were not enough. Something would be wanting. Dearer than hunting grounds, than river, dearer than life, were the scenes of old struggles and old sports, the graves, the traditions of their fathers. To preserve these they fought, clinging to these they died. Their patriotism was a sentiment. What has the Irishman's country ever done for him? Abundance does not reward the industry of his hands. Except in rare instances, his eyes are not delighted by scenes of great beauty or grandeur. He feels the weight of the government on him constantly, belittling his man- hood. His pecuniary interests, all his manly aspirations, want of even common comforts, draw him elsewhere. Yet, does he ever cease to love the land where he was born ? No, never. The sight of the green banner, strains of music familiar in years gone by, always carry him, a willing cap- tive, back to the old home. Whatever pinching need may have driven him to foreign lands, however far he may have 92 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. roamed, he is never an alien in spirit, is always the warm- hearted champion of his country. His words rush out hotly in her defence, as with pick-axe or spade he digs on the railways of a nation thousands of miles from his home ; her songs are on his lips as at midnight in mid-ocean he rocks on the masts of a ship that never has and never will sight an Irish harbor ; and the prayers of his heart for his native land are caught up and borne to Heaven by the morning and evening airs of every clime. This, too, is a patriotism of sentiment. And where shall w T e go, and not find it? No land so bleak and barren as not to inspire it. No government so arbitrary and oppres- sive as not to be upheld by it. It is on every battle-field, and under every banner ; its laments moan in the dirges of every defeat ; its joy rings in the jubilee of every victory. Fortunate for the governments of men that God has im- planted in the human heart the germ of this unselfish, poetic love of country. It is a wise provision that all the pure natural affections, the strongest ties of memory, are brought together and intertwined to form allegiance to the state. Revolutions would be too frequent if political in- stitutions were always estimated by the benefits they confer. States are stable only because sustained by a dis- interested, an unquestioning devotion. 0. H. Searle. THE PEACEFUL INFLUENCE OF DECORATION DAY. Note 36. WHEn the war closed, the South stood beaten, despoiled, humiliated, stripped of her resources, bereft of that which, by education, tradition, and belief, she regarded as right not only, but as actually necessary for her existence. Could she submit to her utter overthrow without a murmur, without a resentment ? Could she kiss the hand that had smitten her ? The North stood victorious, indiguant, cruelly wounded, maddened by the tremendous losses she had suffered. Could PEA CEFJJL INFL UENGE OF DECORA TION DA Y. 93 she be magnanimous, chivalric, forgiving ? Yet until such were the case on both sides, the Union was but a name, not a reality. But the Union in reality came, and is to-day the finest triumph of modern civilization. It came not by law, not by reconstruction acts, not by Constitutional amendments. It came through the power of mutual sympathy for mutual mistakes and disasters. It came when the South and the North, forgetting the bitter past, putting aside discussions and theories, accusations and reproaches, came to look upon each other as brothers, heirs of a common heritage of prosperity, supremacy, and renown. And to the consummation of this result nothing has contributed more than the spectacle which on Decoration day has been witnessed, of the North and the South passing among the graves of their patriotic dead, and scattering upon them with equal hand the brightest flowers of the year. On this day the kindlier feelings of the people have risen regnant over the vindictiveness and acrimony which the war had roused and left. It has come like a burst of sweet rain upon a parched and fervid land. The message it has carried from the North to the South has been: By our deso- lated hearths, by our hearts unnumbered that are broken, by the memory of our unreturning million patriotic boys, we struck not in anger, but in love, to save you from your- selves, to save this Government, which one day you will honor and defend as ardently as we. And the message it has brought from the South to the North has been : By all that by which you admonish us, and by our wasted fields, our blighted homes, our ruined fortunes also, in our blindness, and folly, and misguided zeal, we fought as freemen for a cause, whose loss is the gain of the world and the race. The Union is triumphant, and we rejoice in it. Let us share with you henceforth the blessings that it alone can biing. Year by year this day has revealed the shining fact that the sentiments of humanity and fraternity are those which dom- inate the American character ; that the victories of peace are those for which its ^est powers will be devoted, and that nothing shall move it from the purpose and determination 94 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. of the founders of the Republic, of demonstrating for all time the truth that popular government is not only possible, but that it bears within its abundant bosom the richest blessings man can bestow upon his fellow-man. Nor will the good which the observance of this day has accomplished, decrease in the future ; for though, happily, the time will come when the element of sadness which now attends it will have passed away, yet so long as wondering children shall ask and learn whose graves are those on which wreaths and immortelles are yearly laid, will the tre- mendous cost and immeasurable value of our institutions be emphasized, and thus made secure for the generations yet to live under their benign and blessed light. O. E. Branch. THE ARISTOCRATIC SPIRIT: THE FARMER'S FOE. (Abridged.) Note 37. Beneath all other reasons of the historical condition of the farmer is the fundamental reason, and that is the feudal or aristocratic principle which has always prevailed in various forms in every country, and which oppresses the farmer most of all. It is the theory that God made a little of this human clay into porcelain vases to hold the dizzy wine of exclusive power, but the most of it into common crockery for base uses ; a theory that the many are made for the few, or, as Voltaire denned it in government, " It is the art of making two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third." This system is the fourfold enemy of the farmer. It dis- tributes all the land to a few : to these few it gives exclu- sive political power : it degrades labor by making the la- borer dependent upon those few ; and fosters their ignorance that they may be willing slaves. Wherever the agricultural laborer does not own the land and has no share in political power, there he will be an ig- THE ABISTOCRATIC SPIRIT. 95 norant and degraded man : and the instinct of aristocracy to keep him in that position will, sooneiv.or later, involve any country in the most relentless war. The political history of the United States for a generation illustrates this truth. 0111' Southern system of society and labor was an aristocracy which controlled the Government by the power derived from four millions of agricultural laborers deprived of every right, and by its alliance with ignorance and avarice elsewhere. Emboldened by its former apparent successes this aristo- cratic power laid its hand upon Kansas, the heart and garden of the continent. Then, at last, the farmers saw themselves face to face with their old, remorseless enenry who had pur- sued them in every country and in every age. The* snatch at Kansas was the old policy of the aristocracy everywhere and always, to perpetuate ignorance and degrade labor. The response was the tremendous political campaign of 1860, when the battle-cry of the farmers rang from sea to sea, "Free land, free speech, free schools, free men," and Abraham Lincoln, the representative of the working people against a proprietary aristocracy, was elected President. But aristocracy is brave, and it did not falter. Foiled at the polls it drew its sword to overthrow the Government it could not change. Still the air thrills with the tremendous story. The farmers, whose ancestors in the Revolution had left the plow in the furrow to march to Bunker Hill, did not delay. Over all these sunny hills, through all these silent valleys rolled the loud drum-beat, and the bugle rang. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of farmer boys marched away. Over all these sunny hills, through all these silent valleys are the darkened homes and broken hearts to which thousands of farmer boys returned no more. It is for the American farmer to deal the final blow at the aristocratic spirit and system, the hereditary enemy of equal rights, of skilled labor, of free labor, and consequently his especial foe. Grappling with that, he wrestles with the remote but the efficient cause of the lethargy which has his- torically paralyzed the primeval art. Bringing that down 06 ■ THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. *> i-V lie brings with it the ignorance upon which it rests. Th#k by generous education let him reverse the curse fab- ulously imposed upon labor. Let him heartily believe that to. make two blades of grass grow where one grew before is ag-jtruly noble a work as to find the Northwest passage or ihe sources of the Nile; and infinitely nobler than to make one million of dollars two millions by a happy guess or a %navish trick in trade. Geokge William Curtis. THE SONG OF THE SEA- WIND. How it sings, sings, sings, Blowing sharply from the sea line, "With an edge of salt that stings ; How it laughs aloud, and passes, As it cuts the close cliff grasses ; How it sings again and whistles, How it shakes the stout sea thistles — How it sings ! How it shrieks, shrieks, shrieks, In the crannies of the headland, In the gashes of the creeks ; How it shrieks once more and catches Up the yellow foam in patches ; How it whirls it out and over To the cornfield and the clover — How it shrieks ! How it roars, roars, roars, In the iron under caverns, In the hollows of the shores ; How it roars anew and thunders, As the strong hull splits and sunders ; And the spent ship, tempest driven, On the reef lies rent and riven — How it roars ! THE BIBLE IN ART. dl How it wails, wails, wails, In the tangle of the wreckage, In the flapping of the sails, How it sobs away, subsiding, Like a tired child after chiding ; And across the ground swell rolling, You can hear the bell buoy tolling — How it wails ! Austin Dobson. THE BIBLE IN ART. Note 38. Feom the historical facts and characters of the Bible, art derives its grandest models. Limited secular history chron- icles the events, not the purpose of the ages. The Biblical narrative carries to every tongue and clime, a broader sig- nificance : every page discloses the unchanging aim of an Almighty mind. To typify with brush and chisel the divine plan was the work of the Christian artist. The Creation and the Fall, the discipline of God's chosen people, their transgression and punishment, the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, these were the models that have found an undying place in art. All the dignity of the sacred story ; all the joy of divine promise ; all the beauty of Scrip- tural truth became the treasures of art, and made it the helpmeet of faith, a mediator between God and humanity. Whence comes the majesty of vaulted cathedral ; whence the awe of lofty pinnacles? The pictured inspirations of Christian art have answered for all time. It is the glimpse of angelic visions that bends the knee in reverence. It is the sacred story, made an ever present reality, that turns heavenward the mortal thoughts and moves the lips in prayer. Deprive architecture of the Bible, St. Peter's still guards the Vatican ; St. Mark's still solemnly towers above the " City of the Sea," but the worshippers return no more : THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. you have deprived their temples of their spirit power ; you have shut out from mortal eyes a glimpse of heaven. Beneath the imperial city of the Caesars is earth's greatest sepulchre. Within its gloomy confines, the early Christians, free from persecution, read the Bible and symbolized its truths upon their refuge walls. Thus in darkness was the dawn of Christian art. With the recognition of Christianity by Constantine, it emerged from its subterranean birth- place and hailed its second dawning. Freedom of con- science was no longer death ; culture and progress went hand in hand ; the upward course of thought found ex- pression in the works of the artist. Early Christian archi- tecture was followed by the Byzantine and Gothic. St. Paul's arose in stately magnificence, and all over Europe churches and cathedrals began to send their spires toward heaven. Sculpture and Painting, drawing their inspiration from the Bible, became the accessories of architecture. Under the master hand of Michael Angelo, St. Peter's be- comes a marvel of glowing color, as well as a wonder of lifeless stone. The myriad-phased struggle between human love and faith, engages the attention of Leonardo da Vinci ; the truth flashes like a revelation upon his mind. The walls of a humble refectory at Milan receive and hold the em- bodiment of his inspiration. Marred by human passion, dimmed by time's effacing fingers, it still challenges the world to equal its faded beauty. The precious memory of the Last Supper is the secret of its immortality ; its power is the power of Eternal love. The Sun of Righteousness warms the ardent Raphael ; intellect and affection blend ; brush and chisel work in truer, diviner harmony. Albert Diirer looks into the future ; he sees no welcome light to cheer his soul : he paints only outward form : he ponders the Scriptures and the glory of the eternal life breaks upon his darkened vision ; faith guides his brush, and his canvas reflects all that is beautiful in the earthly, all that is sweetest in the heavenly. M. W. George. THE CLOSIXG SO EKE AT WATERLOO. 99 THE CLOSING SCENE AT WATERLOO. Note 39. At five o'clock in the afternoon, Wellington drew out his watch and was heard to murmur these sombre words : "Bliicher or night ! " It was about this time that a distant line of bayonets glistened on the heights beyond Friche- mont. Here is the turning-point in this colossal drama. The rest is known. The irruption of a third army ; the battle thrown out of joint : eighty-six pieces of artillery sud- denly thundering forth : a new battle f ailing at night upon the dismantled French regiments : the whole English line assuming the offensive and pushing forward : the gigantic gap made in the French army : the English grape and the Prussian grape lending mutual aid : extermination, disaster in front, disaster in flank : the Guard entering into line amid the terrible crumbling. Feeling that they were going to their death, they cried out : "Vive VEmpereur!" There is nothing more touching in history than this death agony bursting forth in acclamations. Each battalion of the Guard, for this final effort, was commanded by a general. When the tall caps of the gren- adiers of the Guard, with their large eag]e-plates, api^eared, symmetrical, drawn up in line, calm in the smoke of that conflict, the enemy felt respect for France. They thought they saw twenty victories entering upon the field of battle, with wings extended ; and those who were conquerors, thinking themselves conquered, recoiled ; but Wellington cried : " Up, Guards, and at them ! " The red regiment of English Guards, lying behind the hedges, rose up. A shower of grape riddled the tri-colored flag, fluttering about the French eagle. All hurled them- selves forward, and the final charge began. The Imperial Guard felt the army slipping away round them in the gloom and in the vast overthrow of the rout. They heard the " Sauve qui pent!" which had replaced the "Vive VEm- pereur ! " and with flight behind them, they held on their course, battered more and more, and dying faster and 100 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. faster at every step. There were no weak souls or cowards there. The privates of that band were as heroic as their general. Not a man flinched from the suicide. The rout behind the Guard was dismal. The army fell back rapidly from all sides at once. The cry, " Treachery ! " was followed by the cry, " Sauve qui peut ! " A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole bends, cracks, rolls, crashes, plunges. Mysterious disintegration ! Napo- leon gallops along the fugitives, harangues them, urges, threatens, entreats. The mouths which in the morning were crying " Vive VEmpereur ! " are now agape. He is barely recognized ; the Prussian cavalry just come up, spring forward, fling themselves upon the enemy. Teams rush off ; the guns are left to take care of themselves ; the soldiers of the train take the horses to escape. Wagons upset with their four wheels in the air, block up the road. They crash, they crowd, they trample upon the living and the dead. Arms are broken. A multitude fills roads, bridges, valleys, woods, choked up by the flight of forty thousand men. No more comrades ; no more officers ; no more generals. Inexpressible dismay. In the gathering night, on a field near Genappe, Bernard and Bertrand seized by a flap of his coat, and stopped a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who dragged thus far by the current of the rout, had dismounted, passed the bridle of his horse under his arm, and, with bewildered eye, was returning alone towards Waterloo. It was Napoleon en- deavoring to advance again. Mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream ! Victor Hugo. DEATH OF TOUSSAINT L'OVERTURE. Note 40. Returning to the hills, Toussaint issued the only procla- mation which bears his name, and breathes vengeance : " My children, France comes to make us slaves. God gave us liberty : France has no right to take it away. Burn the DEATH OF TOUSSAINT L' OVERTURE. 101 cities, destroy the harvests, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells. Show the white man the hell he conies to make"; and he was obeyed. When the great William of Orange saw Louis XIV. cover Holland with troops, he said : " Break down the dikes, give Holland, back to ocean"; and Europe said, "Sublime!" When Alexander saw the armies of France descend upon Kussia, he said : " Burn Moscow, starve back the invaders ! " and Europe said, " Sublime ! " This black saw all Europe come to crush him, and gave to his people the same heroic example of defiance. Holland lent sixty ships. England, promised by special message to be neutral ; and you know neutrality means, sneering at freedom, and sending arms to tyrants. England promised neutrality, and the black looked out and saw the whole civilized world marshalled against him. America,:, full of slaves, was of course hostile. Only the Yankee sold him poor muskets at a very high price. Mounting his horse, and riding to the eastern end of the island, he looked out on a sight such as no native had ever seen before. Sixty ships of the line, crowded by the best soldiers of Europe, rounded the point. They were soldiers who had never yet met an equal, whose tread, like Caesar's, had shaken Europe : soldiers who had scaled the Pyramids, and planted the French banners on the walls of Borne. He looked a moment, counted the flotilla, let the reins fall on the neck of his horse, and turning to Christ ophe, exclaimed r " All France is come to Hayti ; they can only come to make us slaves ; and we are lost ! " Arrived at Paris, Toussaint was flung into a jail. He was then, shortly after, sent to the Castle of St. Joux, to a dungeon twelve feet by twenty, built wholly of stone, with a narrow window, high up on the side, looking out on the. snows of Switzerland. In winter, ice covers the floor ; in summer, it is damp and wet. In this living tomb the child' of the sunny tropics was left to die. But -he did not die^ fast enough. Napoleon ordered the commandant to go into 102 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Switzerland, to carry the keys of the dungeon with him, and to stay four days. When he returned, Toussaint was found starved to death. That imperial assassin was taken, twelve years after, to his prison at St. Helena, planned for a tomb, as he had planned that of Toussaint, and there he whined away his dying hours in pitiful complaints of cur- tains and titles, of dishes and rides ! God grant that when some future Plutarch shall weigh the great men of our epoch, the whites against the blacks, he do not put that whining child at St. Helena into one scale, and into the other the negro, meeting death like a Roman, without a murmur, in the solitude of his icy dungeon. Wendell Phillips. FEDERALISM AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. Note 41. When the American colonies had gained independence, there sprung up a feeling of competition and jealousy. The object of the Federal party was complete unification, and a strong central government. Their means to this end was mutual consent and agreement Their way to union was through self-sacrifice for general welfare. Such sentiments among the revolutionists of France were unknown- The want of a strong government was the nation's destruction. Hundreds of terrorists gave laws to thousands of terrified. He who thought of compromise was lost ; and the only success was beyond the death of every opponent. Federalism and the French Revolution manifest their principles in their characteristics. France proclaimed a universal brotherhood. She offered sympathy and assist- ance to every sufferer ; and with her own people starving and murdered, wished to lead all nations to a grand realiz- ation of liberty. America made no such gracious profes- sions, but modestly established a safe republican government. In France were wild sentiment and shocking profanity. A A UX IT ALIENS. 103 rouged opera-dancer was made " Goddess of Reason"; while Senators and rabble together fell down and worshipped their new divinity. Robespierre decreed " the existence of the Supreme Being"; while Clootz held that "there is but one god, and that god is the people." In contrast to such a spirit is the sober dignity of the founders of our Republic. They still remembered and adored Him, who had been to them the God of battles and the God of peace, who had led their fathers' steps to a free land, and who would guide the feet of their children through a prosperous and happy future. The French began with their Revolution a new era, and dated, " Year of the Re- public, One." The American people would rather know the time of their political birth, as " The Tear of our Lord, 1776." The fundamental principle of Federalism was law- ful liberty ; that of French Revolution was lawless freedom. The one viewed man as a moral agent, and an accountable being : the other as an utterly irresponsible creature. The French Revolution taught some narrow creed about " The rights of man." Federalism enforced the old lesson of "Love thy neighbor." The one was heartless selfishness ; the other was Christian charity. Wm. H. De"Witt. ATJX ITALIENS. Note 42. At Paris it was, at the Opera there : — And she looked like a queen in a book, that night, With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch on her breast, so bright. Of all the operas that Verdi wrote, The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore ; And Mario can soothe with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory. 104 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The moon on the tower slept soft as snow : And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, " Non ti scordar di me " ? The Emperor there, in his box of state, Looked grave, as if he had just then seen The red flag wave from the city-gate, Where his eagles in bronze had been. The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye. You'd have said that her fancy had gone back, again, For one moment, under the old blue sky, To the old, glad life in Spain. Well ! there in our front row box we sat, Together, my bride-betrothed and I ; My gaze was fixed on my opera-hat, And hers on the stage hard by. And both were silent, and both were sad. Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm, With that regal, indolent air she had ; So confident of her charm ! I have not a doubt she was thinking then Of her former lord, good soul that he was ! Who died the richest and roundest of men, The Marquis of Carabas. I hope that to get to the kingdom of heaven, Through a needle's eye he had not to pass. I wish him well, for the jointure given To my lady of Carabas. Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years, Till over my eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears. A UX ITALIENS. 105 I thought of the dress that she wore last time, When we stood 'neath the cypress-trees, together, In that lost land, in that soft clime, In the crimson evening weather : Of that rrmslin dress (for the eve was hot), And her warm, white neck in its golden chain, And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot, And falling loose again : And the jasmin-flower in her fair young breast • (O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmin-flower!) And the one bird singing alone to his nest : And the one star over the tower. I thought of our little quarrels and strife ; And the letter that brought me back my ring. And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, Such a very little thing ! For I thought of her grave below the hill, Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over. And I thought . . . . " were she only living still, How I could forgive her, and love her ! " And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, And of how, after all, old things were best, That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower, Which she used to wear in her breast. It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, It made me creep, and it made me cold ! Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet Where a mummy is half unrolled. And I turned and looked. She was sitting there In a dim box, over the stage ; and drest In that muslin dress, with that full, soft hair, And that jasmin in her breast ! 5* 106 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. I was here : and she was there : And the glittering horseshoe curved between : — From my bride-betrothed, with her raven hair, And her sumptuous, scornful mien, To my early love, with her eyes downcast, And over her primrose face the shade, (In short, from the Future back to the Past There was but a step to be made). To my early love from my future bride One moment I looked. Then I stole to the door. I traversed the passage ; and down at her side I was sitting, a moment more. My thinking of her, or the music's strain, Or something which never will be exprest, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmin in her breast. She is not dead, and she is not wed ! But she loves me now, and she loved me then ! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again. The Marchioness there, of Carabas, She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her .... well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomever she will. But I will marry my own first love, With her primrose face ; for old things are best, And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above The brooch in my lady's breast. The world is filled with folly and sin, And Love must cling where it can, I say : For Beauty is easy enough to win ; But one isn't loved every day. THE REBEL BRIGADIER. 107 And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back, and be forgiven. But O the smell of that jasmin-flower! And O that music ! and O the way That voice rang out from the donjon tower Non ti scordar di me, Non ti scordar di me ! Owen Meredith. THE REBEL BRIGADIER. Note 43. A peculiarly terrific figure in partisan harangue is the " Rebel Brigadier." From the descriptions made of him " the Rebel Brigadier " might be supposed to be an incura- bly black-hearted traitor, still carrying the rebel flag under his coat to bring it out at an opjDortune moment, still se- cretly drilling his old hosts in dark nights, and getting him- self elected to Congress for the purpose of crippling the Government by artfully contrived schemes to accomplish the destruction of the Union as soon as his party is well settled in power. Now, what kind of a man is the " Rebel Brigadier " in reality ? He belonged in the South, origin- ally, to the same class to which the Union Brigadiers be- longed in the North. After the close of the war he found himself as poor as the rest of his people. At first he nioped and growled a little, and then went to work to make a liv- ing — as a farmer, or a lawyer, or a railroad employe, or an insurance man, or a book agent. Being a man of intelli- gence, he was among the first to open his eyes to the fact that the war had been — perhaps a very foolish venture for the South, because it was undertaken against overwhelming odds — and certainly a very disastrous one, because it left 108 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. nothing but wreck and rain behind it ; one of those enter- prises which a man of sense may delude himself into once, but never again. He is now very busy repairing his for- tunes in the civil walks of life, and the better he succeeds, the more conservative he grows, for the more clearly he per- ceives that his own fortunes are closely linked to the gen- eral prosperity of the country, and that everything hurtful to the country hurts him. He is in many instances drawn into public life by the choice of his neighbors. His views on questions of public policy may frequently be mistaken — they probably are. He may also be always ready to jump up in defence of his record and the record and character of his associates in the war. He shows pride of his and their gallantry in the field, as every soldier will do, and he is un- willing to have it said that his motives were infamous — a thing which but few men, and those not the best, are will- ing to hear or admit. But having learned at his own cost what civil war is, he would be the last to think of rebellion again. He has that military honor in him which respects the terms of a capitulation ; and if he has any ambition to show his prowess once more, it will be for a restored Union and not against it. Gael Schukz. THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. Note 44. Forces cannot be annihilated. The undulations of water, the vibrations of air, the circulation of heat are illustra- tions. But on what principle of philosophy is it deter- mined that the force which creates a poem or picture is perishable, while the force concentrated in the volume or work of art is indestructible ? If influences are immortal, how can it be shown that the person who exerts them is perishable ? If the shadow persists, what reason have we to conclude that the substance which casts it dissolves and evaporates into nothingness ? But on the other hand, the doctrine of the persistence of THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 109 force would seem to give a new sanction and ground for faith in personal immortality. All the force concentrated in a book, or statue, or noble career originated in, and was imparted by, a person. All the moral qualities that give character to acts and achievements, and stamp their ineffaceable characteristics on the masterpieces of literature and art, originated in, and were communicated by, a crea- tive personality. Genius is the most personal of all elements, a quality that differs with each individual it appears in, al- ways incalculable in its operations, and always a surprise, because it has its source and hiding in the most interior places of the personality, and is the effluence of its life. The genius of Eaphael and the genius of Shakespeare are as unlike in their essence and operation as the matchless Madonna of the one is unlike the Hamlet of the other. And can it be supposed that the peculiar personal genius which created either of these masterpieces of human art ex- pired at death, when its achievements outlast centuries ? One of the most wonderful things in life, in literature, in art, is the persistence of the personality in its creations and emanations. The Iliad is not merely so many cantos of in- imitable verse, it is Homer. The sad, solitary, grand heart of Dante palpitates in every verse of the Commedia. Every thought of Goethe reflects his personality in its shining facets. The fascination of Carlyle's works consists almost solely in the personal electricity with which they are charged. The charm and power of Emerson's essays reside chiefly in the spirit and aroma of his unique personality ; the more colorless they are in themselves, the more perfectly they mirror the features and genius of their author. It is the personal elements in his works that take possession of the reader, and make an indelible impression on the mind. And if these rays shed from his luminous mind shall retain their shining properties forever, can it be that the genius which emitted them, is extinguished in everlasting night ? * The most persistent of forces is personal force. It is the * This selection may end here. 110 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. enduring element in all literature, art, history, and religion. Laws and movements and nations perish and are forgotten, but a personality developed by culture and illuminated by genius and inspired by a great faith or noble purpose, stamps its impress on centuries and civilizations. And if the moral influence, which is the subtlest effluence of the personality, of a Moses or a Mohammed shall circulate in widening undulations and results for thousands of years, by what logic or philosophy can it be inferred that the per- sons themselves have perished ? Christian civilization is the brightening and beneficent reflection of the moral image of Jesus of Nazareth in the life of the world. And if the influ- ence of that Person has perpetuated itself in a thousand splendid ways, so that it were easier to expunge half the chem- ical elements from the globe, than expunge the moral proper- ties He has communicated to mankind and the new type of character He has produced, how can we help concluding that death to Him was resurrection, and earth the ante-room of heaven ? We must surrender the doctrine of the persist- ence of force, or apply its conclusions to the most persistent and potential of all forces, the personality of man. The Golden Age. RED-LETTER DAYS. Note 45. Some days are memorable by reason of that which has gone into them, of the great histories which are behind them. The cathedral recently completed on the banks of the Ehine represents in consummate flower the work of six and a quarter centuries, the genius that so long ago shaped it in plan, the labor that during all that time has been at work robbing the stone of its weight, and building it into that visible music in the air. When Victor Emanue] entered the city of the Caesars six months before his more public entry, but when already he was hailed as King of United RED-LETTER DAYS. Ill Italy, the tendencies of six hundred years were represented in the fact that he was in the palace of the Quirinal. Back behind Cavour, and Ricasoli, and Garibaldi, and La Mar- mora, went those tendencies, to the age of Dante and be- yond, which there bloomed into exhibition. When onr In- ternational Exhibition was opened in Philadelphia, in 187G, it represented a hundred years of peaceful industry and profitable inyention, of growing taste and augmented opu- lence, the result of the freedom which the Republic had en- joyed during all that century of time. Some days are memorable by reason of that which flows from them, of the great and fruitful histories which they initiate. "We celebrate thus the birthday of Washington in this country, making the twenty-second of February a red- letter day in American letters and American life, because then that majestic spirit touched the planet on whose wis- dom and fortitude, on whose majestic strength rested after- ward the hope and destiny of the Republic ; who gaye to the world perhaps the most yital and enduring gift which America thus far has produced, in that illustrious and un- surpassed character of the great statesman and patriot. It is the especial honor of the day on which the Pilgrims landed that it is memorable for both these reasons — for that which went before it, and for that which came out of it. It is not a day to be remembered merely on account of the few voyagers who landed on Plymouth Rock. There was behind them the whole magnificent age of Elizabeth : the age illustrious in the world of philosophy arid science by the name of Bacon ; the age fascinating to everybody who admires chivalry in character and in action by the name of Sidney ; fascinating to all who love high qualities of leadership, in adventure, in letters, in politics, in war, by the name of Raleigh ; the age which bears upon its shield, as it marches among the centuries of historic fame, the un- matched blazon of the name of Shakespeare. Out of that age came Hampden, came Milton, came John Selden, came the great Petition of Right. Out of that age came the 112 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER Plymouth Colony, just as distinctly and directly as if Drake had commanded the Mayflower, and Raleigh had steered the ship. We remember all that when we celebrate this day. Men may say that it was an inconsiderable event. Yes ! but it was not the eccentric adventure of a few forlorn persons and families seeking another home beyond the sea. The swing of the English spirit which had fought and crushed the Armada, was behind it. Richard S. Storks. THE LEGACY OF ROME. Note 46. To write the history of the Eoman Law for the last two thousand years, is to write the decline of the ancient and the rise of the modern civilization. "When Rome had con- quered all nations, and had lost herself, her law was yet un- touched by that degradation which marked all things else. That still bore upon every feature of its majestic image, the impress of her highest civilization. The signatures of Corn- modus and Caracalla, those living, bitter satires on the human race, are appended to some of the purest judicial decisions recorded. But when Rome was subdued, when Alaric and Attila with their hordes extinguished the last spark of her civilization, feudalism, that giant offspring of universal war, clasped Europe in its withering embrace. Then the thick darkness of intellectual and moral night brooded over the nations. The Roman Law for ages was buried in the libraries of the monks, and liberty and learn- ing bewailed a remediless loss. Then came the dawning of a brighter day ; religion acquired a new vitality, and with the Roman Law as its colaborer, went forth to revivify and enlighten humanity. From that time the Roman Law has been ever widening the sphere of its domain. It is incorporated into the juris- THE LEG A CY OF ROME. 1} 3 prudence of continental Europe ; and, underlying the com- mon and statute law of England, it has travelled with the Anglo-Saxon race into every province of their world-em- bracing domain. Here, where the lost Atlantis of Plato has reappeared ; here, where are well-nigh actualized the dream- ings of that philosopher, the Roman Law has acquired for itself a magnificent empire. Unshackled by the feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny, the unyielding conservatism which hampers its progress in the old world, it bids fair here to work out to the full its mission of beneficence ; to substitute for the ruling of old forms and the mummies of dead theo- ries, the domination of strict and scientific justice. We resort to the books of the civil law as the ancients to the shrine at Delphi ; but, unlike them, we hear no enigmatical or lying oracles. Untinged by the subtle scholasticisms of the middle ages, they ever speak clearly and unmistakably the words of political wisdom and everlasting justice. Such is the Legacy of Rome. And, in truth, is it not a great and noble one ? The legacy of Jerusalem has opened the gates of Heaven to man, and given to him who is worthy, a happy and an everlasting life. Athens, the home of all the aesthetic arts, has left a priceless legacy of beauty, which shall be to man " a joy forever." And surely, next in value to these is the Legacy of Rome. From woman eman- cipated, from innocence justified, from humanity ennobled, goes up a ceaseless paean in its praise. Hand in hand with Christianity, it invades the regions of mental and moral darkness, to conquer, to civilize, and to bless. It is a terror in the path of the oppressor and the doer of evil ; and of the down-trodden and wronged, it might say in almost the language of Jehovah, "I have seen the oppression of my people, and I have come to deliver them." Frank H. Head. 114 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. BY THE PASSAIC. Where the river seeks the cover Of the trees whose boughs hang over, And the slopes are green with clover, In the quiet month of May ; "Where the eddies meet and mingle, Babbling o'er the stony shingle, There I angle, There I dangle, All the day. O, 'tis sweet to feel the plastic Bod, with top and butt elastic, Shoot the line in coils fantastic, Till, like thistledown, the fly Lightly drops upon the water, Thirsting for the finny slaughter, As I angle, And I dangle, Mute and sly. Then I gently shake the tackle, Till the barbed and fatal hackle In its tempered jaws shall shackle That old trout, so wary grown. Now I strike him ! joy ecstatic ! Scouring runs ! leaps acrobatic ! So I angle, So I dangle, All alone. Then when grows the sun too fervent, And the lurking trouts observant, Say to me, " Your humble servant ! Now we see the treacherous hook ! " FREEDOM THE C UBE OF ANARCHY. 115 Maud, as if by hazard wholly, Saunters down the pathway slowly, While I angle, There to dangle, With her hook. Then somehow the rod reposes, And the book no page uncloses ; But I read the leaves of roses That unfold upon her cheek ; And her small hand, white and tender, Rests in mine. Ah ! what can send her Thus to dangle While I angle ? Cupid, speak! Fitz James O'Brien. FREEDOM THE CURE OF ANARCHY. Note 47. The march of the human mind is slow. It was not until two hundred years discovered that, by an eternal law, Prov- idence had decreed vexation to violence, and poverty to rapine. Your ancestors did, however, at length, open their eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the least be endured, and that laws made against a whole nation were not the most effectual methods for securing its obedience. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry the Eighth the course was entirely altered. With a preamble, stating the entire and perfect rights of the Crown of Eng- land, it gave to the Welsh all the rights and privileges of English subjects. A political order was established. The military power gave way to the civil. The marches were turned into counties. But that a nation should have a light to English liberties, and yet no share in the fundamental 116 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. security of those liberties, seemed a thing so incongruous that eight years after a complete representation by bor- oughs was bestowed upon Wales by act of Parliament. From that moment, as by charm, the tumults subsided ; obedience was restored ; peace, order, and civilization fol- lowed in the train of liberty. When the day-star of the English Constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and without. The very same year the County Palatine of Chester re- ceived the same relief from its oppressions, and the same remedy to its disorders. Before this time it was little less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the rights of others ; and from thence Richard the Second drew the standing army of archers with which for a time he oppressed Eng- land. The people of Chester applied to Parliament in a petition of grievances. What did Parliament do with this audacious address ? Reject it as a libel ? Treat it as an affront to government ? Spurn it as a derogation from the rights of legislation ? Did they toss it over the table ? Did they burn it by the hands of the common hangman ? They took the petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or temperament, unpurged of the original bitter- ness and indignation of complaint. They made it the very preamble to their act of redress, and consecrated its prin- ciple to all ages in the sanctuary of legislation. Chester, civilized as well as Wales, demonstrated that freedom, and not servitude, is the cure of anarchy ; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition. Edmund Bubke. THE GENIUS OF SUCCESS. Note 48. A few months ago one of our popular periodicals, in its comments upon the deeds of a departed statesman, said : " His life was a success." So we whose hearts to-day throb THE GENIUS OF SUCCESS. 117 warm with life, wish that when death's messenger has sum- moned us, the same words may be our eulogy. Then indeed would the future make glorious our still living mem- ories. Time's obscuring footsteps would not crush into ob- livion our history, but chisel it in immortal characters on the eternal adamant. But fame is not to be had without a recompense. The pathway which leads to the heights of success is not hedged with flowers and cut with evenly graded steps. It is rugged, steep, difficult ; and he who seeks to reach the eminence will find many obstacles which oppose him and which must be conquered before he rests upon the summit. More than twenty years of exhaustive study, and a quarter of a cen- tury in the more practical labor of public life, gave Milton the mental strength and polish which made him the great poet of his age. This enabled him to do for England what Homer did for Greece, Virgil for Rome, and Dante for Italy. At the celebrated trial of Warren Hastings the audi- ence was spell-bound by Burke's masterly plea. The ac- cused shrank in terror from the vivid picture which the great lawyer drew of his base character. But Burke was one of the profoundest scholars of his age, and never de- pended upon his reputation, but made exhaustive study the battlement of his power. History is filled with the records of men who attained success and were the controlling, directing forces of their land and time. They gained success because they v* ere act- ive, determined, patient. These are they who have given to literature its thought and beauty : made science the mighty force of civilization and art, almost the rival of na- ture. They have made steam the soul of machinery and peopled land and water with the forms it animates. By them the ocean has become the whispering gallery of con- tinents, and air the highway of thought. A little more than two centuries ago a venerable old man was summoned befor ) the Inquisition and compelled to swear that truths which it had taken a life to demonstrate 118 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. were false. But the world moved notwithstanding, and to- day, in the clearer light which those very truths have flooded upon us, civilization names Galileo with her great apostles. Thus the success of some lives is obscured for long years ; but time at last dispels the cloud and the sun- light of truth flashes in golden glory over the world. The true genius of success culminates in self-sacrificing labor for the welfare of humanity. Howard, revolutioniz- ing the prison-system of Europe and tempering human jus- tice with divinest mercy : Garibaldi, laboring for the free- dom of his beloved Italy : Mrs. Stowe, Garrison, and Phillips speaking for the negro ! Death never comes to such lives. They need no eulogy, no song, no marble pile. Their names live in the beating hearts of millions. The student, toiling by his midnight-lamp, the convict in prison and dungeon, turn back to them for hope and encourage- ment. Their names are rich legacies to the future, which measures the success of every life by deeds and not by years. THE GREAT DANGER OF THE REPUBLIC. Note 49. It is a terrible thought that the very splendor of our civ- ilization is the danger of our times. In the multiplication of the sources of wealth and prosperity, in the utilization of all the agencies of nature to do the service of man, in me- chanical, industrial, and intellectual development, this cen- tury is unparalleled. And yet every element of progress carries with it the agencies of destruction, the greatest benefits find the most dangerous evils marching along at equal pace. As dynamite has made possible the tunneling of the Alps and the Sierras, the piercing of isthmuses by great ship canals, and the illimitable expanse of the world's commerce, and at the same time threatens, both in old countries and the new, the very foundations of society, so THE GREAT DANGER OF THE REPUBLIC. 119 the necessities of the highest civilization and development fulfil the prophecy of the romancer of the Arabian Nights, and let loose a genius with equal and unequalled capacity for both mischief and beneficence. The attendants and disturbers of our splendid conditions are the socialist, the communist, and the anarchist. In the simpler and more primitive days, cities grew slowly, by healthful and natural increase, and the country was the conservative power in the State. Business was so limited that it was capable of man- agement by small capital, and the masses of the population were independent and self-reliant. A multitude of men were the masters of their own pursuits, with the attendant safety which comes from responsibility and the protection of one's own property and business. But the telegraph, the railway, and the steamship have brought all nations in such close communion that trade and manufactures now require enormous capital. It is only by the aggregation of the money of many in corporations that these means of communication can be built and maintained, and they have created competition so severe that the small dealer is disap- pearing, to become an employe in the great factory or store. The requirement of crowds of workers at common centres to carry on these enterprises, is concentrating populations and activities of all kinds, both good and bad, in great cities. To meet capital upon safer grounds, and for self- protection against injustice or wrong, this countless army of the employed is combined in societies, brotherhoods, and unions. Thus, outside the farmer and the professions, these two mighty forces of capital and labor, each unable to live without the other, stand at best in relations which are merely a compromise, subject to constant breaches. A conflict in- volves the overthrow of law and order, and the reign of anarchy and chaos. The conserving influences, which will ward off disaster, and make all forces work together for the common good, and better the condition of every one, are to be found only in the development of character and conduct, along with intelligence. Cuauncey M. Dkpew. 120 THE AD VAIWED SPEAKER. TRUTH IN RHETORIC. An American writer, while painting a vivid picture of the state of society in ancient Kome, gives an electrical empha- sis to his statement that everywhere throughout the empire, in the progress of decline, " rhetoric supplanted truth " But how could this be ? What antagonism is possible between rhetoric and truth, so that one can supplant the other? Rhetoric is truth, and truth is rhetoric : truth combined with the imagination : truth moist with emotion : truth directed to the accomplishment of a purpose ; and none the less true because so combined and directed. There can be no poetry apart from truth, for the ideal is the highest, truest, real. Neither can there be any rhetoric apart from truth, for the true is one of its essential elements. Because in a production accordant with rhetorical rules, results of the reasoning process only are given, and not the reasoning process itself, truth is none the less there. Because conclu- sions only are stated, and not the premises by which those conclusions are reached, the truth is none the less there. In its national emblem, its harp, its lilies, its thistle, its lion, its eagle, a whole nation sees the truth of a proposition expressing the national character, the national hope, the national power ; and this is the glory of that emblazonry. And the proposition is none the less true to every mind, because in the national emblem it is so vivid to the ima^i- o nation of every eye. So, many a proposition may be con- veyed into our minds through the feelings of our hearts, as well as through the logic of our heads, or the perceptions of our eyes ; and it is none the less true for that. A thought may be so transfused, flooded all over with passion, that not only are we mentally convinced of its truth, but our hearts respond, sometimes so warmly that every fibre thrills with emotion. This does not make that truth false, but all the more true. The words may suggest to our ear but the tup of a drum, or a single strain of a song we've THE EAGLE'S DOVE. 121 heard at home : in the words we may see only the wave of a flag, or the glance of an eye, or the flight of a bird that used to build its nest in the old orchard where we played when we were boys : if our hearts respond to what we see and hear, if we feel its meaning so that every man of us is conscious of a quiver, is it any the less true because pulses beat quicker and moistened eyes flash brighter ? And yet how many will insist that we are descending from the heights of truth into the contradictions of falsehood, when we affirm, that is rhetoric. Khetoric everywhere is all of logic and much more. It is logic vivified, brightening, en- lightening : logic on fire, melting : logic suffused, tenderly moving : logic passionate, exalting. Rhetoric is not false- hood poetic or passionate ; it is systematized truth, com- bined with imagination and feeling, for the accomplishment of a purpose. Anson J. Upson. ''THE EAGLE'S DOVE." " Who is it lyin' in that coffin thar ? " Why, stranger, that's my wife — now dead and cold. The raven's wing is pale beside her ha'r — "Pretty?" Wall, yas. "Her age?" Eighteen years old. I married her one year ago this June ; I won her from Dave Dawson — a stake at cards, The roses on her cheeks war just in bloom ; And so they war in my heart, sar — and in my pard's. Dave staked and lost, and so she clung to me, For I had " bet my all," and " bet it free." But ever since that day Dave Dawson's acted quar, And " Madge " has said he'd do me deadly harm. But as I'd always acted on the squar, Dividin' up the " mine " and " Texas farm," 122 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. I could not think Dave Dawson wished me ill, Or " Jealous ? " Wall, yas ; he challenged me to fight, And raised his gun, and I, sar, drew my knife, When " Madge " came flyin', like a flash of light, And cried : " Hold, Davy ; he won me, I'm his wife ; If naught but murder will requite your love, Don't harm the ' eagle,' but wing the eagle's dove." And standin' thar betwixt my foe and me, I saw my pictur in her wondrous eye : She looked, sar, like an angel — if such thar be — As pretty, as sweet, and too brave to die. Dave Dawson ground his teeth like a " grizzly hurt," And yelled, " Do you mean it, Madge ? " "I do," she cried. " Then curse the day I brought you to ' Gold Dirt,' And curse the ' hand ' that won you as a bride ! " " And did he fire ? " Yas, by heaven, he did ; And, coward-like, fled to the hills and hid. " Hunt him ? " Yas, hunted three days and nights ; All " Gold Dirt " armed — sarched cliff and peak. All night, alone, by her, I watched thar lights, Hopin' 'twas all a dream, and she would speak. Yas, sar, they tracked him to the " hanted mine " — The very place Dave Dawson dreaded most ; For it's a settled fact — since " forty-nine " — The shaft's been 'nipulated by a ghost. Some say Dave Dawson did foul murder thar, How true it is, I'm not the man to say, Sartin it is, a ghost with snowy ha'r Works it with grim-faced miners night and day. Yas, sar, they met — Dave screamed— the ghost but laughed — They clinched, and stumbhn', both went down the shaft. ROBERT RANTO TIL. 123 So morrrin' come agin ; then night crept down the hill, And flung her gloomy shadows over all. And, settin' by her, all alone and still, I'd start sometimes, and swar I heard her call. Afore you entered, I'd swar she spoke ; She called my name, and said : "Now, Tom, be brave — Don't take to drink beneath this wreckin' stroke, But, sober, every day come see my grave." I'll do it, " Madge " — I'll keej) my word and o'er — I swar it, with your lips a-touchin' mine ; And so I did, sar, as you come in the door ; And, stranger, that oath I'll keep throughout my time. " You'll pray for me '? " See here, sar, don't fling fun At me, in the face of my white dead one ! " A parson ? " are you ? beg pardon ; take my hand — My heart lies still in that cofiin thar — You'll be at the buryin', then you'll pictur the land "Where " Madge " has gone to outshine every star ? " To-morrow ? " yas, sar — the grave's just out thar — " You'll come ? " Thanks, parson — good-evenin', sar. Marshall C. "Wood. ROBERT RANTOUL. Note 50. Suppose we stood in that lofty temple of jurisprudence, on either side of us the statues of the great lawyers of every age and clime ; and let us see what pari New England — Puritan, free New England — would bear in the pageant. Home points to a colossal figure, and says : " That is Papinian, who, when the Emperor Caracalla murdered his own brother, and ordered the lawyer to defend the deed, went cheerfully to death, rather than sully his lips with the atro- 124 THE ADVANGD SPEAKER. cious plea. And that is TJlpian, who, aiding his prince to put the army below the law, was massacred at the foot of a weak, but virtuous, throne." And France stretches forth her grateful hands, crying : " That is D'Aguesseau, worthy, when he went to face an en- raged king, of the farewell his wife addressed to him j ' Go ! forget that you have a wife and children to ruin, and re- member only that you have France to save.' " England says : " That is Coke, who flung the laurels of eighty years in the face of the first Stuart, in defence of the people. This is Selden, on every book of whose library you saw the motto of which he lived worthy : ' Before every- thing Liberty ! ' That is Mansfield, silver-tongued, who pro- claimed, 1 Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free.' This is Eomilly, who spent life trying to make law synony- mous with justice, and succeeded in making life and prop- erty safer in every city of the Empire. And that is Erskine, whose eloquence, spite of Lord Eldon and George Third, made it safe to speak and print." Boston had a lawyer once, worthy to stand in that Pan- theon : one whose untiring energy held up the right hand of Horace Mann, and made his age and all coming ones his debtors : one whose clarion voice, and life of consistent ex- ample waked the faltering pulpit to its duty in the cause of temperance, laying on that altar the hopes of his young ambition : one whose humane and incessant efforts to make the penal code worthy of our faith and our age, ranked his name with Mcintosh and Romilly, with Bentham, Beccaria, and Livingston. Best of all, one who had some claim to say with Selden, "Above all things, Liberty"; for, in the slave's battle, his voice was of the bravest, — Robert Rantoul. He died crowned with the laurels both of Forum and Sen- ate-house. The Suffolk bar took no note of his death. No SARATOGA. 125 tongue stirred the air of the courts to do him honor. " When vice is useful it is a crime to be virtuous," says the Eoman proverb. Of that crime, Beacon Street, State Street, and Andover had judged Rantoul guilty. Wendell Phillips. SARATOGA. Note 51. One hundred years ago, on this spot, American Indepen- dence was made a great fact in the history of nations. Until the surrender of the British army under Burgoyne, the Declaration of Independence was but a declaration. It was a patriotic purpose asserted in bold words by brave men, who pledged for its maintenance, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. But on this ground it was made a fact, by virtue of armed force. It had been regarded by the world merely as an act of defiance, but it was now seen that it contained the germs of government, which the event we now celebrate made one of the powers of the earth. Here rebellion was made revolution. Upon this ground, that which had in the eye of the law been treason, became triumphant patriotism. At the break of day, one hundred years ago, in the judg- ment of the world, our fathers were rebels against estab- lished authority. When the echoes of the evening gun died away along this valley, they were patriots who had rescued their country from wrong and outrage. Until the surren- der of the British army in this valley, no nation would rec- ognize the agents of the Continental Congress. All inter- course with them was in stealthy ways. But they were met with open congratulations when the monarchs of Europe learned that the loyal standards of Britain had been lowered to our flag. We had passed through the baptism of blood, and had gained a name among the nations of the earth. England had arrayed its disciplined armies ; it had sent its 126 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. fleets ; it had called forth its savage allies, all of which were to move upon grand converging lines, not only to crush out the patriotic forces, but to impress Europe with its strength, and to check any alliances with the American Government. It made them witnesses of its defeat when it thought to make them the judges of its triumph. The monarchs of Europe, who watched the progress of the doubtful struggle, who were uncertain if it was more than a popular disturb- ance, now saw the action in its full proportions, and felt that a new power had sprung into existence — a new element had entered into the diplomacy of the world. "We are told that during more than twenty centuries of war and bloodshed, only fifteen battles have been decisive of lasting results. The contest of Saratoga is one of these. From the battle of Marathon, to the field of Waterloo, a period of more than two thousand years, there was no martial event which had a greater influence than that which took place on these grounds. Horatio Seymouk. SARGEANT PRENTISS' FIRST PLEA. It was noon in the Crescent City. Strolling up the broad walks of the courtyard, among the orange trees, were two men. The one was the State's Attorney, a genial old man : the other a mere boy, the old man's clerk. Suddenly the old man turned to his companion and said : " Prentiss, would you like to make a speech on the case, to-day ? " " I, sir ! Why ? " " Well, I'U teU you. It is a bad thing for a young man to begin life with a success. He is too apt to stop there. This case is beyond doubt lost. We have no evi- dence against the prisoner ; but then, ' we must not give up the ship ' until it sinks, you know. Now here is a splendid chance to win glory, and all that sort of thing. Pay no at- SARGEANT PRENTISS' FIRST PLEA. 127 tention to blunders : I'll see to them. "Will you speak ? " "Yes, sir," said he, "I will." It was a case of murder. A man was missing : no one knew what had become of him. At last suspicion fell upon a man in high position in society, and he was arrested. The community was astounded. They knew the prisoner was not guilty. That he was seen to go into the forest with the missing man, did not prove anything. This was the public verdict. At the trial, nothing directly proving the prisoner's guilt was produced. Everything positive and direct seemed to point toward his innocence. There was a smile of contempt on the prisoner's face when young Prentiss rose to speak. What could this stripling do against the giants of the law ? It was David going out armed with a sling, the sling of Conscience, that sinks deep the pebbles of truth into the mailed forehead of guilt and crime. Prentiss stammered through a few sentences amid the derisive smiles of his opponents : then it seemed as though a wild spirit had fired his imagination, and he spoke with such power as was never before witnessed within that court-room. He caught up the merest shreds of evidence, and wove them into convicting arguments. He pictured the scene : the two men in the dark forest, the attack, the struggle, the death wound, the victim a moment gasping, and in a moment still : the hidden grave ; and, trembling from head to foot, he pointed to the prisoner, and fairly hissed : " That man is the murderer ! " The smile was gone from the prisoner's lips now. His counsel moved uneasily in their places : the thronged court- room was hushed ! " Hold ! " cried his opponent. " You have proved no such thing! You speak your piece ex- tremely well ; but we want facts here, my son ! " Prentiss turned upon him. " Hold, did you say ? Hold ? My God ! if I should hold my peace the very stones would stand wit- nesses : the walls would cry out ' Murder ! ' Aye, the spirit of the dead would rise up before you ; throwing back its crimsoned vesture, it would disclose the cruel wound : 128 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. holding up the bloody dagger before your eyes, it would point to him and whisper, ' He did this ! ' Sir, can you go with me out into that forest, and, standing by that grave, known only to you and God, lift up your hand to Heaven and swear you did not the heinous deed ? Can you swear away your guilt ? " The prisoner had arisen. " Stop, Prentiss ! I had rather endure the pangs of Hell than of Conscience. / killed that man ! " N. L. F. Bachman. ULTIMATE AMERICA. Note 52. Every epoch has had its own great nation, one leading all other nations of the globe, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, Rome, the Empire of Charlemagne. To-day it is the Anglo-Saxon Empire, Great Britain and the United States, mother and daughter, one in all but flag and organization. To every nation this sublime leadership has in turn been intrusted ; and as one and another has proven false, from one and another the crown and sceptre has departed. What more pathetic than to stand where once were the hanging gardens of Babylon, and see there the ruins where the jackal makes his hiding-place: or in Greece with its temples^ now but single and isolated pillars pointing sky- ward, monuments to its own infidelity. Shall the time ever come when some traveller from some remote region beyond the seas shall come to our land, shall see New York harbor choked with soil, our great rivers with no commerce fleck- ing them, shall wander along our railways and wonder what sort of carriages traversed them ? There is a better faith and hope for our dear land. Palestine has given the world religion. Greece has given it art. Rome has given it law. England has given it com- merce and manufactures, and America shall give it liberty : THE DUMB MAID. 129 liberty rooted in religion : liberty filling all literature with its fragrance : liberty guarded and defended by law, and redeeming law from despotism. We stand to-day, and the curtain of the future seems to roll for a time from before our vision. We see our land fair now, but fairer yet than now. We see here one people, one great nation, her church and school-house standing side by side in every village. We see the German, the Italian, the Irishman gathered under one flag, whose white means purity, whose red means self-denial, whose blue means fidelity, and whose stars mean the smile of heaven. From that great congregation, type and figure and symbol of that greater congregation, into which every tribe and nation and tongue shall enter at last, there rises the grand choral chant, " God, even our own God, has blessed us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." Lyman Abbott. THE DUMB MAID. All you that pass along, give ear unto my song, Concerning a youth that was young, young, young : And of a maiden fail*, few with her might compare, But alack, and alas ! She was dumb, dumb, dumb. She was beauteous, fresh, and gay, like the pleasant flowers in May, And her cheeks were as round as a plum, plum, plum ; She was neat in every part, and she stole away his heart : But alack, and alas! She was dumb, dumb, dumb. At length this country blade wedded this pretty maid, And he kindly conducted her home, home, home. Thus in her beauty bright lay all his whole delight ; But alack, and alas! She icas dumb, dumb, dumb. 130 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Now I will plainly show what work this maid could do, Which a pattern may be for girls young, young, young ; O she, both day and night, in working took delight, But alack, and alas ! She was dumb, dumb, dumb. She could brew and she could bake, she could wash, wring, and shake, She could sweep the house with a broom, broom, broom : She could knit, and sew, and spin, and do any such like thing, Bat alack, and alas ! She was dumb, dumb, dumb. But at last this man did go the doctor's skill to know, Saying : " Sir, can you cure a woman of the dumb, dumb, dumb ? " " O it is the easiest part that belongs unto my art, For to cure any woman of the dumb, dumb, dumb." To the doctor he did her bring, and he cut her chattering- string, And he quickly set her tongue on the run, run, run ; In the morning she did rise, and she filled his house with cries, And she rattled in his ears like a drum, drum, drum. To the doctor he did go, with his heart well filled with woe, Crying : " Doctor, I am certainly undone, done, done ! Now she's turned a scolding wife, and I'm weary of my life, Nor I cannot make her hold her tongue, tongue, tongue ! " The doctor thus did say : " "When she went from me away, She was perfectly cured of the dumb, dumb, dumb ; But it's beyond the art of man, let him do the best he can, For to make a scolding woman hold her tongue, tongue, tongue ! " SENTIMENT. 131 SENTIMENT. Note 53. Men who tliink there is do other force in the world but interest, deride sentiment. They say it is the companion of idleness, the inspiration of foolish dreams. But they do not judge wisely. Sentiment is a power — a wild, disorderly, ruinous power, sometimes, but a power kindly, majestic, beneficent, as well. "What was it led the pilgrim on his long way, through strange peoples, over desert wastes, to the holy sepulchre? A sentiment. What is it makes a regiment of soldiers hurrah for a flag, follow it in battle, madly expose life to save it from falling in the dust, or to snatch it from the hands of the enemy ? Principle ? Oh, no, only a sentiment. Yes, sentiment is a power, mysterious, subtle, unseizable, irresistible. It inspires reckless daring ; it stiffens into iron the endurance of the martyr ; it upbears on its strong wings the imagination of the poet. Tears of sympathy in the eyes of warm-hearted women are its rain and dew ; smiles of hope on happy, youthful faces are its sunshine. It is impossible to trace it to all its sources, or to truly meas- ure its power. Innumerable are the sentiments that combine to attach men to country. First, there is love of home. It is natural for men to become attached to home. I do not mean a house or family merely, but those outdoor scenes — the landscape, as familiar and inseparable from home as the face of a mother or sister. How many men there are in every land, whose whole idea of country is embraced in that little circle of earth. Such a limited conception does not inspire a wise, comprehensive patriotism ; but it may not be' the less strong nor the less fruitful. What is it sustains the heart of the volunteer in the camp, the long march, the ordeal of battle? Novelty, excitement, sometimes, the largest-hearted patriotism some- times, but oftener than aivythmg else, it is a picture in the memory, of home. What rises before the mind of the 132 THE AD VANGED SPEAKER. wanderer at the mention of native land ? Not a nag, nor a constitution, not grand rivers, nor expanse of territory; but only a little valley far away with bills touching the sky all around. Ask the man who has visited the most famous landscapes of earth to name the loveliest spot he has gazed upon. Will he point to the picturesque grandeur' of the Swiss mountains ? No. Does he name some beautiful re- treat in that wondrous valley of the Rhine ? No, not there either did he lose his heart. Does he lead you into that land where ruined castles whisper ever of romantic ages gone ; where warm, passionate skies bend enchantingly over you ? No, it is not Italy. Far away from all places known to fame, he takes you to a quiet spot which for years and years, in all seasons, and all moods, he looked out upon through the window by the old hearthstone. Charles H. Searle. THE WAR OF THE STATES INEVITABLE. Note 54. The War for the Union was inevitable. It might have come a little sooner, or a little later ; but it must have come. The disease of the nation was organic and not functional ; and the rough chirurgery of war was its only remedy. In opposition to this view there are many languid think- ers who lapse into a forlorn belief that if this or that man had never lived, or if this or that man had not ceased to live, the country might have gone on in peace and prosper- ity until its felicity merged in the millennium. If Mr. Cal- houn had never proclaimed his heresies : if Mr. Garrison had never published his paper : if Mr. Phillips, the Cassan- dra of our long prosperous Illium, had never uttered his melodious prophecies : if the silver notes of Clay had still sounded in the Senate chamber : if the Olympian brow of Daniel Webster had been lifted from the dust to fix its TEE WAR OF TEE STATES INEVITABLE. 133 awful frown on the darkening scowl of rebellion, we might have been spared that dread season of convulsion. They little know the tidal movements of national thought and feeling, who believe that they depend for existence on a few strong swimmers who ride their waves. It is not Leviathan that leads the ocean from continent to continent, but the ocean which bears his mighty bulk as it wafts its own bubbles. If this is true of all the narrower manif esta- tions of human progress, how much more must it be true of those broad movements in the intellectual and spiritual domain which interest all mankind ? But in the more lim- ited ranges referred to, no fact is more familiar than that there is a simultaneous impulse acting on many individual minds at once, so that genius comes in clusters, and shines rarely as a single star. You may trace a common motive and force in the pyramid builders, in the evolution of Greek architecture, and in the sudden springing up of those won- drous cathedrals of the twelfth and following centuries, growing out of the soil with stem and bud and blossom, like flowers of stone, whose seed might well have been the flaming aerolites cast over the battlements of Heaven. You may accept the fact as natural, that Luther and Zwingli, without knowing each other, preached the same gospel ; that Leverrier and Adams felt their hands meeting, as it were, as they stretched them into the outer darkness, beyond the orbit of Uranus, in search of the dim, unseen planet. You see why Patrick Henry in Richmond, and Samuel Adams in Boston, were startling the crown officials with the same accents of liberty, and why the Mecklenburg Res- olutions had the very ring of the Protest of the Province of Massachusetts. The antagonism of the two sections of the Union was not the work of this or that enthusiast or fanatic. It was the consequence of a movement in mass of two different forms of civilization in different directions ; and the men to whom it was attributed were only those who represented it most completely. Long before the accents of those famous 134 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. statesmen referred to ever resounded in the Capitol : long before the " Liberator " opened its batteries, the controversy was foreseen and predicted. Washington warned his coun- trymen of the danger of sectional divisions. Jefferson foreshadowed the judgment to fall, and Andrew Jackson announced a quarter of a century beforehand that the next pretext of revolution would be slavery. Oliver W. Holmes. WAHREN HASTINGS. Note 55. With all Hastings' faults, and they were neither few nor small, only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the en- mities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of this illustrious accused statesman should have mingled with the dust of his illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that an- cient and widely extended name. On that very spot, prob- ably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of plough- men. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands, and re- built the old dwelling. He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of a Rich- C0WUXIS3T. 135 elieu. He had patronized learning with the judicious lib- erality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most for- midable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim ; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave, in the fulness of age, in peace, after so many troubles ; in honor, after so much obloquy. Those who look upon his character without favor or ma- levolence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intel- lect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his honorable pov- erty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either. Macaulay. COMMUNISM. (Abridged.) Xote 56. One thing greatly needed now and always, is less fear of ruffians. Have you ever observed how often burglars get the worst of it in a struggle, with every advantage on their side except the courage that goes with a good conscience ? The brutal mob which surged down Broadway in the sum- mer of 1863, was swept from the pavement in less than ten minutes by a squad of resolute policemen using their clubs only. The German army at Austerlitz had muscle enough ; at Sedan, brain enough. But institutions that are not sub- verted may be rudely shaken or radically changed. In the 136 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. last analysis it will be found that Caesar was Rome's escape from Communism : the rich were being plundered by the poor. They lifted up their voices in wild alarm, and the avenging eagles hastened across the Rubicon. History may easily be persuaded to repeat her retributions. Commun- ism is in the air. Section is poisoned against section, class against class, interest against interest. Farmer, manufac- turer, and merchant, natural friends, are being told they are natural enemies. What is Communism ? There is no mystery about it. It is simply the absorption of the individual in the communi- ty, the citizen in the State. The individual as such has no rights, the community has absorbed them all. What the community ordains must be done or endured. Not rela- tions only, but employments, everything must be deter- mined by the State. The State undertakes to do every- thing : owns all the lands, the houses, railways, factories, banks, vessels. There is no more any private property or private business. No one shall even braid for himself a palm-leaf hat, or cobble his own shoes. All freedom has perished. The citizen is nothing : the State is all ; and in a Republic, that all may be barely a majority of one, and that one carried drunk to the polls. One drunken voter may thus be master of us all. It is a monstrous doctrine. Rut we have got something more to do than howl it down. It is a philosophy and must be argued down.* First of all, we must make it plain that the State is for the citizen, not the citizen for the State : society for the in- dividual, . not the individual for society. Personality is august. The humblest of us has rights, which all the rest of us, banded together, may not dare to touch. I have a right to my life ; and society, without my consent, shall not take it away, till it has been forfeited by crime. I have a right to my liberty ; and society shall not enslave me. I have a right to my property, whether earned or inherited ; and society shall not use it against my wishes without ap- * This selection may end ben A MESSAGE. 137 praisal and indemnity. The final end of society is not itself, but the individual. What will Germany be good for when a plain, godly peasant like Martin Luther of Eisleben is no longer possible ? What shall we be good for when Paine's "Age of Reason" has supplanted Butler's "Anal- ogy " ? Society, of course, has its sphere, its prerogatives, its authority. It may command me to assist the policeman in arresting a murderer. It may send me to battle. Society is under bonds to defend us all in defending itself, and I am a party to the contract. Society may build its roads and bridges ; but when it crosses my meadow or hurts my business it must settle with me for the damage. Not to do so is Communism. t The Persians have a proverb that, when the orphan cries, the throne of the Almighty rocks from side to side. The Persians are Mohammedans, and perhaps they are too re- ligious. It may be the theists all are mistaken. Possibly there is no throne to rock, and no Almighty Person any- where above us. But in history I think I find an Almighty Something whose Day of Judgment is always rising and never sets ; and I think I hear the sound of mills whose grinding is exceeding fine. Roswell D. Hitchcock. A MESSAGE. Note 57. It was Spring in the great city — every gaunt and withered tree Felt the shaping and the stir at heart of leafy prophecy ; All the wide-spread umber branches took a tender tint of green, And the chattering brown-backed sparrow lost his pert,- pugnacious mien In a dream of mate and nestlings shaded by a verdant screen. 138 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. It was Spring — the grim ailanthus, with its snaky arms awry, Held out meagre tufts and bunches to the sun's persistency : Every little square of greensward, railed in from the dusty way, Sent its straggling forces upward, blade and spear in bright array, "While the migratory organs Offenbach and Handel play. Through the heart of the vast Babel, where the tides of being pour, From his labor in the evening came the sturdy stevedore, Towering like a son of Anak, of a coarse, ungainly mold ; Yet the hands begrimed and blackened in the hardened fingers hold A dandelion blossom, shining like a disk of gold. Wayside flower! with thy plucking did remembrance gently lay Her hand upon the tomb of youth and roll the stone away ? Did he see a barefoot urchin wander singing up the lane, Carving from the pliant willow whistles to prolong the strain, "While the browsing cows, slow driven, chime their bells in low refrain ? Did his home rise up before him, and his child, all loving glee, Hands and arms in eager motion for the golden mystery ? Or the fragile, pallid mother, seeing in that starry eye God's eternal fadeless garden, God's wide sunshine and His sky, Hers through painless, endless ages, bright'ning through immensity ? None may know — the busy workings of the brain remain untold, But the loving deed — the outgrowth — brings us lessons manifold. WASHINGTON. 139 Smiles and frowns — a look — a flower growing by the com- mon way, Trifles born with every hour make the sum of life's poor day, And the jewels that we garner are the tears we wipe away. Scribnee's Monthly. WASHINGTON. It matters very little what spot may have been the birth- place of "Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, aud the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the atmos- phere that it cleared ! How bright, on the brow of the fir- mament, was the planet which it revealed to us. In the production of Washing-ton, it seems as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies pre- paratory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some singular qualification. Caesar was merciful, Scipio was temperate, Hannibal was patient ; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the per- fection of every master. As a general he marshalled the farmer into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage ; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his 140 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. counsels, that to the soldier and statesman lie almost added the character of the sage ! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason, for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who like Washington, after having emancipated a hemi- sphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have created ? Happy, proud America ! The light- nings of heaven yielded to her philosophy. The temptations of earth could not seduce her patriotism. Charles Phillips. LIBERTY SURRENDERED NEVER REGAINED. Note 58. It is a melancholy spectacle to behold a free government die. The world, it is true, is filled with the evidences of decay. All nature speaks the voice of dissolution, and the highway of history and of life is strewn with the wrecks which time, the great despoiler, has made. But hope of the future, bright visions of reviving glory are nowhere denied to the heart of man save as he gazes upon the down- fall of legal liberty. He listens sorrowfully to the autumn winds as they sigh through dismantled forests, but he knows that their breath will be soft and vernal in the spring, and that the dead flowers and the withered foliage will blossom and bloom again. He sees the sky overcast with the angry frown of the tempest, but he knows that the sun will re- appear, and the stars, the bright emblazonry of God, cannot perish. Man himself, strange link between dust and deity, LIBERTY SURRENDERED NEVER REGAINED. 141 totters wearily onward under the weight of years and pain toward the gaping tomb, but how briefly his mind lingers around that dismal spot. It is filled with tears and grief, and the willow and the cypress gather around it with their loving, but mournful embrace. And is this all? Not so. If a man die shall he not live again ? Beyond the grave, in the distant Aiden, hope provides an elysium of the soul where the mortal assumes immortality, and life becomes an endless splendor. But where, in all the dreary regions of the past, filled with convulsions, wars, and crimes, can you point your fin- ger to the tomb of a free commonwealth on which the angel of resurrection has ever descended, or from whose mouth the stone of despotism has ever been rolled away? Where, in what age and in what clime, have the ruins of constitu- tional freedom renewed their youth and regained their lost estate? By whose strong grip has the dead corpse of a Bepublic once fallen ever been raised ? The merciful Mas- ter who walked upon the waters and bade the winds be still, left no ordained apostles with power to wrench apart the jaws of national death and release the victims of despotism. The wail of the heart-broken over the dead is not so sad as the realization of this fact. But all history, with a loud, unbroken voice, proclaims it. Whenever a people once possessed of liberty, with all the power in their own hands, have surrendered these great gifts of God at the command of the usurper, they have never afterward proven them- selves worthy to regain their forfeited treasures. Liberty, once abandoned and surrendered by those whom she has crowned with honor and greatness, in the midst of the earth, goes forth to seek more worthy objects of her love and care. Daniel W. Voorhees. 142 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. HOME RULE FOR IRELAND. It lias been said that for many years past we have been struggling to pass good laws for Ireland, and that we have sacrificed our time, neglected our interests, and paid our money, and we have done all this in the endeavor to give Ireland good laws. That is quite true with regard to the general course of legislation since 1849. But in order to work out the purposes of government there is something more in this world occasionally required than the passing of good laws. The passing of good laws is not enough in cases where the strong instincts of the people require not only that these laws should be good, but that they should proceed from congenial sources ; and that besides being good laws they should be their own laws. The British Parliament tried to pass good laws for the Colonies, but the Colonies said : " We don't want your good laws: we want our own good laws"; and Parliament at length admitted the reasonableness of the principle. This principle has now come home to us from across the seas ; and we have now to consider whether it is applicable to the case of Ireland. There is such a thing as local patriotism which in itself is not bad, but good. The Welshman is full of local patriot- ism. The Scotchman is full of local patriotism. Scotch nationality is as strong as it ever was, and if need were to arise it would be as ready to assert itself as it was in the days of Bannockburn. If I read Irish history aright, mis- fortune and calamity have wedded her sons to their soil with an embrace yet closer than is found elsewhere ; but it does not follow that because their local patriotism is strong, they should be incapable of an imperial patriotism. What is the answer to this ? The answer is only found in the view which rests upon a basis of despair, of absolute condemnation of Ireland and Irishmen as exceptions to those beneficial provisions which have made Englishmen THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS. 143 and Americans capable of self-government : that justice, common sense, moderation, have no meaning for them ; and that all they can appreciate is strife. I am not going to argue whether this monstrous view is a correct one. I say the Irishman is as capable of loyalty as any other man ; but if his loyalty has been checked, it is because the laws by which he is governed do not present themselves to him with a native and congenial element. We should apply to Ireland the happy experience we have gained in England and Scotland, where a course of generations has taught us, not as a dream or theory, but as a matter of practice, that the surest foundation we can build on is the foundation afforded by the affections and will of man ; and that it is thus, by a decree of the Al- mighty, that we may secure at once social happiness and the power and permanence of the empire. "Wm. E. Gladstone. THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS. Note 59. How often events which seem to be most insignificant become the most momentous. Can you imagine anything more unimportant than the coming of a poor woman from Moab to Judah ? Can you imagine anything more trivial than the fact* that this Ruth just happened to alight — as they say — just happened to alight on that field of Boaz? Yet, all ages, all generations, have an interest in the fact that she was to become an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all nations and kingdoms must look at that one little incident with a thrill of unspeakable and eternal satis- faction. So it is in your history and in mine ; events that you thought of no importance at all have been of very great moment. That casual conversation, that accidental meet- ing — you did not think of it again for a long while — but how it changed all the phases of your life. It seemed to be of no importance that Jubal invented instruments of music, 144 - THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. calling them harp and organ, but they were the introduction of all the world's minstrelsy ; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed instrument even after the fingers have be.en taken away from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet are only the long-continued strains of Jubal's harp and Jubal's organ. It seemed to be a matter of very little importance that Tubal Cain learned the use of copper and iron, but that rude foundry of ancient days has its echo in the rattle of Birmingham machinery, and the roar and bang of factories on the Merrimac. It seemed to be a matter of no importance that Luther found a Bible in a monastery ; but as he opened the Bible and the brass lids fell back they jarred everything from the Vatican to the farthest corner in Germany, and the rustling of the wormed leaves was the sound of the wings of the angel of the Refor- mation. It seemed to be a matter of no importance that a woman, whose name has been forgotten, dropped a tract in the way of a very bad man by the name of Richard Baxter. He picked up the tract and read it, and it was the means of his salvation. In after days that man wrote a book called "The Call to the Unconverted," that was the means of bringing a multitude to God, among others, Philip Dodd- ridge. Philip Doddridge wrote a book called " The Rise and Progress of Religion," which has brought thousands and tens of thousands into the kingdom of God, among others the great Wilberforce. Wilberforce wrote a book called " A Practical View of Christianity," which was the means of bringing a great multitude to Christ, among others Leigh Richmond. Leigh Richmond wrote a tract called "The Dairyman's Daughter," which has been the means of the salvation of unconverted multitudes. And that tide of influence started from the fact that one Chris- tian woman dropped a Christian tract in the way of Richard Baxter — the tide of influence rolling on through Richard Baxter, through Philip Doddridge, through the great Wil- berforce, through Leigh Richmond, on, on, forever. T. DeWitt Talmage. THE JEW'S GIFT. 145 THE JEW'S GIFT. (a.D. 1200.) The Abbot willed it, and it was done, They hanged him high in an iron cage For the spiteful wind and the patient sun To bleach him. Faith, 'twas a cruel age ! Just for no crime they hanged him there. When one is a Jew, why, one remains A Jew to the end, though he swing in air From year to year in a suit of chains. 'Twas May, and the buds into blossom broke, And the apple boughs were pink and white : What gruesome fruit was that on the oak, Swaying and swaying day and night ! The miller, urging his piebald mare Over the cross-road, stopped and leered ; But never an urchin ventured there, For fear of the dead man's long, white beard. A long, white beard like carded wool, Reaching down to the very knee ; Of a proper sort with which to pull A heretic Jew to the gallows-tree ! Piteous women-folk turned away, Having no heart for such a thing ; But the blackbirds on the alder-spray For very joy of it seemed to sing. Whenever a monk went shuffling by To the convent over against the hill, He would lift a pitiless pious eye, And mutter, " The Abbot but did God's will ! 7 146 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. And the Abbot himself slept no whit less, But rather the more, for this his deed : And the May moon filled, and the loveliness Of springtide flooded upland and mead. Then an odd thing chanced. A certain clown, On a certain morning breaking stone By the hillside, saw, as he glanced down, That the heretic's long white beard was gone, Shaved as clean and close as you choose, As close and clean as his polished pate ! Like wildfire spread the marvellous news From the ale-house bench to the convent gate. And the good folk flocked from far and near, And the monks trooped down the rocky height 'Twas a miracle, that was very clear, The devil had shaved the Israelite ! Where is the Abbot ? Quick, go tell ! Summons him, knaves, death ! straightway ! The devil hath sent his barber from hell, Perchance there will be the devil to pay ! Now a lad that had climbed an alder-tree, The better to overlook the rest, Suddenly gave a shout of glee At finding a wondrous blackbird's nest, Then suddenly flung it from his hand, For lo ! it was woven of human hair, Plaited and braided, strand upon strand : No marvel the heretic's chin was bare ! Silence fell upon priest and clown, Each stood riveted in his place ; The brat that tugged at his mother's gown Caught the terror that blanched her face. INTEMPERANCE. 147 Then one, a patriarch, bent and gray, "Wise with the grief of years fourscore, Picked up his staff, and took his way By the mountain-path to the Abbot's door ; And bravely told this thing of the nest, How the birds had never touched cheek or eye, But daintily plucked the fleece from the breast ' To build a home for their young thereby. " Surely, if they were not af ear'd (God's little choristers, free of guile !) To serve themselves of the Hebrew's beard, It was that he was not wholly vile ! " Perhaps they saw with their keener eyes The grace that we missed, but which God sees : Ah, but He reads all hearts likewise, The good in those, and the guilt in these. Precious is mercy, O my Lord ! " Humbly the Abbot bowed his head, And making a gesture of accord : " What would you have ? The knave is dead." " Certes, the man is dead ! No doubt Deserved to die ; as a Jew, he died ; But now he hath served the sentence out (With a dole or two thrown in beside), Suffered all that he may of men, Why not earth him, and no more words ? " The Abbot pondered, and smiled, and then — " Well, well! since he gave his beard to the birds !' T. B. Aldrich. INTEMPERANCE. Note 60. The London Times proclaimed twenty years ago that in- temperance produced more idleness, crime, distress, want, and misery than all other causes put together ; and the 148 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Westminster Review calls it a " curse that far eclipses every other calamity under which we suffer." Gladstone, speak- ing as Prime Minister, admitted that "greater calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than by the three great historical scourges, war, pestilence, and famine." These are English testimonies where the State rests more than half on bayonets. Here we are trying to rest the bal- lot-box on a drunken people. " We can rule a great city," said Robert Peel, "America cannot"; and he cited the mobs of New York as sufficient proof of his assertion. Thoughtful men see that, up to this hour, the government of great cities has been with us a failure ; that worse than the dry-rot of legislative corruption, than the rancor of party spirit, than even the tyranny of incorporated wealth, is the giant burden of intemperance, making universal suf- frage a failure and a curse in every great city. But while this crusade, the temperance movement, has been for sixty years gathering its facts and marshalling its arguments, rallying parties, besieging legislatures, and putting great States on the witness-stand as evidence of the soundness of its methods, scholars have given it nothing but a sneer. But if universal suffrage ever fails here for a time, per- manently it cannot fail, it will not be incapable civil ser- vice, nor an ambitious soldier, nor greed of wealth that will put universal suffrage into eclipse. It will be rum in- trenched in great cities and commanding every vantage ground. Wendell Phillips. AN INCIDENT OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. (Abridged.) Note 61. Soon, beside Kadikoi, on the road between camp and port, there sprung up wooden store-houses, and stacks, and bales, and chests ; and there, too, men observed as they passed, that under some motive force newly reaching Crim- AN INCIDENT OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 149 Tartary, there had been generated a seething activity : mules, horses, and carts coming in laden, and finding men to unload them : splendid sailors, men of the yacht, bring- ing strength and resources from on board : men intrench- ing the ground to find shelter for hampers and bales : in- terpreters lightly bridging the gulf between the mind of the East and the mind of the West : strong barbarians carrying loads ; and, propeller of all, his great eyes flaming with zeal, his mighty beard laden or spangled like the bough of a cedar on Lebanon with whatever the skies might send down, snow, sleet, or rain, an eagle-faced, vehement Eng- lishman, commanding, warning, exhorting, swooj)ing down in vast seven-leagued boots through the waters and quag- mires upon any one of his Mussulmans who, under cover of piety, stopped kneeling too long at his prayers. If , any wayfarer between camp and port sought to learn what all this stir meant, he might be told, perhaps, Orientally, by some of the bearers of burdens, that " the will of Allah — his name be it blessed! — had made them the hard-driven slaves of the sacredly-bearded commander, the all-compel- ling, the sleepless, the inexorable Father of boxes"; while the answer to any such question, if drawn from an English officer, was likely to be altogether neglectful of the spiritual element, and simply explain in five words that the cause of all the commotion was Si Tom Tower working his Croats." The mere sight of this promising turmoil began to do good. It was England, busy England herself, that had at last planted her foot in the midst of the drear winter sol- diering. Not the England officially typified, that swathes her limbs round with red tape : still less the quarrelsome, critical England, that goes digging and digging for faults, as though for diamonds or gold ; but the larger, generous England, fondly glowing with the love of her army from head to foot, and come out all the long way to share with it the troubles of the winter campaign. The soldier, who by this time had lived almost through the winter, was, if judged by his looks, a man of wrought- 150 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. iron. Armored thickly and clumsily against the rigors of the climate he, of course, in his outer self, was a rough- looking sample of masculine strength. But, ennobled by war and self-sacrifice, he was more equal to exalted resolves than luxurious idlers at home ; more capable, too, of the sentiment that would make tears well to his eyes if it chanced that, in one of the " Christmas hampers," he saw a slip of paper with some word of blessing in lady's hand- writing, for the soldier unknown to whom her present might come. For, to look on such traces of tender thought- fulness, in that spirit of distant worship which sways the heart of the exile, was like coming under the spell of some gracious presence in England, like seeing the gentle hands busied in their labor of love and hearing a silver voice speak. Alexander William Kjnglake. THE INSULAR STRENGTH OF ENGLAND. Note 62. In one of the old English charters we read that " on the 6th of July, 1264, the whole force of the country was sum- moned to London for the 3d of August, to resist the army which was coming from France under the queen and her son Edmund. The invading fleet was prevented by weather from sailing until too late in the season. The Papal legate, who soon after became Clement IV., threatened the barons with excommunication ; but the bull containing the sen- tence was taken by the men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and thrown into the sea." As I read this, I think of the sturdy men of Connecticut beating the drum to prevent the reading of the royal order of James II. depriving the colony of the control of its own militia : and feel with pride that the indomitable spirit of English liberty is alike indomitable in every land where THE INSULAR STREXGTH OF ENGLAND. 151 roe a of English race have set their feet as masters. As the success of the Americans, in withstanding the pretensions of the crown, was greatly favored by the barrier of the ocean, so the success of Englishmen in defying the enemies of their freedom has no doubt been greatly favored by the barrier ol the English Channel. The war between Henry HI. and the barons was an event in English history no less critical than the war between Charles I. and the Parliament four centuries later ; and we have every reason to be thank- ful that a great French army was not able to get across the Channel in August, 1264. Nor was this the only time when the insular position of England did good service in main- taining its liberties and its internal peace. We cannot for- get how Lord Howard, aided also by the weather, defeated the Armada that boasted itself " invincible," sent to strangle freedom in its chosen home by the most execrable and ruthless tyrant that Europe has ever seen ; a tyrant whose victory would have meant the usurpation of the English crown, and the establishment of the Inquisition at West- minster Hall. Nor can we forget with what longing eyes the Corsican barbarian, who wielded for mischief the forces of France, in 1805, looked across from Boulogne at the shores of the one European land that never in word or deed granted him homage. But in these latter days England has had no need of stormy weather to aid the prowess of the sea-kings who are her natural defenders. It is impossible for the thoughtful student of history to walk across Trafalgar Square and gaze on the image of the mightiest naval hero that ever lived, on the summit of his lofty column, and guarded by the royal lions, looking down upon the land he freed from the dread of Napoleonic invasion, and not admire the artistic instinct that devised so happy a symbolism, and the rare good for- tune of our- Teutonic ancestors, in securing a territorial po- sition so readily defensible against the assaults of despotic powers. John Fiske. 152 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY. Note 63. We all remember the incidents of the last war that dis- turbed Europe. We remember the swift, decisive blows that Prussia dealt the Second Empire, wounding its pride at Saarbriick, and never pausing till she ended its existence at Sedan. Amid these vivid memories, other events of the time are liable to be robbed of their importance. The withdrawal of the French soldiers from Kome was a quiet episode ; but it was of far more significance than the battle which occa- sioned it. The capitulation of Sedan was the collapse of an unsound, shallow-rooted dynasty : the evacuation of Eome was the crowning act in the disenthrallment of a nation from foreign oppression. Still more ! That act sealed the fate of Papal monarchy. Internal despotism ended with alien interference ; and Italy became free and united, "from the Alps to the Gulf of Taranto," for the first time since barbarism sacked the palaces of the Caesars. The story of Italian unification may well enlist our warm- est sympathies. It is the story of a people rising from sla- very to freedom : rising, not in the flush and enthusiasm of rapidly succeeding battles, but by a struggle slow and pain- ful, extending over half a century, full of failures as a human life, yet never once abandoned. They were ani- mated by a patriotism that outlived enthusiasm, that did not know despair. The child of these stormy times, the leader and prophet of his countrymen, was Joseph Mazzini. Practically con- sidered, Mazzini's plans were as idle as the day-dreams of a boy : but acted out in an earnest, loyal, suffering life, and preached with fervent, solemn eloquence, they sanctified and ennobled the spirit of " Young Italy." In place of vague discontent and morbid revenge, he implanted a fixed purpose, a holy patriotism. In becoming a nation Italy has undergone no wonderful CAPTAIN FRANCISCA. 153 change in her condition. Her mountains are still infested with robbers : her cities are sunk in ignorance : her people indifferent in the use of suffrage ; but these are the linger- ing mists of her splendid dawn. She has an established, central government. The nations are greeting her as she rises proud in her young strength. With no impatient longing for revolution, let us look forward to the day when the land of Mazzini and Garibaldi shall grasp again the grand principle of sovereignty by the people, and realize the hope of a glorious and enduring republic. Lansing L. Poetee. Note 64. CAPTAIN FHANCISCA. Off Maracaibo's wall The squadron lay : The dykes are carried all With storm and shout ! Le Basque and Lolonnois On land their crews deploy, Through all that ruthless day The Spaniards' rout. They sack the captured town Ere set of sun ; Their blood-red pennons crown The convent tower : Then Du Plessis, the bold, Cries : " Take my share of gold ! For me this pretty one, This cloister flower ! " Dice, drink, and song, the while They seek anew The filibusters' isle, Tortuga's port ! 7* 154 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Swift was the craft that bore Francisca from her shore ; Red-handed were its crew, And grim their sport. Unbraided fell her hair, A tropic cloud ; Seven days, with sob and prayer, She mourned the dead ; Like rain her tears fell ; But Du Plessis right well By saint and relic vowed As on they sped. Ere past the Mer du Nord She smiled apace ; Her dark eyes evermore Sought his alone. Hot wooed the Chevalier ; His outlaw- priest was near ; Forsworn were home and race, She was his own. Now cruel Lolonnois And fierce Le Basque Unlade with wolfish joy The cargazon ; Land all their mongrel braves, Captives and naked slaves, With many a bale and cask, By rapine won ; Armor and altar-plate Brought over sea ; Pesos, a countless weight, The horde divide — CAPTAIN FRANCISCA. 155 To each an equal share, Else blades are in the air ! Cries Du Plessis : " For me, My ship, and bride ! " They sailed the Mer du Nord, The Carib Sea, Whose galleons fled before The Frenchman's crew ; But, in one deadly fight, A swivel aimed aright Brought down young Du Plessis, Shot through and through. Wild heart of France, in pride And ruin bred ! Against a heart he died, As brave, as free. Sternly she bade his men First sink the prize, and then Name one that in his stead Their chief should be. Each red-shirt laid his hand Upon the Cross, Swearing, -at her command, Vengeance to wreak ; To scour the blue sea there And seek the Spaniards' lair, From Gracias a Dios To Porto Bique. His corse the deep she gave, Her life to hate ; Upon the land and wave Brought sudden fear ; 156 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. No bearded Capitan, Since first their woes began (The orphaned ninas prate), Cost thern so dear ! From Maracaibo's Bay- Anon put out A Frigate, to waylay This ranger dark. It crossed the Mer du Nord, And, off San Salvador, Stayed, with defiance stout, Francisca's barque. They grappled stern and prow Till the guns kissed ! Girt like her rovers, now She bids them board : The first her blade has shorn Is her own brother born. Blindly she smote, nor wist Whose life-stream poured. Yet, as he fell, one ball His sure aim sped. Her lips the battle-call Essay in vain. Then deathful stroke on stroke, Curses and powder-smoke, And blood like water shed Above the twain ! No quarter give or take ! The decks are gore ; Fresh gaps the Spaniards make, Charging anew : PAINE' 8 AGE OF REASON. 157 Death to the buccaneer ! No more our fleet shall fear, That sails the Mer du Nord, This corsair crew ! " On thy lone strand was made, San Salvador, One grave where two were laid For bane or boon ! The last of all their race, To each an equal place. Guards well that sombre shore The still lagoon. Edmund Clakence Stedman. PAINE'S AGE OF REASON. {Abridged.) Note 65. It seems this is an age of reason, and the time and the person are at last arrived that are to dissipate the errors which have overspread the past generations of ignorance. The believers of Christianity are many, but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. In running the mind over the long list of sincere and devout Christians I cannot help lamenting that Newton had not lived to this day to have had his shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. Newton was a Christian : Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters fastened by nature upon our finite conceptions. Newton, whose science was truth and the foundations of whose knowledge of it was philos- ophy, philosophy resting upon the basis of mathematics, who carried the line and rule to the uttermost barriers of creation. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, the errors which a minu- 158 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. ter investigation of created things might have taught him. What then shall be said of Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the inanimate substances the foot treads upon ? Such a man may be sup- posed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's God ; yet the result of his contemplations was the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt. But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the foundations of human judgment. Let that question be an- swered by Mr. Locke, who to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration was a Christian ; Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking by going up to the very foun- tains of thought. But these men, it may be said, were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind : yet Sir Matthew Hale was a man whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits. But it is said that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily detected by a proper understanding of the mytholo- gies of the heathens. Did Milton understand those mythol- ogies ? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the super- stitions of the world ? No ! they were the subject of his immortal song : and, though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a mem- ory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the illustration of real and exalted faith. Thus, you will find all that is great, or wise, or splendid, or illustrious amongst created things : all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature, though divided by distant ages and by clashing opinions, yet joining as it were in one sublime chorus to celebrate the truth of Christianity ; and laying upon its holy altars the never-fading offerings of their immortal wisdom. Lord Eeskine. TEE BIBLE IN MUSIC. 159 THE BIBLE IN MUSIC. Note 66. Upon the art of harmony the inspiration of the Bible has been direct and essential. It has been truly said that " per- fect music comes directly from the Supreme Will." "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," was the divine mandate to the singers of Israel. So long as faith and obedience were one, the songs of Zion went up from every gate of the Holy City. When a recreant people separated harmony and the Bible, the majestic spirit of song was dumb for many sor- rowful years ; but the angelic voice at St. Cecilia echoes through the dark mazes of the Catacombs and breaks the long silence. Ere yet its melody thrills the world, northern barbarism drives music and its sister arts into the cloisters for a thousand years. There music languished ; but through the civilizing power of the Bible deliverance came. Thought and feeling were strengthened, harmonized, assimilated, and the divine word again woke in the world the notes of infinite melody. The songs of the angels at Bethlehem burst upon the soul of Handel, and he caught and fixed their harmony in the strains of his Messiah. Beethoven saw the Transfiguration, and his Mount of Olives is a wonder to man. The peaee of Eden comes down the centuries in the sacred page, and Haydn heard " the morning stars singing together over the cradled earth." The mourning of the first mother over her dead child : the wail of David over Absalom : the agony of the Virgin Mother over her Cruci- fied Son : these tuned the minor chords of Mozart's soul, and the requiem he left the world has sobbed over the dust of unnumbered mortals. Kejecting all that is local and finite in the Scriptures, Christian art seizes thoughts that are universal and infinite. Inspired like David of old, it writes these immortal thoughts in mosaic of precious stones : chisels them in Parian mar- ble : paints them on glowing canvas : builds them in ma- jestic architecture : sings them in triumphant songs. Draw- 160 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Lng inspiration from the sources of everlasting truth, it has built up a system universal in its scope : given expression to a principle enduring as time. The Bible is its studio, in which the Christian artist finds types that are always free, models always significant of eternal perfection. Having the source of its expression in human nature, and the source of its inspiration in divine truth, art mirrors the spirit and word of the Bible, as the Bible mirrors the infi- nite God. M. W. George. THE BIRD'S DEATH AND BURIAL. {Adapted.) Note 67. The cherry-trees were scarlet with their latest fruit. Be- yond a hedge of prickly thorn a narrow flower-garden stretched, spanned by low stone walls, made venerable by the silvery beards of lichens. The earth was full of color from carnations, roses, and lilies. Everywhere above this garden whirled butterflies purple and jeweled. Ked-starts in their ruby dress, blue warblers, wasps with pinions light as mist, velvet-coated bees, with their pleasant harvest song, flew ever in the sunlight, murmuring, poising, praising, re- joicing : while, from an ivy bough, a mavis, in her simple coif of white and gray, was singing with all the gladness of her summer joys. Suddenly, there broke upon the garden air a shrill sound of pain. The birds flew high above, screaming and startled. The leaves of the ivy bough shook as with a struggle. The child rose and looked. A line of twine was trembling against the foliage, and in its noosed end the throat of the mavis had been caught. It hung trembling, clutching the air convulsively with its feet. It had flown into the trap as it had ended its joyous song and soared up to join its brethren. THE BIRD'S DEATH AND BURIAL. 161 The child unloosed the cord from the tiny neck, set it free, and laid it down upon the ivy. The succor came too late. The little gentle body was already without breath. The feet had ceased to beat the air, the small, soft head had drooped feebly. The lifeless eyes had started from their sockets. The throat was without song f orevermore. Its mate, which was poised on a rose bough, flew straight to it, and curled round and round about the small, slain body, piteously bewailing its fate, and giving out vain cries of grief. Vain : for the little, joyous life was gone. The life that asked only of God and man a home in the green leaves : a drop of dew from the cup of a rose : a bough to swing on in the sunlight : a summer day to celebrate in song. All the winter through, it had borne cold and hunger and pain without lament. It had saved the soil from de- stroying larvae, and purified the trees from foul germs. It had built its little home unaided ; and had fed its nestlings without alms. It had given its sweet song lavishly to the blossoms, to the empty air, to the deaf ears of men : and now it lay dead in its innocence, trapped and slain, because a human greed begrudged it a berry worth the thousandth part of a copper coin. The little girl knelt down, scraped a hole in the earth, laid moss in it, put the mavis softly on its green and fra- grant bier, and covered it with handfuls of fallen rose leaves and sprigs of thyme. Around her head the widowed thrush flew ceaselessly, uttering sad cries. Who now would wan- der with him through the sunlight ? Who now would rove with him above the blossoming fields ? Who now would sit with him beneath the boughs, hearing the sweet rain fall between the leaves ? Who now should wake with him while yet the world was dark, to feel the dawn break ere the east were red, and sing a welcome to the unborn day ? Louisa de la Eame. 162 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. WENDELL PHILLIPS. Note 68. It was as time of Wendell Phillips as of the Chevalier Bayard, that he was a knight without fear and without re- proach. He was so deeply mourned, not because his fellow- citizens accepted all that he said. The tribute was to his singular sincerity and courage, and the ability and grace with which he asserted the most unwelcome truths against the most powerful public opinion. He was the only public critic who took the responsibility of the most stringent personal denunciation of those who, in his opinion, compromised in the least degree with the mammon of unrighteousness. If the faculty of Harvard College took part in a dinner to Paul Morphy, at which there was wine, Phillips denounced them as unfit guardians of youth. If Abraham Lincoln voted as Phillips thought wrong, upon a question involving slavery, Lincoln was the slave-hound of Illinois. If Rufus Choate spent his genius to secure the acquittal of an undoubted criminal, thieves inquired if Choate were well before they dared to steal. Phillips' life was one of the most inspiring in our history. It was a consecrated devotion to humanity, to succoring the oppressed, defending the defenceless, and pleading for the dumb. Eyes was he to the blind, feet to the lame. By genius and taste and temperament he was singularly fitted for the most brilliant success, political, social, or profes- sional. To whatever was beautiful, sumptuous, refined, luxurious, even all the delights of scholarship and lettered ease, this urbane and graceful spirit was adapted. But like the old apostle, who preached only Christ and Him cruci- fied, he renounced " all delight of battle with his peers," all prizes and laurels of pleasure and ambition, and with infinite sweetness, and with no air of sacrifice or of reluc- tance, he turned to know only the wrongs of his fellow-men. The lines of Boyle O'Reilly, when he died, tell only the truth in fervid- music : WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 163 "For his life was a ceaseless protest, and his voice Was a prophet's cry. To be true to the truth and faithful, though the World were arrayed for the lie." So great and unsullied a consecration, so signal an illus- tration of the moral sublime, explains the profound feeling that attended the death of a man of no official position, of no literary, or scientific, or social distinction, and publicly known only as an orator from whose opinions there was often general and strong dissent. But that oratory was one of the forces of national and moral regeneration. The dissent will pass like clouds of the morning. It is not the Samuel Adams who was doubt- ful of Washington, and opposed to the Constitution, that we recall ; it is the tribune of American independence. So, in Lowell's phrase, of which the orator was very fond, time will gather up into " history's golden urn " only the memory of the unquailing youth who, loyally co-operating with the great leader, Garrison, passed into full maturity pleading with the hardened conscience of his country against the deadliest wrong to human nature that history records ; and whose unselfish and resistless appeal at last drew from it the word that freed a race, as the sunrise drew music from the stony lips of Memnon. George William Curtis. WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Note 69. Social science affirms that woman's place in society marks the level of civilization. From its twilight in Greece, through the Italian worship of the Virgin, the dreams of chivalry, the justice of the civil law and the equality of French society, we trace her gradual recognition : while our common law, as Lord Brougham confessed, was, with 164 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. relation to women, the opprobrium of the age and of Chris- tianity. For forty years, plain men and women, working noiselessly, have washed away that opprobrium : the stat- ute-books of thirty States have been remodelled ; and woman stands to-day almost face to face with her last claim, the ballot. It has been a weary, a thankless, though successful struggle. But if there be any refuge from that ghastly curse, the vice of great cities, before which social science stands palsied and dumb, it is in this more equal recognition 'of woman. If, in this critical battle for uni- versal suffrage, our fathers' noblest legacy to us, and the greatest trust God leaves in our hands, there be any weapon, which once taken from the armory will make vic- tory certain, it will be, as it has been in art, literature, and society, summoning woman into the political arena. Up to this point, putting suffrage aside, there can be no difference of opinion. Everything born of Christianity, or allied to Grecian culture or Saxon law, must rejoice in the gain ; but the literary class, until within half a dozen years, has taken note of this great uprising only to fling every obstacle in its way. The first glimpse we get of Saxon blood in history is that line of Tacitus in his " Germany " which reads : " In all grave matters they consult their women." Years hence, when robust Saxon sense has flung away Jewish superstition and Eastern prejudice, and put under its foot fastidious scholarship and squeamish fashion, some second Tacitus, from the valley of the Mississippi, will answer to him of the Seven Hills, " In all grave matters we consult our women." Wendell Phillips. A GOOD CHARACTER. Note 70. The traveller upon the continent of Europe finds nothing more interesting and beautiful than the old cathedrals. Many of them have stood for hundreds of years, and seem A GOOD CHARACTER. 1G5 the solemn monuments of generations that have worshipped within them, and lain down to sleep under their protecting shadows. These cathedrals are the work of the most skilful architects and artists, and were the pride of nations and of kings. Some of them were so long in process of building, that in them are blended the architectural styles and ideas of men and times widely separated. The work- man who laid the foundations knew that before the roof was sprung, he would have mingled with the dust ; yet he j)lanted them upon the solid rock. And the patient artisan who toiled his lifetime upon the delicate carvings of flying buttress and cloud-tipped spire, knew that when the great cathedral stood complete, no human eye would behold the labor of his love ; yet he wrought none the less completely. It was enough for him that the silent stars would look down upon his handiwork. The interiors of these cathedrals are adorned with the rarest works of painter and sculptor, and through the richly stained windows the softened sunlight pours its glory, bathing wood and stone, picture and statue in a flood of autumn splendor. And when the organ tones fill the vast cathedral spaces, and anthem voices echo among the groins and arches of aisle and choir and nave, it seems a place where nothing of earth or sense can come. So should it be with our characters, their foundations laid upon the solid rock of rectitude : every stone traced, with the unchanging lines of principle, which, though men may never see, an approving conscience beholds with jo} r ; their walls, the repositories of all that is beautiful in thought, flooded with the sunlight of every virtue and echoing with the music of noble purpose and high endeavor. Struggle for such a character. Struggle for it as an ivy struggled, when it thrust its way up through the floor of a dungeon. Around it were poisonous vapors, and noisome damps, and the cold walls of the prison. Only one little window in the ceiling let in the light upon an abandoned, despairing prisoner, who crouched in hopeless, sullen agony upon his scanty bed of straw. Toward that window the 1G6 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. ivy turned ; silently, timidly, it crept along the damp, dark floor ; cautiously it put one tender foot upon the clammy wall. Every morning when the faint light came to the win- dow, it reached up a little higher toward it ; and when at night darkness filled the dungeon, it clung with desperate strength to the wall lest it should fall and perish. Thus day by day it grew and struggled until one summer morning it burst through the window, and the birds sang carols round it, and the sun gave it greeting. To the prisoner the ivy seemed a G-od-sent messenger and companion : and as he watched its heaven- aspiring growth, its tireless, desper- ate struggle for the light, his hopes and aspirations mounted upward, until when the prison doors were opened to release him, he stood in the light of a redeemed and purified manhood. Oliver E. Branch. THE GREATNESS OF NAPOLEON. Note 71. There are different orders of greatness. Among these, the first rank is unquestionably due to moral greatness, or magnanimity : to that sublime energy, by which the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself indissolubly, for life and for death, to truth and duty : espouses as its own the interests of human nature : scorns all meanness, and defies all peril : hears in its own conscience a voice louder than threatenings and thunders : withstands all the powers of the universe which would sever it from the cause of free- dom and religion : reposes an unfaltering trust in God in the darkest hour ; and is ever " ready to be offered up " on the altar of its country or of mankind. Of this moral greatness we see no trace in Napoleon. The thought of consecrating himself to the introduction of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of the human race, seems never to have dawned on his mind. His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly THE GREATNESS OF NAPOLEON. . 167 at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness lias too much simplicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent, to live an hour for what Napoleon always lived, to make itself the theme, and gaze, and wonder of a dazzled world. Next to moral comes intellectual greatness, or genius in the highest sense of that word : and by this we mean that sublime capacity of thought, through which the soul, smit- ten with the love of the true and the beautiful, essays to comprehend the universe : frames to itself, from its own fulness, lovelier forms than it beholds, and finds in every region types and interpreters of its own deep mysteries and glorious inspirations. This is the greatness which belongs to philosophers, and to the master-spirits in poetry and the fine arts. Next comes the greatness of action ; and by this we mean the supreme power of conceiving bold and extensive plans : of constructing and bringing to bear on a mighty object a complicated machinery of means, energies, and arrange- ments, and of accomplishing great outward effects. To this head belongs the greatness of Napoleon. A man who raised himself from obscurity to a throne : who changed the face of the world : who sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans : whose will was pronounced and feared as destiny : whose donatives were crowns : who broke down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a high- way ; and whose fame spread beyond the boundaries of civilization to the steppes of the Cossack and the desert of the Arab ; a man who has left this record of himself in history has taken out of our hands the question whether he shall be called great. All must concede to him a sublime power of action, an energy equal to great effects. Wm. E. Channing. 168 THE AD VANGED SPEAKER. THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. Note 72. No sooner had Fort William fallen into the hands of Surajah Dowlah, than was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tre- mendous retribution by which it was followed. The Eng- lish captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was in the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be ren- dered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls, and by the constant waving of fans. The number of prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking ; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mis- take. They expostulated : they entreated : but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them. Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors that were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the jailers : but the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders : that the Nabob was asleep. The prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled one another down, THE FUTURE. 169 fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The jailers in the mean- time held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away, in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. Twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. These were the sole sur- vivors of that awful night. Macaulay: THE FUTURE. A wanderer is man from his birth. He was born in a ship On the breast of the river of Time ; Brimming with wonder and joy He spreads out his arms to the light, Eivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. Whether he wakes Where the snowy mountainous pass, Echoing the screams of the eagles, Hems in its gorges the bed Of the new-born, clear-flowing stream ; Whether he first sees light Where the river in gleaming rings Sluggishly winds through the plain ; Whether in sound of the swallowing sea — As is the world on the banks, So is the mind of the man. 8 170 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Vainly does each, as he glides, Fable and dream Of the lands which the river of Time Had left ere he woke on its breast, Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed. Only the tract where he sails He wots of ; only the thoughts, Raised by the objects he passes, are his. "Who can see the green earth any more As she was by the sources of Time ? Who imagines her fields as they lay In the sunshine, unworn by the plough ? Who thinks as they thought, The tribes who then roam'd on her breast, Her vigorous, primitive sons ? What girl Now reads in her bosom as clear As Rebekah read when she sat At eve by the palm-shaded well ? Who guards in her breast As deep, as pellucid a spring Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure ? What bard At the height of his vision, can dream Of God, of the world, of the soul, With a plainness as near, As flashing as Moses felt, When he lay in the night by his flock On the starlit Arabian waste ? Can rise and obey The beck of the Spirit like him ? This tract which the river of Time Now flows through with us, is the plain. THE FUTURE. 171 Gone is the calm of its earlier shore. Border'd by cities, and hoarse With a thousand cries is its stream. And we on its breast, our minds Are confused as the cries which we hear, Changing and short as the sights which we see. And we say that repose has fled Forever the course of the river of Time. That cities will crowd to its edge In a blacker, incessanter line ; That the din will be more on its banks, Denser the trade on its stream, Flatter the plain where it flows, Fiercer the sun overhead. That never will those on its breast See an ennobling sight, Drink of the feeling of quiet again. But what was before us, we know not, And we know not what shall succeed. Haply, the river of Time As it grows, as the towns on its marge Fling their wavering lights On a wider, statelier stream, May acquire, if not the calm Of its early mountainous shore, Yet a solemn peace of its own. And the width of the waters, the hush Of the gray expanse where he floats, Freshening its current and spotted with foam As it draws to the Ocean, may strike Peace to the soul of the man on its breast As the pale waste widens around him, 172 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. As the banks fade dimmer away, As the stars come out, and the night- wind Brings up the stream Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. Matthew Arnold. HEROIC BRAVERY. There are two kinds of bravery : one which comes from the recollection of self : the other which comes from a forget- fulness of self. An Indian is brave when out of sheer pride he let's men drive their burning fagots into his flesh and utters no cry. A fireman is brave when for his duty he rushes into a burning house and, all scorched and bleeding, he brings out the ransomed child. The first is brave by self-recollection : the second is brave by self-forgetfulness. The first has gathered up all his self-possession, and said : " Now I will not flinch or fear, because it is unworthy of me." The second has cast all recollection of himself aside, and said : " That child will die if I stay here." "We need not ask which of these two braveries is heroic. There is a courage which comes from fear. A man learns that on the whole it is safer in the world not to dodge and shirk, and so he goes on and meets life as it comes ; there is nothing heroic about that. A man wants to run away, but because his fear of disgrace is greater than his fear of bullets, he stays in the ranks and shuts his eyes and marches on ; there is nothing heroic about that. A man is afraid as he sits alone and thinks about a task ; but when he gets among his fellow- men, a mere contagious feeling takes possession of him, and he is ready to fight and die because other men are fight- ing and dying, like a dog in a pack of dogs ; that is " the courage corporate that drags the coward to heroic death." There is nothing heroic about that. Only when a man TEE TEREE SCABS. 173 seizes the idea and meaning of some cause, and in the love and inspiration of that is able to forget himself and to go to danger fearlessly because of his great desire and en- thusiasm, only then is bravery heroic. Phillips Brooks. THE THREE SCARS. This I got on the day that Goring Fought through York, like a wild beast roaring ; The roofs were black and the streets were full, The doors built up with packs of wool ; But our pikes made way through a storm of shot, Barrel to barrel till locks grew hot ; Frere fell dead, and Lucas was gone, But the drum still beat and the flag went on. This I caught from a swinging sabre, All I had from a long night's labor ; When Chester flamed, and the streets were red, In splashing shower fell the molten lead, The fire sprang up, and the old roof split, The fire-ball burst in the middle of it ; "With a clash and clang the troopers they ran, For the siege was over ere well began. This I got from a pistol butt (Lucky my head's not a hazel-nut) ; The horse they raced, and scudded and swore ; There were Leicestershire gentlemen, seventy score ; Up came the " Lobsters " covered with steel : Down we went with a stagger and reel ; Smash at the flag, I tore it to rag, And carried it off in my foraging bag. Walter Thornburg. 174 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE INFLUENCE OF COMMERCE. Note 73. Commence is civilizing. Its very germ is an acknowledg- ment of a diversity of powers in nature and men. The rec- ognition of an interlocking of human interests whereby, no one being complete, each furnishes to the other. Thus it has founded and blessed a thousand cities by the sounding sea : has stretched the solid pomp of dock and warehouse and mast along a hundred river sides : has guided a myriad caravans to green oases, there to rear abodes of luxurious culture. It has roused to useful industry energies else spent in war, or chase, or loitering idleness. Creating crav- ings for conveniences, for culture, and for luxuries, it has put in operation countless agencies to sate them ; fostering and encouraging invention and skill, bearing arts and sci- ences everywhere. Quickening minds, brightening brains, it effects what the love of knowledge suggests. Dispelling prejudices, appeasing animosities, refining and elevating, it is the Gulf Stream of civilization ; doing for progressive humanity what this mighty current does for the ocean world. The history of Italy verifies these assertions. Through the gloom of the dark ages she appears to us dismembered, torn by dissensions and petty wars among her bandit bar- ons. Laws unknown, useful arts neglected, luxuries de- spised, she lay steeped in ignorance and brutality, a plague- spot upon the fairest portion of Europe. What power potent for her cure ! Northward the spirit of commerce is advancing. It reaches Italy ; she feels its healthful influ- ence, rouses from her lethargy, and moves on in a new career of honor and glory. Dismembered States are re- united, wars cease, manufactures and the arts flourish, litera- ture revives, law and order prevail Milan and Pisa and Genoa are regal in power and splendor, and Venice be- comes " A ruler of the waters and their powers." MAUREEN COSHA DHAS. 175 Commerce fosters the spirit of liberty and equality. It lias ever been the companion and champion of freedom. By its influence were swept away the false distinctions, the op- pression and savage slavery of the feudal system. Sur- rounded by plundering nobles and stupid serfs, from the marshes of Holland rose the free cities of the Hanseatic League, " whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers the honorable of the earth." Hamburg and Lubec and their sister cities demonstrated to the world that free confederacies, the result of intelli- gent co-operation, ruled by merchants and defended by artisans, were stronger than castles, more powerful than armies of vassals ; that none were better fitted to conduct the affairs of State than they who could well conduct the affairs of trade. The influence of commerce destroys the aristocracy of birth and rears the aristocracy of brains and consequent wealth. The history of England proves this. Encouraged by avaricious Henry Vll. commerce flourished, merchants became a power in the land, and the "Commons" for the first time had a voice in the government of the kingdom. This influence is felt no less to-day than then. It is peace- fully revolutionizing England. Her merchants are her lords, her lords becoming merchants. " The Duke of Norfolk deals in salt, The Douglas in red herrings : And guerdoned sword and titled land Are powerless to the notes of hand Of Rothschild and the Barings." Brainekd G. Smith. MAUREEN COSHA DHAS. Maureen Cosha Dhas ! Yer the purtiest lass Ever walked on shoe-leather or dhrove a boy mad : 176 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. For your wee little feet And yer figure so sweet Are too much for the brain of a poor Irish lad. Maureen Cosha Dhas ! When I see ye at mass, Saints above ! I'm afraid that it's t'yeh I pray ; An' th' crown o' my hat, When I look into that, Has yer pretty face there, with the dimples at play. Maureen Cosha Dhas ! Thin the medda ye cross, To your father's nate cabin just under the hill. Th' divil, we're told, Tempted Tony of ould Wid a woman — Bedad ! we've the pattern still. Maureen Cosha Dhas ! (Yer's th' sly little lass) Wid yer " Top o' th' mornin'," thin ye go on yer way, But yer purty eyes dance And yeh gives me a glance That sez, "Dinny, agra ! have yeh nothin' t' say?" Maureen Cosha Dhas, I'll not let yeh pass Th' next time I meet yeh at fair or at wake ; Me pace yeh destroy An that's hard on a boy That 'ud fight a whole faction and die for yer sake ! Maureen Cosha Dhas, We'll sit on the grass Wid me arm roun' yer waist, and a tear in yer eye ; And yeh'll say " Daiiin' Dinnis ! Spake to Father Maginnis ; Shure I'd rather do that, now, nor think that ye'd die ! : The Dublin University Magazine. JOHN PROBERT'S AD VENTURE IN WALES. 177 JOHN PROBERT'S ADVENTURE IN WALES. Note 74. Not long ago, Mr. John Probert, a lmight- errant of the Government, whose constitution I have lately seen and read, was sent to search for revenues and adventures upon the mountains of Wales. The commission is remarkable, and the event not less so. The commission sets forth that "upon a report of the deputy -auditor of the principality of Wales, it appeared that his Majesty's land revenues within said principality are greatly diminished," and "that upon a report of the surveyor-general of his Majesty's land revenues, upon a memorial of the auditor of his Majesty's revenues within the said principality, that his mines and forests have produced very little profit either to the public revenue or to individuals"; therefore, they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he can make any- thing more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly diminished. And yet you will remark that this diminution from littleness was not for want of the tender and officious care of surveyors-general and surveyors-particular, of audi- tors and deputy-auditors ; nor for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and constitu- tions, and inquisitions, and pensions. Probert, thus armed, and accoutered and paid, proceeded on his adventure : but he no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales, than all Wales was in arms to meet him. That na- tion is brave and full of spirit. Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never was such a tumult and alarm and uproar through the region of Prestatyn. Snowdon shook to its base. Cader-Idris was loosened from its foundations. The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains ; the rocks poured down their goat-herds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners. Everything above ground, and everything under ground, was in arms. 8* 178 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. In short, the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenue, like his masters upon other occasions ; and found rebellion. But we were grown cautious by experience. A civil war of paper might end in a more serious war : for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial was opposed to memorial. The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural than a violent death. In truth, the attempt was no less an affront upon the under- standing of that respectable people than it was an attack upon their property. They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder in decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer. As it is true of the noble lord to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that resistance in all cases whatsoever. He was true to himself on this occasion. He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh. Mr. Probert gave up his adventure and keeps his pension : and so ends " the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold Baron North and the good Knight Probert upon the mountains of Venodotia." Edmund Burke. DECORATION" DAY. Note 75. No incidents in the world's history or literature are so moving, none have exerted so humane an influence upon society as those which have revealed in their finest and deepest phases, the universal passions of love and sorrow. The literature and achievements of the intellect have op- erated powerfully in the creation and advancement of material civilization ; but human nature has been refined, DECORATION DA Y. 179 human life and character exalted, the supreme dignity and nobility of the soul exemplified and vindicated, through that which men have done and dared when inspired by the divine passions of love and sorrow. What story in all the graphic Hues of the Iliad is so beautiful, what one which the world would less willingly let die than that fragment of a love song and home idyl sung in the midst of a war chant, the parting of Hector and Andromache ? That pic- ture of the mailed and crested warrior, pausing for a moment before he went forth to battle, to look once more upon the faces of his loved ones, caressing with parental fondness his little boy, speaking words of hope and cheer to his hopeless wife, and with hurried kisses and embraces going away to die, shines out amid the dark and tumultuous scenes of epic strife, as bright and radiant as shone the white plume of Henry of Navarre amid the spears, the standards, and con- tending hosts on the field of Ivry. This simple story of a Greek soldier's love and devotion, repeated a thousand times from the days of Troy to the days of Gettysburg, has awakened emotions in the breasts of men, unstirred by the majestic stanzas that recount Achilles' wrath and Agamem- non's valor. What is there in the dramatic career of Israel that so thrills the common sympathy of mankind, as the story of Rachel, the chosen wife of Jacob, when she fell dying by the wayside on the journey to Canaan ? And the example of the aged patriarch, who set a pillar of stone upon her grave before he turned his face toward the land of his fathers, speaks to-day in every shaft and sculptured monu- ment which loving hands have reared above the unf orgotten dead, as it blooms in the roses of Greenwood and Mount Auburn, of Evergreens and Arlington. So, when a few years ago some sad-faced women of the South went out one spring morning to lay upon the graves of their soldier dead the blossoms of that vernal season, the people of the North saw in it no homage to the cause that had- been lost, no sign of disloyalty, no suggestion of rebel- 180 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. lion, but rather a pathetic tribute to heroism and self-sacri- fice that knows no name of race or land ; and the passionate though unavailing protest of the soul against the grave and death, as old as the pillar on Kachel's grave, or the tombs of the Pharaohs. The example of these Southern women was contagious. Its beauty and appropriateness were at once recognized until at last it became a State and national observance and made a holy day in our calendar. Oliver E. Branch. WEBSTER'S SUCCESS AND FAILURE. Note 76. God seems to appoint men to special work, and that done, the very effort of its achievement exhausts them, and they rise not again to the summit of their meridian. So it was with Webster. It is not too much to say that the Constitu- tion of the United States, as it existed when it carried our country through the greatest peril that ever tested it, was the crystallization of the mind of Webster as well as of its original framers. He made it the crucible of a welded union : the charter of one great country, the, United States of America. He made the States a nation, and enfolded them in its single banner. It was his eloquence, clear as crystal, and precipitating itself in the school-books and lit- erature of a people, which had trained up the generation of 1861 to regard this nation as one, to love its flag with a patriotism that knew no faction or section, to be loyal to the whole country, and to find in its constitution power to suppress any hand or combination raised against it. The great rebellion went down hardly more before the cannon of Grant and Farragut than the thunder of Webster's reply to Hayne. His greatest failure was that he rose not to the height of his own resistless argument : and that he lacked the sublime inspiration to let the giant he had created go upon its errand first, of force, and then through that of NEW ENGLAND. 181 surer peace. He had put the work and the genius of more than an ordinary lifetime of service into the arching and cementing of the Union : and this he could not bear to put to the final test. His great heart was sincere in the prayer that his eyes might not behold the earthquake that would shake it to those foundations, which, though he knew it not, he had made so strong that a succeeding generation saw them stand the shock as an oak withstands the storm. Men are not gods ; and it needed in Webster that he should rise to a moral subhmity and daring as lofty as the intellectual heights above which he soared with unequalled strength. So had he been godlike. John D. Long. NEW ENGLAND. {Abridged.) Note 77. It is the good fortune of New England always to have had great men and places famous by their association rev- erently and honorably to take care of. There is one spot which illustrates this truth. There is Faneuil Hall in Bos- ton, one of the most famous spots in New England or upon this continent. Rufus Choate said of Faneuil Hall that it breathes and burns of Webster. So it does ; but not of him alone. The story of Faneuil Hall is like the Milky Way — studded with stars, arching our history with light. The story of Faneuil Hall, from Sam Adams to Wendell Phillips, is a long line of unbroken light ; and one end is as lustrous as the other. I went, three months ago, to the old town of Concord in Massachusetts ; which then celebrated the 250th anniversary of its foundation. That ancient town had put up for this occasion memorial stones at all its famous spots. On the site of the hut of the sachem from whom the tract of the town was peaceably bought ; the site of Peter Buckley's house ; the first settler and pastor ; the site of the first 182 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. church, and of the first school ; the farm on which the Kev- olutionary stores were hidden ; the field in which the Min- ute-men gathered ; the corner where the farmers of Mid- dlesex fell with withering fire upon Britons retreating from that bridge ; and all these memorials of patriotism, of cour- age, of constancy, of devotion, clustered near and far, like his moons about Jupiter, around the statue of the Minute- man that stood upon that very spot where American free- men obeyed the first command to fire upon the British troops ; a statue of noble imaginative power ; a figure of the old New England farmer, but the figure also of the young Pilgrim grown into young America. I never knew a town so proud as Concord ; and I never knew a town with better cause for pride. But the cause for that pride was not in the older New England alone ; it was a] so in the later day. I do not see why the foot of the traveller should be turned to Boccaccio's Garden in Italy, or to the English haunts of Izaak Walton, or to Gilbert White^ Selborne with a finer charm than attracts them to Haw- thorne's Old Manse, or to Henry Thoreau's Walden. The heart of the traveller that is thrilled with grateful admira- tion of the heroism of the Concord farmers at the bridge, triumphantly maintaining and asserting political indepen- dence and political liberty, bends in reverence before the equal heroism of the scholar at the other end of the village as triumphantly maintaining and asserting, in the power of the genius of Waldo Emerson, the corresponding political, intellectual, and moral liberty and independence. Now, we are told that New England has lost its grit ; that the later New England belies the old New England ; but upon every great event in this country, every forward move- ment in every department of human activity and interest, from the landing of the Pilgrims to this day, New England has marched in the van. From the first campaign against the Indians to our own terrible Civil War : from the earli- est federation of New England States to the reconstruction of constitutional government ; from the morning gun of COMET) Y AND TEA GED Y. 183 the Revolution to William Lloyd Garrison's answering shot, " I will not hesitate ; I will not equivocate ; I will not re- treat a single inch' 5 ; from Nathan Dane's Northwest ordi- nance to Thomas Allen Jenckes's Civil Service Reform bill ; from William Bradford, the earliest historian, to Bancroft and Prescott, and Motley, and Palfrey of to-day ; from the Old Day Psahn-Book of Ann Bradstreet — the first notes of New England song, to Whittier, and Holmes, and Lowell — the living chiefs of our poetry ; from Eli Whitney's cotton- gin to Bell's telephone ; from Dr. Franklin's lightning-rod to the sewing-machine and to Dr. Johnson's anesthesia ; from the gray-haired Brewster preaching upon Plymouth Rock to the gray-haired Beecher preaching upon Brooklyn Heights : in every movement which is forward, charitable, religious, scientific, inventive, political — in every movement leading to a wider independence, to greater liberty, new New England, old New England, and the later New Eng- land has written its name, large and at the head, as the New Englander John Hancock wrote his name on the Dec- laration of Independence. The Golden Age is not behind us. The men of Plutarch, the men and women of Shake- speare, are the men and women that we know to-day, and have known. It is like the dawn, which seems to be in the East ; but the golden light of the morning is around us. George William Curtis. COMEDY AND TRAGEDY. Note 78. Few English words have received definition so multiplied, yet so incomplete, as the word poetry. Its secret evades forever, dissection or explanation. Intangible in essence, language fails to grasp it. Boundless in flowing and sug- gestive beauty, speech cannot contain it. Felt everywhere, no man has found its fathom or its bound. It is the truest explanation and the deepest mystery of life. And yet, elu- 184 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. sive of analysis, it pervades all existence, inheres in all na- ture, modifies all thought. Keener than science, prof ounder than philosophy, more exact than formula, its subtle power is the might of the beautiful and the true : its domain, the Infinite. Poetry finds true expression in language of im- agination and elevation, in form of symmetry and grace : accomplishes its end in resultant inspiration and ennoble- ment. It is the natural expression of the heart, moved by sentiments of grandeur and sublimity. Simple, sensuous, and passionate, to truth, beauty, and enthusiasm, it makes its appeals, and in them wins its triumphs. A Dramatic Poem is " a picture of human life accommo- dated to action." Its scope is to represent human nature, tracing its motives and its character in its activities. It is eminently subjective, differing thus from epic, lyric, and history. These particularize and are limited, speaking to each : the true dramatic poem generalizes under the fixed laws of human impulse and action and speaks to all. Avoid- ing the method of direct instruction, it abstracts essentials, condenses character, discovers the secret springs of influence and action ; through outward forms rouses the forces of the soul to endless aspiration, touches the full significance of mortality. Penetrating the hidden mysteries of the spir- itual life, it embodies, through acute analysis and selection, the more intense activities of the mind — the eternal, the ever important, the universally beautiful. Dramatic Poetry appears in the two forms of Tragedy and Comedy. Tragedy can trace its power to the curiosity and sympathy that seek and appreciate in others, corre- sponding emotions. Its moral office is to show us our weak- nesses idealized in grander figures and more awful results. It is a high concentration of the passions which in our sep- arate lives are less distinct. Comedy is tragedy's antithesis. One, the highest earnestness of poetry, the other altogether sportive. Tragedy is dignified, serious, sincere. Comedy is familiar, humorous, fantastic. Tragedy is a piercing glance at life. Comedy is a wink. M. W. Stryker. THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 185 THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. Note 79. To lead a people in revolution wisely and successfully, without ambition and without a crime, demands, indeed, lofty genius and unbending virtue. But to build their State, amid the angry conflict of passion, prejudice, and un- reasonable apprehension, the incredulity of many and the grave doubt of all, to organize for them and peacefully to inaugurate a complete and satisfactory government, is the greatest service that man can render to mankind. This is the glory of Washington. The power of his personal char- acter, the penetrating foresight and wisdom of his judg- ment in composing the myriad elements that threatened to overwhelm the mighty undertaking, are all unparalleled. His countrymen are charged with fond idolatry of his memory, and his greatness is pleasantly depreciated as a mythological exaggeration. But no church ever canonized a saint more worthily than he is canonized by the national affection : and to no ancient hero, benefactor, or law-giver were divine honors so justly decreed, as to "Washington the homage of the world. With the sure sagacity of a leader of men he at once se- lected for the highest and most responsible stations the three chief Americans who represented the three forces in the nation which alone could command success in the insti- tution of the government. Hamilton was the head, Jeffer- son was the heart, and John Jay was the conscience. Washington's just and serene ascendency was the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers were fused, and nothing less than that ascendency could have ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm that burst around him. Suddenly the French Revolution, that ghastly spectre rising from delirium and despair, that avenging fury of intolerable oppression, at once hopeful and heart-rending, seized modern civilization, shook Europe to its centre, di- vided the sympathy of America, and, as the child of Lib- 186 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. erty, appeared to Washington ; but the great soul, amid battle, and defeat, and long retreat, and the sinking heart of a people, undismayed, was not appalled by the convul- sion of the world. Amid the uproar of Christendom, he knew Liberty too well to be deluded by its mad pretence. Without a beacon, without a chart, but with an unwavering eye and a steady hand he guided his country safe through darkness and through storm. "The foundations of the moral world," said a wise teacher in Oxford University, bidding young Englishmen mark the matchless man, "the foundations of the moral world were shaken, but not the understanding of Washing- ton." He held his steadfast way, like the sun across the firmament, giving life, and health, and strength to the new nation, and upon a searching survey of his administration, there is no great act which his country would annul, no word spoken, no line written which justice would reverse, or wisdom deplore. In bronze and marble, and upon glowing canvas, genius has delighted to invest with the immortality of art tho best-loved and most familiar of American figures. Tho engineer of the Virginia wilderness, the leader of the Rev- olution, the President, the man, are known to all men, and everywhere beheld and revered. Geo. Wm. Curtis. CHARONDAS. Note 80. He lifted his forehead and stood at his height, And gathered his cloak round his noble age, This man, the law-giver, Charondas the Greek : And loud the Euboeans called to him : "Speak, We listen and learn, O Sage ! " CHARONDAS. 187 ' In peace shall ye come where the people be," Spake the lofty figure with flashing, eyes : " But whoso come armed to the public hall Shall suffer his death before us all." And the hearers believed him wise. The years sped quick, and the years dragged slow In council oft was the throne arrayed. But never the statued chamber saw The gleam of weapon ; for loving law The Greeks from their hearts obeyed. War's challenge knocked at the city gates : Students flocked to the front, grown bold : The strong men, girded, faced up to the North : The women wept to the gods ; and forth "Went the brave of the days of old. Peace winged her flight to the city gates : Young men and strong, they followed fast Back to the breast of their fair, free land : Charondas, afar on the foreign strand, Remained at his post the last. Their leader he, in war as in word, The fire of youth for his life-long lease, The strength of Mars in the arm that stood Seven hot decades upheld for good In the turbulent courts of Greece. The fight is finished, the council meets. Who is the tardy comer without, In cuirass and shield, and with clanking sword, Who strides up the aisles without a word, Bousing that awe-struck shout ? 188 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER.. The tardy comer, home from the field. Great gods ! the first to forget and belie The law he honored, the law he formed : " Charondas, stand ! You enter armed," "With a shudder the hundreds cry. The men who loved him on every side, The men he led to the victors' gain. He paused a moment, the fearless Greek, A sudden glow on his ashen cheek, A sudden thought in his brain. "I seal the law with my soul and might : I do not break it," Charondas said. He raised his blade, and plunged to the hilt ; Ah ! vain they rush, for in glory and guilt, He lay on the marble, dead. Louise Imogen Guiney. THE BOY IN BLUE AGAINST THE CONTINENTAL. Note 81. It has often been said that the war of the rebellion was a fratricidal struggle, a conflict in which brother was pitted against brother. It was not such in any true critical sense ; and to look upon it thus would be to miss one of the most important lessons of the conflict. "While a radically new and rising nationality from its cradle in the North was roll- ing itself "Westward across the continent, the South had remained stationary, substantially as it was at the close of the Revolution. Racially, its stock was unchanged. There had been no transplanting : very little grafting-in of for- eign shoots ; and of change of air, and soil, absolutely none. So far, then, from being a conflict between brothers, the Civil "War was a conflict between the man of the new Amer- THE BOY IN BLUE AGAINST THE CONTINENTAL. 189 ican nationality and the colonized Englishman of the Rev- olution. Notwithstanding the French and Spanish that had settled in certain localities, the men who constituted the back-bone of " the Confederacy " were, socially and govern- mentVUy, in their traditions, instincts, temper, and blood, essentially English. When on the 15 th of April the Presi- dent issued his call for seventy-five thousand men, the derisive laugh which rose from the rebel Congress at Mont- gomery was an English laugh. It was an echo of Hamp- den's laugh when the Stuarts asked for ship-money. It was Henry's laugh in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Look where you will, the springs of the Confederacy were Eng- lish. It was a sturdy English voice that first counselled se- cession and " independence." It was a bold and steady English hand that wrote the Constitution of the Confeder- acy. It was English ideas that moved their cabinet ; Eng- lish intrepidity that sailed the Alabama ; English pluck and obstinacy that carried Jackson through the Shenandoah, and bore up Kobert Lee when he retreated inch by inch over the dying and the dead along that bloody track from the Wilderness to the James. The great internecine, fratricidal struggle of the Republic is yet to come ; can never come in any true sense until we have a strictly homogeneous people. Let us not miss the central lesson of the conflict. When Major Anderson sur- rendered Fort Sumter, Europe, looking on, said that the Saxon race had failed again in its trial of self-government. But wait a moment. What sound is that like the rushing of a mighty wind? It is the new American Nationality. The Saxon race may have failed, but this race has not failed — thank God, did not fail ! In the tangles of the Chicka- hominy ; by the Anna and the James ; in the trenches about Petersburg and "above the clouds" at Lookout Mountain ; at Antietam, at Shiloh, at Gettysburg — the Eng- lish Saxon of the Colonial type met the American Saxon of the National type, and from the collision there sprang a new and better hope for the perpetuity of free government. 190 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. This was the meaning of the strife. Not brother against brother, but the "boy in blue" against the "continental"; and the "boy in blue" triumphed. Edgab A. Enos. IMPULSE AND DUTY. There are two great impelling motives, one or the other of which inspires all brave and worthy action : impulse and duty. They are as unlike as sunshine and storm. But as you cannot tell which has contributed most to bring out the beauty of the flower, sun or rain, so you cannot tell which of these two motives has contributed most to the heroic in human life. Impulse is the offspring of sympathy, emula- tion, passion. Duty is the child of reason, meditation, prayer. The one is a creature of feeling, responding quickly to appeals for succor or protection. The other, an impersonation of judgment, measuring every demand of society, the Church, or State, by the standard of right. Im- pulse is philanthropy putting alms into every outstretched hand : chivalry taking up the cause of oppressed weakness. It is the quick, effective eloquence of Henry animating the minds of America and defying the power of England. It is the brave boy throwing himself in the path of a runaway team to save a little sister. Duty is discriminating charity, growing not in pity, but in wisdom. It is the patriot turn- ing from wife and children to save his country. It is the commander holding his post while furious battle assails from without and famine wastes within. The most popular men are the men of impulse. Sympathetic, impressible, they charm by their enthusiasm and captivate by their im- petuosity. They are the heroes of romance and history whom the young worship ; and in e very-day life they are the men who give impetus to new projects and reanimate failing enterprises with prodigious though fitful energy. Men of duty are less attractive. They are sometimes cold, THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY. 191 austere, but the cause they espouse, they uphold, not spas- modically, but with unfaltering determination. You re- member that famous day when a great darkness fell on the land and a superstitious terror filled the hearts of the peo- ple In a terrified New England assembly a motion was made to adjourn. There was one man present to oppose the motion. " This may well be the day of judgment," said he, " but be it so. I want my God to find me doing my duty." Thus undisturbed, uncompromising, are the men of duty always. As reformatory forces it would be difficult to tell to which the world is the more indebted, impulse or duty. Louise is the quicker to respond to an urgent public demand : duty the more faithful and constant in meeting it. Impulse is the passionate spirit that incites revolution : duty the de- vout purpose that carries it forward to triumph. Without the ardent impulses of love and sympathy that inspire brill- iant and generous acts, the brightest and sweetest phases of human life would be wanting. Without stern and constant duty upholding the right, unwearied in needed labor, there would be no progress, no permanence in the institutions of men. M. M. Curtis. THE LAST STRUGGLE FOIi LIBERTY. Note 82. It was humanity that the men of Yalley Forge defended. It was Liberty herself that they had in keeping : Liberty that was sought in the wilderness and mourned for by the waters of Babylon : that was saved at Salamis and thrown away at Chseronea : that was fought for at Cannse and lost forever at Pharsalia and Philippi : she who confronted the Armada on the deck with Howard and rode beside Crom- well on the field of Worcester : for whom the Swiss gath- ered into his breast the sheaf of spears at Sempach, and the Dutchman broke the dikes of Holland, and welcomed 192 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. in the sea. She of whom Socrates spoke, and Plato wrote, and Brutus dreamed, and Homer sung : for whom Eliot pleaded, and Sidney suffered, and Milton prayed, and Hampden fell! Driven by the persecution of centuries from the older world, she had come with Pilgrim and Puritan, with Cava- lier and Quaker, to seek a home in the new. Attacked once more by her old enemies, she had taken refuge here : here, but not alone. The dream of the Greek, the Hebrew's prophecy, the desire of the Roman, the Italian's prayer, the longing of the German mind, the hope of the French heart, the glory and honor of Old England herself, the yearning of every century, and the aspiration of every age, all these were with her. And here, in the heart of America, they were safe. The last of many struggles was almost won. The best of m&ny centuries was about to break. The time was already come when from these shores the light of a new civilization should flash across the sea, and from this place a voice of triumph make the old world tremble : when from her chosen refuge in the West, the spirit of Liberty should go forth to meet the rising sun and set the people free ! Henry Armitt Brown. MISWRITTEN HISTORY. Note 83. Life is a battle, though we no longer wear swords. Liv- ing, struggling men while the fight goes on get scant praise and less appreciation. Eulogy we reserve for the dead. When men's passions are roused, they say and believe what they wish to say and believe, not what they ought. What men will believe at any time depends not half so much on the fact as on their state of mind. We deify those who fight our battles, and are sure of the wickedness of those M1SWRITTEN HISTORY. 193 who fight against us. Since so great a part of the material of history must be what men say about each other when they are in each other's way, it is small wonder that the faces which look out upon us from the pages of the past are never the faces which actually frowned and smiled upon the world. Time only exaggerates our illusions. Many harsh features have melted into beauty in the sweet azure of the distance, and many noble forms have been badly dis- torted by the atmosphere through which the light comes to us from them. Under the ban of history lie many great hearts which have held the world, while there bask in the smiles of the just many a whited sepulchre full of dead men's bones. But all these mistakes and distortions are of no consequence to the dead, and of but little to the living. For the dead the grave makes all things equal. Imperial Caesar sleeps, if he were a patriot, as sweetly under unde- served blame as Brutus does, if he were a knave, under undeserved praise. Yet all these little falsehoods about men and motives, and even about events, are trivial beyond characterization compared with the enormous falsehood which underlies this whole method of writing history, the silent assumption that these princes and potentates, these leaders and statesmen, these warriors and politicians caused the rise and fall of nations, the birth and decay of religions, the progress and degradation of the human race ; that they made civilization and laws and conquests, and changed the fate of empires at their will. To history of that kind democracy was but of yesterday, and in that history the people took no part except as they were forced by the brave men, or cajoled by the knaves. To such history, that interesting figure, that much married, much widowed, and altogether bereaved man, Henry VIII., was the founder of our holy religion, and Elizabeth its preserver and savior : Napoleon was the con- queror of Europe and Alexander of the world. But de- mocracy is not of yesterday. It has equal date with the race of man. There has never been a moment since time 13 194 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. began in which every human being did not count for what he was worth in all that was achieved by his nature and his race. It is true that when we look at any small section of humanity, such as we know and can watch, we see such in- dividuality of action, such selfishness of purpose, that it almost seems the vagary of an enthusiast to insist that all this swarming crowd of creatures has a unity from which no one can emancipate himself, an individuality which makes and will make out of the selfishness of each a happi- ness for all greater than communism ever dreamed.* Out of this complex individuality has come all human progress. Out of the great mass of each nation has come all national progress. It is not the leaders and foremost men which make a nation ; it is the nation which makes the leaders. If human progress had been more a matter of leadership we should be in Utopia to-day. War would have ceased long ago, and perhaps government by the people would have become automatic in all its branches. The pathway of time is strewn with the failures of leaders. Kosciusko, skilful soldier, great general, hero of two continents, died an exile in a foreign land. The eloquence of the greatest orator of all time, thundered in vain against the march of Philip. Thomas Wentworth, "the one supremely able man the king had," died on the scaffold. Kosciusko would not have died in exile if his country had been with him. Demosthenes would have saved Greece had Greece been willing to be saved. The Earl of Strafford extorting, even in his failure, the admiration of his foes, would have been the great figure of English story had England been going his way. But England was going another way, and the Earl of Strafford, supreme ability and all, went down like the bulrush before the rising Nile. T. B. Bekd. * This selection may end here. HOW THEY SAVED THE COLORS AT IS AND UL A. 195 HOW THEY SAVED THE COLORS AT ISANDULA. " Save the colors ! " shrieks a dying voice, and lo ! Two horsemen breast the raging ranks, and go. (In thy sacred list, O Fame ! Keep each dear and noble name !) See, they flash upon the foe, Fierce as flame ; And one undaunted form Lifts a British banner, warm With the blood rain, and the storm of Isandula ! " Save the colors ! " and amidst a flood of foes, At gallop, sword in hand, each horseman goes. Around the steeds they stride Cling devils crimson-dyed. But God ! through butchering blows How they ride ! Their horses' hooves are red With blood of dying and dead, Trampled down beneath their tread, at Isandula ! " Save the colors ! " They are saved ; and side by side The horsemen swim a raging river's tide. They are safe : they are alone ; But one, without a groan, And tottering filmy-eyed, Drops like a stone : And before his comrade true Can reach his side, he too Falls smitten through and through at Isandula ! Kobeet Buchanan. 196 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE CHARM OF INCOMPLETENESS. Note-m, Human nature, we say, is developed by the advance of civilization. Man civilized is man carried along toward his completion. True civilization does not make man some- thing else than man. It makes his manhood more complete. It gives him no new powers of thought or action. It sets free the powers that belong to him as man. In general, men have believed that civilization was an advance. But always, alongside of this opinion, there has run a more or less distinct remonstrance ; and civilization has seemed to some to mean deterioration. A certain freshness, freeness, breadth, spontaneousness, has seemed to make the savage a completer man than he who had been trained in many arts, and evolved through a complicated history. There is surely meaning, as there is deep pathos, in the way in which men have always looked back from the heights of the highest culture, and felt that they had lost something in the progress, longed for some charm of youth which the race remembered, but found no longer in itself. The boy grows up to be a man, and as he ripens he becomes more manly : but who is not aware of that strange sense of loss which haunts the ripening man ? With all he has come to there is something he has left behind. How full the Bible is of this idea. The New Jerusalem, with which it ends, is greater and better than the garden which blooms at its beginning. The whole story is of an education and a prog- ress : and yet all through the Bible runs a tender and live regret for that lost, imperfect manhood of Eden. Better things may come in the great future, but it seems as if there were something gone in the great past that never could come back. There is no thought of going back. The true completion of humanity always in the Bible lies before, and not behind : and yet the naming sword of Genesis always seems to shut man out from a tree of life which he never can forget, even while he presses forward to the com- COMMUNISTIC SOCIALISM. 197 pleter tree of never- failing fruit which grows by the side of the river of the water of life in the Apocalypse. It would seem, then, as if this truth were very general, that in every development there is a sense of loss as well as gain. The flower opening into its full luxuriance has no longer the folded beauty of the bud. The summer with its splendor has lost the fascinating mystery of spring-time. The family of grown-up men remembers almost with regret the crude dreams that filled the old house with romance when the men were boys. The reasonable faith to which the thinker has attained, cannot forget the glow of vague emotion with which faith began. The enthusiast, devoted to and filled out by his cause, misses the light and careless life he used to live. It is not that the progress is repented, nor that the higher standard is disowned. Eather it seems to be a cer- tain ineradicable charm that belongs to incompleteness, inherent in its consciousness of promise and of hope, which lingers even when the promise has been fulfilled and the hope attained. Phillips Brooks. COMMUNISTIC SOCIALISM. {Abridged.) Note 85. To-day there is not in our language, nor in any language, a more hateful word than Communism. In Paris, in Ber- lin, in Chicago, it meant, and still it means, wages without work, arson, assassination, anarchy. In this shape of it, the instant duty of society, without taking a second breath, is to smite it with the swiftness and fury of lightning. Incor- rigible tramps, packing and prowling around together de- manding the best from door to door, camping in farmers' barns, smashing farmers' machines, insulting decent men, and terrifying women and children on public roads, should not expect to be reasoned with. Mad wretches, whose hands smoke with blood, cannot be put out of the way too 198 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. soon nor to far. The preachers of this santanic crusade against capital are not, of course, to be silenced. Where free speech has a genealogy running so much further back than our separate existence as a nation, this planting drag- on's teeth is not, I suppose, to be stopped. But wild mobs, wrecking railway trains, and sackiug our cities, are a kind of crop that cannot be mowed down too close. Even such barbarities must not provoke us to be despisers of history. Communism, in its essential genius, is not new, is not contemptible, is not abominable. It is a tradition, a philosophy, a gospel. As related to the tenure of landed property, it is one of the oldest traditions of the race. As a philosophy, it deals with those social and civil problems, in regard to which mankind have always been most divided and most at fault. Its gospel, to be sure, has no God in it : only humanity, the fraternity of the fatherless : but it preaches social regeneration, and promises a millennium. How Russia shall deal with her Communism, is a Russian question. How Germany shall deal with hers, is a German question. How we shall deal with ours, is our question, which may have to be answered sooner, and answered more sharply, than perhaps we think. Red-handed Communism would stand no chance here. We have in the United States three millions of land-owners, firmly grasping the continent. They will not be robbed of their acres. They are not to be frightened into hiring men whose services they do not need. Other shots may be heard round the world, besides those fired by Massachu- setts' farmers at Concord bridge, shots fired next time in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois. I will risk our farmers. No French engineering could barricade a prairie : no German bullets shoot off the nation's head. Labor and Capital, from opposing camps, are moving on toward one another : to meet, I hope and believe, as Esau and Jacob met amongst the mountains of Gilead, to be reconciled : but, it may be to meet as Pompey and Csesar met at Pharsalia. I confess I expect no Csesar. I find on GARFIELD. 199 our map no Rubicon. But then I expect to see this Com- munistic madness rebuked and ended. If it is not rebuked and ended, I shall have to say, as many a sad-eyed Roman must have said nineteen hundred years ago-: I prefer civil- ization to the Republic. Roswell D. Hitchcock. GARFIELD. Note 86. When General Garfield took the oath of office as Presi- dent, he seemed to those who knew him best, though in his fiftieth year, still in the prime of a splendid and vigorous youth. He was still growing. We hoped for him eight years of brilliant administration, and then in some form or place of service an old age like that of Adams, whom, in variety of equipment alone of our Presidents, he resembled. What was best and purest and loftiest in the aspiration of America seemed at last to have laid its hand on the helm. Under its beneficent rule we hoped, as our country entered on its new career of peace and prosperity, a nobler liberty, a better friendship, a purer justice, a more lasting brother- hood. But he was called to a sublimer destiny. He had as- cended along and up the heights of service, of success, of greatness, of glory ; ever raised by the people to higher ranks for gallant and meritorious conduct on each field, until by their suffrages he stood foremost among men of the foremost among nations. But in the days of his sick- ness and death he became the perpetual witness and exam- ple of how much greater than the achievements of legisla- tive halls, or the deeds of the field of battle, are the house- hold virtues and simple family affections which all men have within their reach ; how much greater than the lessons of the college or the camp, or the Congress, are the lessons 200 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. learned at mothers' knees. The honors paid to Garfield are the protest of a better age and a better generation against the vulgar heroisms of the past. Go through their mauso- leums and under their, triumphal arches, and see how the names inscribed there shrink and shrivel compared with that of this Christian soldier, whose chiefest virtues, after all, are of the fireside and the family circle, and of the dy- ing bed. Here the hero of America becomes the hero of humanity. We are justified, then, in saying of this man that he had been tried and tested in every mode by which the quality of a human heart and the capacity of a human intellect can be disclosed ; by adversity, by prosperity, by poverty, by wealth, by leadership in deliberative assemblies and in the perilous edge of battle, by the height of power and of fame. The assay was to be completed by the certain and visible approach of death. As he comes out into the sun- light, more and more clearly does his country behold a greatness and symmetry which she is to see in their true and full proportions only when he lies in the repose of death. We should be unfaithful to ourselves if in asking for this man a place in the world's gallery of illustrious names we did not declare that we offer him as an example of the prod- ucts of Freedom. With steady and even step he walked from the log-cabin and the canal path to the school, to the college, to the White House, to the chamber of death. The ear in which the voices of his countrymen hailing him at the pinnacle of human glory had scarcely died out, heard the voice of the dread Archangel, and his countenance did not change. Is not that country worth dying for whose peas- antry are of such a strain ? Is not the Constitution worth standing by under whose forms Freedom calls such men to her high places? Is not the Union worth saving which gives all of us the property of countrymen in such a fame ? Geo. F. Hoae. GRANT. 201 GRANT. Note 87. The career of General Grant, if considered as simply a single great episode in the history of our county, furnishes the most striking and convincing proof of the security and stability of our institutions. Years ago in England, it was predicted of the United States that when the separate States had become powerful, their population large, their interests diverse and antagonistic, and the inequalities in wealth and social position more wide and emphatic, that then should a great revolution occur the government would not be able to sustain the shock ; that the sentiments of liberty and the traditions of popular government would be found too weak as cohering and preserving principles, and that then the hour would have come for a man of strong arm and military prestige to seize the reins of government and establish the principles of monarchy. And Lord Ma- caulay, referring in 1829 to the prosperous condition of the United States as compared with other nations, yet distrust- ful of their future, said : " As for America, we appeal to the twentieth century." Now these words and prophecies were not prompted by envy, but were the expression of what many of our own best thinkers regarded as profound polit- ical wisdom and foresight. But when the precise condi- tions which, it was predicted, would result in our overthrow, had supervened, and that, too, near the auspicious dawn of the twentieth century ; when the most appalling of revolu- tions was upon us, a revolution which involved the very foundation principles of the government ; when the por- tentous hour seemed to have struck for the appearance of " the man on horseback," we saw the nation rising from the struggle strengthened by the ordeal, the sentiments of lib- erty and the traditions of popular government more abiding and sure in the hearts of the people, and with the fact, cer- tain and demonstrated, that war and revolution had not raised up a man, bold enough, daring enough, proud enough 202 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. or ambitious enough to desire to be anything more than a plain citizen and subject of this great republic. Though cut off from life while yet its end seemed to reach far down the future, General Grant was, perhaps, as singularly fortunate in his death as in his life. The best that earth affords had been his. Power, position, wealth, the pleasures of travel, the delights of honor, the excite- ments of the field, the joy of the victor, all were his. But it was not in the memory of these, not in the recollection of what he had been, and seen, and achieved that he found the sweetest solace and comfort in his closing hours. It was rather in the knowledge which he had and which was assured to him by messages of sympathy and condolence which came to him every day from every quarter of the land, that he left a country united, reconciled, harmonized, and that the peace for which his puissant sword was raised, in the ardor of his manhood, had come to dwell within the land. Toward the realization of that supreme fact no man had looked more eagerly, more hopefully than he ; for al- though a soldier by profession, war was to him distasteful. He engaged in it, not as a passion, but as an awful duty, as a means to secure peace. "When the bridge at Lodi had been crossed, visions of empire, dreams of universal conquest began to stir the soul of Napoleon. When Cromwell saw Prince Rupert's cavalry recoil at Marston Moor before the pikes of his psalm-sing- ing Puritan soldiers, aspirations for the Protectorate moved uneasily in his breast. But when General Grant stood be- hind the surrendered ramparts of Fort Donelson, the thought which came to him, which filled his mind and bur- dened his heart, was, what a tremendous responsibility Prov- idence had placed upon him. And thus it was that when the end came, he sheathed his sword, not reluctantly, re- gretfully, as a conqueror, but gladly, joyfully, willingly, as a Christian man. Oliver E. Branch. PATRIOTISM. 203 PATRIOTISM. Note 88. Eight and wrong, justice and crime, exist independently of our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and to do the right : and the nation is but the aggregate of citi- zens. If a man should shout, " My country, by whatever means extended and bounded ; my country, right or wrong ! " he merely repeats the words of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who swears falsely at the custom-house, both of them chuckling, "My fortune, however acquired." Thus, we see that a man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods : but it is principle, and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm this feeling becomes closely as- sociated with the soil and symbols of the country. But the secret sanctification of the soil and the symbol is the idea which they represent ; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture the glove of his mistress, and wears a lock of her hair upon his heart. So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to his country. So, Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that his country demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than God and the sanctified sense of duty. So, George Washington, at once comprehending the scope of the destiny to which his country was devoted, with one hand pats aside the crown, and with the other sets his slaves free. So, through all history, from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history to the end, as long as men believe in God, that army 204 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. must march and light and fall ; recruited only from the flower of mankind : cheered only by their own hope of humanity : strong only in their confidence in their cause. George William Curtis. "SOCKERY" SETTING A HEN. I see dot mosd efferpoty wrides something for de shicken bapers nowtays, and I tought praps mebbe I can do dot, too, so I wride all apout vot dook blace mit me lasht sum- mer ; you know — oder uf you dond know, den I dells you — dot Katrina (dot is mine vrow) und me, ve keep some shick- ens for a long dime ago, und von tay she sait to me, " Sock- ery," (dot is mem name), "vy dond you put some uf de aigs under dot olt plue hen shickens. I dinks she vants to sate." "Veil," I sait, "mebbe I guess I vill," so I bicked oud some uf de best aigs, und dook um oud do de para fere de olt hen make her nesht in de side of de haymow, poud five six veet up ; now you see I nefer was ferry big up and down, but I vos booty pig all de vay around in de mittle, so I koodn't reach up till I vent and got a parrel do stant on ; veil, I klimet me on de parrel, und ven my hed rise up py de nesht, de olt hen she gif me such a bick dot my nose runs all ofer my face mit plood, und ven I todge pack dot olt parrel het preak, und I vent down kerslam. I didn't tink I kood go insite a parrel pefore, but dere I vas, und I fit so dite dot I koodn't git me oud effervay, my fest (vest) was bushed vay up unter my arm-holes. Ven I fount I vos dite shtuck, I holler " Katrina ! Katrina ! " und ven she koom und see me shtuck in de parrel up to my arm- holes, mit my face all plood und aigs, she chust lait town on de hay und laft, und laft till I got so mat I sait, "Vot you lay dere und laf like a olt vool, eh ? Vy dond you koom bull me oud ? " und she set up und sait, " Oh, vipe off your THE KINO OF ENGLAND. 205 chin, and bull your fest town"; den she lait back und laft like she vood shplit herself more as ever. Mat as I vas I tought to myself, Katrina she sbeak English pooty good, but I only sait, mit my greatest dignitude, " Katrina, vill you bull me oud dis parrel ? " und she see clot I look booty red, so she sait, "Of course I vill, Sockery"; den she lait me und de parrel town on our site, und I dook holt de door sill, und Katrina she bull on de parrel, but de first bull she mate I yellet, " Donner und blitzen, shtop dat ; dere is nails in de parrel ! " You see de nails bent down ven I vent in, but ven I koom oud dey schticks in me all de vay rount ; veil, to make a short shtory long, I told Katrina to go und dell naypor Hansman to pring a saw und saw me dis parrel off; veil, he koom und he like to shplit himself mit laf, too, but he roll me ofer und saw de parrel all de vay around off, und I git up mit half a parrel around my vaist, den Katrina she say, " Sockery, vait a leetle till I get a battern of dot new oferskirt you haf on," but I didn't sait a vort, I shust got a nife oud und vittle hoops off und sliling dot con- founted olt parrel in de voot pile. Pimeby ven I koom in de house, Katrina she said, so soft like, " Sockery, dond you go in to but some aigs under dot olt plue hen?" den I sait, in my deepest voice, "Katrina, uf you effer say dot to me again I'll get a pill from you, help me chiminy cracious"; und I dell you she didn't say dot any more. Yell, ven I shtep on a parrel now, I dond shtep on it. I get a box. THE KING OF ENGLAND. Note 83. Whoevek takes a view of England in a cursory manner will imagine that he beholds a solid, compacted, uniform system of monarchy, in which all inferior jurisdictions are but as rays diverging from one centre. But on examining it more nearly, you find much eccentricity and confusion. 206 THE AD VANCED 8PEA KER. It is not a monarchy in strictness. But, as in Saxon times this country was an heptarchy, it is now a strange sort of pentarchy. It is divided into five several distinct princi- palities, besides the supreme. There is indeed this differ- ence from the Saxon times, that as in the itinerant exhibi- tions of the stage, for want of a complete company, they are obliged to throw a variety of parts on their chief per- former, so our sovereign condescends himself to act not only the principal, but all the subordinate parts of the play. He condescends to dissipate the royal character, and to trifle with those light, subordinate, lacquered sceptres in those hands that sustain the ball representing the world, or which wield the trident that commands the ocean. Cross a brook, and you lose the king of England : but you have some comfort in coming again under his majesty, though " shorn of his beams," and no more than Prince of Wales. Go to the north, and you find him dwindled to a Duke of Lancaster. Turn to the west of that north, and he pops upon you in the humble character of Earl of Chester. Travel a few miles on, the Earl of Chester disappears, and the king surprises you again as Count Palatine of Lancas- ter. If you travel beyond Mount Edgecombe, you find him once more in his incognito, and he is Duke of Cornwall. So that, quite fatigued and satiated with this dull variety, you are infinitely refreshed when you return to the sphere of his proper splendor, and behold your amiable sovereign in his true, simple, undisguised, native character of majesty. Edmund Burke. LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET. Note 90. In force of character, in thoroughness and breadth of cul- ture, in experience, in public affairs, and in national repu- tation, Mr. Lincoln's cabinet has had no superior, perhaps no equal in our history. Seward, the finished scholar, the consummate orator, the great leader of the Senate, had LINCOLN AND BIS CABINET. 207 come to. crown his career with those achievements which placed him in the front rank of modern diplomatists. Chase, with a culture and a frame of massive grandeur, stood as the rock and pillar of the public credit, the noble embodiment of the public faith. Stanton was there, a very Titan of strength, the great organizer of victory. Eminent lawyers, men of business, leaders of State and leaders of men, completed the group. But the man who presided over that council, who in- spired and guided its determinations, was a character so unique that it stood alone, without a model in history or a parallel among men. Born to an inheritance of extremest poverty : surrounded by the rude forces of the wilderness : wholly unaided by parents : only one year in any school : never for a day master of his own time, until he reached his majority : making his way to the profession of the law by the hardest and roughest road : yet, by force of uncon- querable will, and persistent and patient work, he attained a foremost place in his profession, " And, moving up from high to higher, Became, on fortune's crowning slope, The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire." Gifted with an insight and a foresight which the ancients would have called divination, he saw in the midst of dark- ness and obscurity the logic of events, and forecast the re- sult. From the first, in his own quaint, original way, with- out ostentation* or ©ff ence to his associates, he was pilot and commander of his administration. He was one of the few great rulers whose wisdom increased with his power, and whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his triumphs were multiplied. James A. Gaefield. 208 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. MAHOMET AND HIS RELIGION. Note 91. On the whole we must say that the religion of Mahomet is a kind of Christianity. It has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The Scandinavian god Wish, the god of all rude men, this has been enlarged into a heaven by Mahomet ; but a heaven symbolical of sacred duty, to be earned by valiant action and a divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian paganism and a truly ce- lestial element superadded to that. Call it not false. Look not at the falsehood of it : look at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries it has been the religion and life-guidance of a fifth part of the whole kindred of mankind. Above all things, it has been a religion heartily believed. These Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it ! No Chris- tians, since the early ages, or perhaps only the English Pur- itans in modern times, have ever stood by their faith as the Moslems do by theirs, believing it wholly, fronting time with it and eternity with it. This night the watchman on the streets of Cairo, when he cries, "Who goes?" will hear from the passenger along with his answer, " There is no God but God." Allah akbar, Ishm, sounds through the souls and whole daily existence of these dusky millions. Zealous missionaries preach it abroad among Malays, black Papuans, brutal idolaters ; displacing what is worse, noth- ing that is better. To the Arab nation it was as a birth from darkness into light. Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its desert since the creation of the world : a hero-prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe. See ! the unnoticed becomes world-notable. The small has grown world-great. Within one century afterward, Arabia is at Grenada on this hand, at Delhi on that. Glancing in splendor and the light THE DEC A Y OF AMEBIC AN COMMERCE. 209 of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great sec- tion of the world. Belief is great, life-giving. The history of a nation be- comes fruitful, soul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand ? But lo ! the sand proves explosive powder : blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Gre- nada ! I said the great man was always as lightning out of heaven. The rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame. Thomas Caelyle. THE DECAY OF AMERICAN COMMERCE. Note 92. To one born inland the sea has a wondrous mystery. I have studied its moods as a lover those of his mistress. Its enchantment has led me over liquid leagues on leagues to remotest realms. Not alone does it enchant because of its majestic expanse, its resistless force, its depth and unity, its monstrous forms, its riches and rocks, its graves, its re- quiem, its murmur of repose and mirror of placid beauty, but for its wrath, peril, and sublimity. These have led ad- venturous worthies of every age, by sun, star, and compass, over its trackless wastes, and returned them for their dar- ing untold wealth and the eulogy of history. But it is for its refining, civilizing, elevating influences upon our kind that the ocean lifts its mighty minstrels}'. Unhappy that nation which has no part in the successes of the sea. Happy in history those realms like Tyre, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Norway, whose gathered glories are sym- boled in the trident. Happy in the present are those na- tions who, under the favoring gales of commerce, the fos- tering economies of freedom, and the unwavering faith in the guidance of Providence, bear the blessings of varied in- dustry to distant realms, and bring back to their own the 14 210 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. magnificent fruits of ceaseless interchange. Happy that nation whose poet can raise his voice to herald the hope and humanity of its institutions in the grandeur of the fa- miliar symbol of Longfellow : " Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! " Amid this divided marine dominion, in which one power alone has half the rule of the ocean, shall America sit scep- treless and forlorn — dethroned, ignoble, dispirited, and dis- graced ? The ensign of our nationality takes its stars from the vault of heaven. By them brave men sail. It is now an unknown emblem upon the sea. We welcome every race to our shores in the vessels of other nations. Our enor- mous surplus, which feeds the world, is for others to bear away. We gaze at the leviathians of commerce entering our harbors and darkening our sky with the pennons of smoke ; but the thunder of the engines is under another flag and the shouting of the captains is in an alien tongue. Others distribute the produce, capitalize the moneys, gather the glories, and elevate their insti fcutions by the amenities and benignities of commerce, and we, boasting of our invention, heroism, and freedom, allow the jailers of a hated and self- ish policy to place gyves upon our energy, and when we ask for liberty to build and for liberty to buy, imprison our genius in the sight of these splendid achievements. If you would that we should once more fly our ensign upon the sea, assist us to take off the burdens from our nav- igation, and give to us the first, last, and best — the indispens- able condition of civilization by commerce — liberty. S. S. Cox. FRA LUIGF8 MARRIAGE. 211 FRA LUIGI'S MARRIAGE. Note 93. " A sad strange tale it is, and long to tell : Would 't weary you to hear it, sir ? It fell To me alone to witness how he wed Young Fra Luigi. Years he has been dead, Yet it doth seem but little while ago. I loved him. That is how I came to know What no one knew but me. "'Twas on a day When all roads out of Rome were bright and gay With daisies and anemones ; the spring Thrilled every little lark and thrush to sing ; So full the sunlit air of bloom and song, An hour seemed but a magic moment long. You know the grand Basilica they call Paolo Santo, past the city wall ? 'Twas there. " The tale is strange, almost I fear Lest it seem false unto your foreign ear. But you may trust it, sir. I loved him so I knew what she who bore him did not know. The day — this spring day full of song and bloom- I hear those larks yet singing in the broom — Had been for months appointed as the day When he — his friend Andrea, too — should lay His worldly garments at the altar down And take the Benedictine cowl and gown. Perhaps you've seen that service, sir ? Nay? Then You'd like to hear how they make monks of men. I've not forgotten it. I loved him so Each thing that happened on that day I know As it were yesterday." 212 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. " A monk ? Yon said Your tale was how the Era Luigi wed." "Aye, so it is." " Did take the church as bride ? That is no secret marvellous to hide Behind thy phrase. " Nay, no such empty phrase Above my tale its idle shelter lays. The Fra Luigi's bride had face more fair Than any blossom in that spring-time air. I stood that day the nearest to her side. And well the face of Fra Luigi's bride I knew, for I had served her house when she First gladdened it by her sweet infancy. Stern sat the Abbot in his snow-white chair, Between the violet marble pillars fair. The columns of red porphyry shone and gleamed Beneath the yellow quivering rays that streamed From myriad tapers making light so fast The gorgeous Baldacchino scarce did cast A shadow on the altar underneath, Or on the faces cold and still as death Of all the Benedictine brothers placed In solemn circles which the altar faced. The priests' robes blazed with scarlet and with gold ; The swinging censers flashed with gems untold, And music wildly sorrowful and slow All down the shadowed aisles went echoing low. As men who walked with Heaven full in sight, Their faces lit by supernatural light, Luigi and Andrea came and knelt. The silence like a darkness could be felt In which their voices rang out young and clear, Taking the vows so terrible to hear, FBA LUIGF 8 MARRIAGE. 213 Obedience and poverty till death, And chastity in every act and breath ; Between the vows sweet chanted prayers were said That they might keep these vows till they were dead. Ah me ! I think the good God sorrowed then To see such burdens laid on mortal men. " All was done Now, save that last, most dreadful sight of all, The dying to the world. One gold-wrought pall Of black, the acolytes laid on the ground. The music sank to lower, sadder sound. Another pall was lifted high to spread Above the bodies. " With a joyous tread Luigi came to lay him down. One glance He lifted — oh, what sped the fatal chance ? What cruel fate his ardent eyes did guide Unto her face who had been born his bride ? I saw the glance. I saw the quick blood mount Her cheeks as well as his. No man may count How swift love's motion in a vein can be ; Light is a laggard, by its ecstasy. 'Twas but a glance : — I saicl this tale was strange — Might seem to you but idle — such a change Did pass upon their faces, his and hers, As comes upon the sea, when sudden stirs A mighty wind. More ghastly now, and white Than he were dead, Luigi's face. " The rite Went on. The pall upon their forms was dropped. Rigid they lay, as if their hearts had stopped : The candles flickered down ; the light grow dim ; The singers chanted low, a funeral hymn ; 214 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The mothers' sobs broke on the stifled air ; For living sons lay worse than lifeless there. " Triumphant now, and loud The Mass went on. The new-made brothers bowed An knelt in prayer beside the rest. At last The tedious Mass was done. With eyes downcast Slow-moving, one by one, the monks arose. The silent threshold of their cloister close They silent crossed. Luigi did not rise. Thinking him rapt in prayer, with reverent eyes And hands crossed on his breast, the brother next Stood waiting — waited long — at length, perplexed, He bent him down, and gently on his arm Laid hand : awe-stricken, in a quick alarm, Upon his knees he fell ; Luigi's head He lifted. It fell back.. " ' The man is dead ! ' He cried. The monks in wild confusion bore The body swiftly through the cloister door. Some women shrieked and fainted : and the crowd Went surging from the church with murmurs loud. None saw but me one white and anguished face, Fair as a broken lily in its grace, Luigi's bride. With slow, unfaltering feet And a composure deathly calm and sweet, She walked the long and columned aisles, nor bore More heavily than she had borne before Upon her father's arm. " Next day all Rome Was ringing with the tale how God called home In the first moment of his sacred vows, The young Luigi. GENERAL GBANT. 215 And when a few months later, 'neath a mound Which daisies whitened still, and while the sound Of larks still lingered in the summer air, Was laid Luigi's bride, so young, so fair, I said that, too, was well : that Heaven was kind, And in some world she would Luigi find." Helen Hunt Jackson. GENERAL GRANT. Note 94. Public sensibility and personal sorrow over the death of General Grant were not confined to one continent. A pro- found admiration for great qualities, and still more profound gratitude for great services touched the heart of the people with true sympathy, increased even to tender emotions by the agony of his closing days and the undoubted heroism with which he morally conquered a last cruel fate. The world in its hero worship is discriminating and practical, if not, indeed, selfish. Eminent qualities and rare achieve- ments do not always insure lasting fame. A brilliant orator enchains his hearers with his inspired and inspiring gifts ; but if his speech be not successfully used to some great, worthy public end, he passes soon from popular recollection, and his only reward will be in the fitful applause of his for- gotten audience. A victorious general in a war of mere ambition receives the cheers of the multitude and the cere- monial honors of the government ; but if he brings no boon to his country, his fame will find no abiding place in the centuries that follow. The hero for the ages is he who has been chief and foremost in contributing to the moral and material progress, to the grandeur and glory of the suc- ceeding generation. Washington secured the freedom of the Colonies and founded a new nation. Lincoln was the prophet who warned the people of the evils that were un- 216 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. derminiug our free government, and the statesman who was called to leadership in the work of their extirpation. Grant was the soldier who, by victory in the field, gave vitality and force to the policies and philanthropic measures which Lincoln defined in the cabinet for the regeneration and security of the republic. The monopoly of fame by the few in this world conies from an instinct, perhaps from a deep-seated necessity of human nature. Heroes cannot be multiplied. The gods of mythology lost their sacredness and their power by their numbers. The millions pass into oblivion ; the units only survive. Who asked the great leader of Israel to conduct the chosen people over the sands of the desert and through the waters of the sea into the promised land ? Who marched with Alexander from the Bosphorus to India? and who commanded the legions of Csesar in the conquest of Gaul ? Who crossed the Atlantic with Columbus ? Who ventured through the winter passes of the Alps with the conqueror of Italy? Who fought with Wellington at Waterloo? Alas ! how soon it may be asked, Who marched with Sher- man from the mountain to the sea? Who fought with Meade on the victorious field of Gettysburg ? Who shared with Thomas in the glories of Nashville ? Who went with Sheridan through the trials and triumphs of the blood- stained valley ? General Grant's name will survive through the centuries, because it is indissolubly connected with the greatest military and moral triumph in the history of the United States. If the armies of the Union had ultimately failed, the vast and beneficent designs of Lincoln would have been frustrated, and he would have been known in history as a statesman and philanthropist who, in the cause of humanity, cherished great aims which he could not real- ize, and conceived great ends which he could not attain ; as an unsuccessful ruler whose policies distracted and dissev- ered his country ; while General Grant would have taken his place with that long and always increasing array of great men who were found wanting in the supreme hour of trial. THE OLD CLOCK. 217 But a higher power controlled the result. God in His gracious mercy had not raised those men for works which should come to naught. In the expression of Lincoln, " No human counsel devised nor did mortal hand work out those great things." In their accomplishment those human agents were sustained by a more than human power, and through them great salvation was wrought for the land. As long, therefore, as the American Union shall abide, with its bless- ings of law and liberty, Grant's name shall be remembered with honor. As long as the slavery of human beings shall be abhorred and the freedom of man assured, Grant shall be recalled with gratitude, and in the cycles of the future the story of Lincoln's life can never be told without asso- ciating Grant in the enduring splendor of his own great name. James G. Blaine. THE OLD CLOCK. I. The old clock croons on the sun-kissed wall, Tick, tock! Tick, tock! The merry second to minutes call : Tick, tock ! 'Tis morn ! A maiden sits at the mirror there, And smiles as she braids her golden hair ; Oh, in the light but her face is fair ! Tick, tock! Tick, tock! Far over the sea the good ship brings The lover of whom the maiden sings ; From the orange-tree the first leaf springs : Tick, tock! Tick, tock! 218 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The old clock laughs on the flower-decked wall, Tick, tock ! Tick, tock ! The rose-winged hours elude their thrall : Tick, tock! 'Tisnoon! The lover's pride and his love are blest : The maiden is folded to his breast : On her brow the holly-blossoms rest : Tick, tock ! Tick, tock ! Oh, thrice, thrice long may the sweet bells chime, As echoing this through future time ! Still to my heart beats that measured rhyme : Tick, tock! Tick, tock! in. The old clock moans on the crumbling wall : Tick, tock ! Tick, tock ! The drear years into eternity fall : Tick, tock ! 'Tis night ! The thread that yon spider draws with care Across the gleam of the mirror there, Seems like the ghost of a golden hair : Tick, tock ! Tick, tock ! The sweet bells chime for those who may wed : The winter snow crowns many a head : But tree, and maiden, and lover are dead : Tick, tock! Tick, tock! Guy Carleton. GENERAL GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION 219 GENERAL GRANT'S ADMINISTRATION. Note 95. That General Grant's administrations were marred by conspicuous errors and mistakes, his most ardent ad- mirers now willingly concede ; but that they sprang from ignoble or ambitious motives on his part, or that they were the acts of a man heedless or careless of the public good, his coldest critic will not now assert. The times in which he was called to act were full of peril. The passions which the war had roused had not yet subsided. New questions of policy, new and complicated problems of government confronted him ; and under such circumstances to err was not only human, it was inevitable. But it was not these things alone that rendered the position of President Grant difficult. He was a man of the most confiding and trustful nature, a man whose training in arms had developed in a high degree the sentiments of honor, fidelity, and obe- dience to the demands of duty. He seemed unable to realize that other men could be swayed more powerfully by motives of personal success, personal gain, and private greed than by the high demands of honor. Thus it happened that adventurers, men who were in politics as a trade, taking advantage of the large, open, and ingenuous nature of the President only to betray it and the trusts reposed in them, involved him in complications which brought upon him much unmerited personal censure, and left a cloud upon an administration that was distinguished by achieve- ments as splendid as any which were accomplished by him in the field. Later events in his career brought into sharper relief this great vulnerable point in the character of General Grant, to which his failures as a ruler may be attributed. "When the commercial world was startled by the announce- ment of the failure of the banking house of Grant & Ward, when the name of the man, up>on whom the honors of civil- ization had been exhausted, into whose lap fortune had 220 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. poured the full tide of favor, was mentioned in connection with the most stupendous of defalcations and swindles, the American people stood amazed and astounded. But when, day after day, through the courts and newspaper investiga- tion, the hidden facts were, little by little, revealed ; when the tangled web of chicane and fraud in which he unwittingly had been enmeshed was rent and ravelled ; when from his dying bed, and as it seemed, beating back for an hour the foe that beleaguered his life, he rose to tell under oath the simple story of his confidence abused, his trust betrayed, and his good name coined for gold by others ; when upon the altar of his honor he placed the trophies of his victories, the princely gifts and priceless relics of travel and adven- ture ; when out of the ruins of the house of Grant & Ward, the familiar figure of the sturdy old General slowly emerged, dusty, battered, begrimed, but without the smell of personal dishonesty upon his garments, the great heart of the Amer- ican people beat with new joy and pride, to know that the man who never yet played false to a public obligation, who never yet faltered before a public duty, had not in his old age, and in the plenitude of his honors betrayed a private trust. Then they saw, as never before, that it was the same guile- less and ingenuous nature that adventurers in Wall Street had victimized, that had been victimized ten years before by adventurers in Washington. Out of a life and career so strange, so romantic, so fruitful, history will hereafter delight to gather lessons, which we, standing so close to them, cannot see nor read. There is, however, one fact in them, quite obvious indeed, but which here and now must be a source of deepest satisfaction to every American heart. It is the oft-repeated truth, illus- trated so many times in the lives of our great men, but never more magnificently than in that of General Grant, that the genius and character of our institutions place no obstacles in the pathway of aspiring worth ; that there is an avenue open from every dwelling in the land along which the humblest child may walk to public honor and station, HOW TWO LIVES WENT OUT. 221 and that the only title of nobility which in this country obtains and is honored, is that of genuine manliness of character and moral worth. Oliver E. Branch. HOW TWO LIVES WENT OUT. It was more than fifty years ago, in a Tillage near the sea. The warm sun of early spring gave the joy of life to the groups of merry children, schoolward bound, with their bright faces, clean aprons, their books and slates. Like happy birds they flitted along the sidewalks of " School Street " as the nine o'clock bell rang out its call. A distant hue and cry ! Hatless men and boys rushed, shouting, " Clear the way," " Look out — look out," as round the corner like a cyclone came two strong, frightened horses, maddened by the wheels and wagon wreck thump- ing at their heels. The groups scattered, 'mid terror-strick- en shrieks, rushing hither and yon for safety. Two little ones, too young for school, and too intent upon their work to heed the cries of warning, were making mud-pies in the dusty street. " Merciful God ! " goes up from blanched lips as the rushing horses are right upon the unconscious mud- pie makers. Suddenly, as if nerved by superhuman power, a pale-faced, blue-eyed, delicate girl springs from the side- walk. With a man's arm she snatches from under the de- scending hoof a little pie-maker and flings her to the side- walk, saved. The blue-eyed girl reaches for the other little one. She falls. " Oh, God ! " goes up from the gathering crowd. The rushing horses go past as a whirlwind in a cloud of dust. Upon the torn-up ground, close in the arms of the blue-eyed girl, is the little mud-pie maker — dead. The dust of which the pies were made is now crimsoned by the blood of both The delicate girl's pale face is now white, her large blue eyes are closed, her golden hair is 222 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. clotted in blood and dust, and upon her fair brow is the cruel print of an iron-shod hoof. From the childless widow's home four of the larger school-boys bore a small white coffin, strewn with the buds of early spring. The nine o'clock bell did not ring that morn- ing. The scholars with their teacher gathered at the deso- late home to follow the heart-broken mother and the white coffin to the village graveyard. Thus a life went out more than fifty years ago. Months of long days and nights of hopes and fears they watched the trembling balance of life and death. The white face paled again, the blue eyes opened, but with strange ex- pression. She smiled, but asked no questions as she took the food and medicines given her. Her physical nature, delicate, yet tempered with the strength of former health, asserted itself, and she again was well in body. Upon her brow was the scar of the crash that drove her reason from her. " She was crazy," so they said more than fifty years ago, as the story was told by the simple villagers. During all these long busy years of half a century of life and growth all over our land has a mild, quiet, harmless, pale-faced, blue-eyed female, neither girl nor woman, with a red scar on her brow and a sad smile on her lips, eaten and drank and gazed in one of the State institutions for the insane. Her father and mother have long since gone from earth, while an only sister lives beyond the ocean. Not many weeks ago, four men employed for such ser- vice, carried a black coffin, unstrewn with flowers, unfol- lowed by friends, to the burial-place provided for the dead patients of the insane asylum. They said, as her last hour came, her blue eyes lighted by a strange light, an expres- sion of strong determination and action replaced her smile, and clutching something close in her arms, she died. Thus a life went out — When ? Ohio State Journal. TEE MOBAL LA W FOR NATIONS. 223 THE MORAL LAW FOR NATIONS. {Abridged.) Note 96. There is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or military renown. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. Crowns, coronets, mitres, military dis- play, the pomp of war, wide colonies and a huge empire are all trifles, light as air, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cottage ; and unless the light of your constitution can shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your states- manship are impressed there on the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it you have yet to learn the duties of government. The most ancient of profane historians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they elevated an old scimetar upon a platform as a sym- bol of Mars, for to Mars alone they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this scimetar they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than to all the rest of their gods. I often ask myself whether we are at all advanced in one respect be- yond these Scythians. What are our contributions to char- ity, to education, to morality, to religion, to justice, and to civil government, when compared with the wealth we ex- pend in sacrifices to the old scimetar? The moral law was not written for men in their individual character alone : but it was written as well for nations. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once : it may not come in our lifetime ; but rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says : 224 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. " The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, Nor yet doth linger." We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. "We know what the past has cost us. We know how much and how far we have wandered : but we are not left without a guide. It is true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems on Aaron's breast, from which to take counsel ; but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us ; and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. John Bright. LASCA. Note 97. I want free lif e and I want fresh air : And I sigh for the canter after the cattle, The crack of the whips like shot in a battle, The mellay of horns, and hoofs, and heads, That wars, and wrangles, and scatters, and spreads ; The green beneath and the blue above ; And dash, and danger, and life, and love. And Lasca ! Lasca used to ride On a mouse-gray mustang close to my side, With blue serape and bright-belled spur ; I laughed with joy as I looked at her ! Little knew she of books or of creeds ; An Ave Maria sufficed her needs ; Little she cared, save to be by my side, To ride with me, and ever to ride, From San Saba's shore to Lavacca's tide. She was as bold as the billows that beat, She was as wild as the breezes that blow ; LASGA. 225 From her little head to her little feet She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro By each gust of passion ; a sapling pine, That grows on the edge of a Kansas bluff, And wars with the wind when the weather is rough, Is like this Lasca, this love of mine. She would hunger that I might eat, Would take the bitter and leave me the sweet ; But once, when I made her jealous for fun, At something I'd whispered, or looked, or done, One Sunday, in San Antonio, To a glorious girl on the Alamo, She drew from her girdle a dear little dagger, And — sting of a wasp ! — it made me stagger ! An inch to the left, or ah inch to the right, And I shouldn't be maundering here to-night, But she sobbed, and, sobbing, so swiftly bound Her torn reboso about the wound That I quite forgave her. Scratches don't count In Texas, down by the Rio Grande. Her eye was brown — a deep, deep brown ! Her hair was darker than her eye ! And something in her smile and frown, Curled crimson lip and instep high, Showed that there ran in each blue vein, Mixed with the milder Aztec strain, The vigorous vintage of Old Spain. She was alive in every limb, With feeling, to the finger tips ; And when the sun is like a fire, And sky one shining soft sapphire, One does not drink in little sips. The ah" was heavy, the night was hot, I sat by her side and forgot — forgot ; 226 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Forgot the herd that were taking their rest, Forgot that the air was close opprest, That the Texas norther comes sudden and soon, In the dead of night, or the blaze of noon ; That once let the herd at its breath take fright, That nothing on earth can stop the flight ; And woe to the rider and woe to the steed, Who falls in front of their mad stampede. Was that thunder ? No, by the Lord ! I spring to my saddle without a word. One foot on mine, and she clung behind, Away ! on a hot chase down the wind ! But never was fox hunt half so hard, And never was steed so little spared, For we rode for our lives. You shall hear how we fared In Texas, down by the Bio Grande. The mustang flew, and we urged him on ; There was one chance left, and you have but one ; Halt, jump to the ground, and shoot your horse ; Crouch under his carcass, and take your chance ; And if the steers in their frantic course Don't batter you both to pieces at once, You may thank your star ; if not, good-bye To the quickening kiss and the long-drawn sigh, And the open air and the open sky, In Texas, down by the Eio Grande ! The cattle gained on us, and just as I felt For my old six-shooter behind in my belt, Down came the mustang, and down came we, Clinging together, and — what was the rest ? A body that spread itself on my breast. Two arms that shielded my dizzy head, Two lips that hard on my lips were prest ; NA TIONAL INDEBTEDNESS TO THE PAST. 227 Then came thunder in my ears, As over us surged the sea of steers, Blows that beat blood into my eyes, And when I could rise, Lasca was dead ! I gouged out a grave a few feet deep, And there in earth's arms I laid her to sleep, And there she is lying, and no one knows, And the summer shines and the winter snows ; For many a day the flowers have spread A pall of petals over her head ; And the little gray hawk hangs aloft in the air, And the sly coyote trots here and there, And the black snake glides and glitters and slides Into a rift in a cottonwood tree ; And the buzzard sails on, And comes and is gone, Stately and still, like a ship at sea ; And I wonder why I do not care For the things that are like the things that were. Does half my heart lie buried there In Texas, down by the Rio Grande ? Frank Desprez. NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS TO THE PAST. {Abridged.) Note 98. "When Bunyan saw a culprit ascending the steps to the gallows, he said : " That were I but for the Grace of God." But this Grace does not busy itself with individuals here and there only. It marks out a vast realm, and makes it a great, free, civilized State. Next to the grandeur of a planet that carries a thousand millions of people upon its bosom, and whirls them along through day and night, summer and 228 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. winter, youth and old age, comes the grandeur of a well- equipped State, which, for hundreds of years, guards the liberty, industry, education, and happiness of its dependent millions, crowding its influence in upon them gently as the atmosphere lies upon the cheek of June. Her language, her peculiar genius, her ideals, her religion, her freedom, enwrap us better than our mother's arms ; for the State enwraps her too, and wreathes her forehead with a merit that warrants her office and her affection. "Whence comes this grand instrument which, as now ex- isting in our continent, under the flag of liberty, pours around fifty millions of people such a golden air as no millions ever breathed before ? Who gathered these flowers that wreath equally our cradle, our altar, our homes, and our whole earthly pilgrimage ? This much of a reply is given by human experience : Nothing comes to man, of excellence without labor. All that man possesses of art, or science, or literature, or invention, has come by regular payments made in hard toil. Young though many of the modern free nations may be in their present name and form, yet back of each one lie a thousand years of active labor, and often of deep agony. As geologists now tell us that before God fitted up this earth for man, while the mists were rising from its heated seas, there were awful storms where the thunder rolled incessantly for a hundred years : so each nation which we see standing forth now in peace and beauty — England, Germany, America — has emerged from a thousand-year storm, where the wrath of man has rolled in thunder for centuries. If, then, a great nation like our own has come over a two- thousand-year path under a sky of alternate peace and storm, come along from free Athens, and free Rome, and sacred Palestine, there must have been all along, guardian angels of its long journey, glorious leaders of its wilderness march : souls that smote rocks for its thirsty multitudes, and prayed down manna in the still night. The morals of our day can look back and see their Seneca, their Confucius, THE PASSING OF THE PURITAN. 229 but chiefly their Divine Master. The art of our era looks back and beholds its Phidias, its Apelles, its Angelo. Poetry and all literature look back and cast smiles of gratitude to Homer, and Thucydides, and Dante. The law confesses its deep devotion to Cicero and Justinian, and the same wisdom will permit us always to hold in memory and in love men who have found in the study, and love, and service of their nation their own special path between the cradle and the grave. There have risen up here and there hearts not only that could weave the songs of Virgil, hands not only that could paint the pictures of a Parrhasius, or that could strike the notes of a Mozart : not only minds that may throw up a dome of St. Peter's, or that may astonish the world with their invention : but also other hearts which have loved the idea of nation, and have lived and died not in the arms of a friend, but rather in the arms of the country. Out of the thoughts and love of these great ones, we, humbler children of the State, have all drawn our happi- ness and freedom, as the violets are invited into life by the all-loving sun. David Swing. THE PASSING OF THE PURITAN. Note 99. The Puritan is dead, dead as old Grimes, and as obsolete as his s L eeple~crown hat and belted tunic. He will not come to life again in this generation. The next reckoning day for this world will be set by the Nihilist and commu- nard — not by the Puritan, who feared God, loved liberty, hated oppression, and put his foot on the necks of prostrate kings in the name of the Lord of Hosts, enfranchising con- science and making an end of star-chambers. Fashions come and go — never long the same. The old Puritan has disappeared for a time. The Cavalier, the good fellow, may- poles, the Greek nature in man, the Pompeiian instinct, Adonis and Falstafl: and poetry are on top again. And the 230 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. weaver who sang psalms and conquered at Naseby and Marston Moor, he is under now. Time has done what the chivalry of Europe, and the fangs of wild beasts, and the tomahawks of savages, and the long winters of an inhospit- able wilderness could not do — eliminated the Puritan and rendered him obsolete at last, a rare relic, an exceptional survival, not a present fact and a controlling force. We have been living a good long time in this century on his transmitted virtue, but it is almost exhausted. Oc- casionally one can hear a faint echo of his iron creed and uncompromising convictions, in the halls of Congress or in an out-of-the-way pulpit; but that is all — an echo. His name survives in innumerable households in New England, but the old nature is largely lost. There was a good deal of Puritan fibre in the land in '61, but money is on top now, not civic duty. The souls it fortified in patriotism and valor flew up to God from Gettysburg and the Wilderness, leav- ing skeletons to bleach under the sighing tops of the tall Virginia pines. The Puritan has passed. Well, why complain or lament ? "God fulfils Himself in many ways." We cannot breathe through Miles Standish's lungs. We cannot put seven- teenth century wine into nineteenth century bottles. To build Gothic cathedrals one must know the Gothic mind saturated with awe and reverence. To be Puritans we must have the Puritans' environment and the Puritans' Sinaitic God — and a tight grip on Him too, which we have not. Ulysses has gone on his wanderings, and there is no one left to bend the magic bow. The Puritan has passed. He is dead in this generation. Science, art, scepticism, culture, have worked away at him with wit, satire, ridicule, abuse, till his original lineaments are lost ; till his great-grandson is no more like his ancestor than the new Old South Church in Boston is like the old Old South. Decidedly this is no generation for the Puritan. What this generation admires he despised ; what it covets he hated ; what it does he fled from. But I give him no more LIBERTY SAFE IN AMERICA. 231 credit than his due. The age he lived in made his ruling passion. Every age has its own prophet — its own summum bonum. It once was that personal courage was esteemed most ; then men died carelessly in the performance of deeds of valor. It once was civic duty; then Horatius held the bridge, Decius offered himself to the Manes, and Brutus stabbed Caesar. It was once saintliness of life ; then every man desired to be an ascetic, a hermit, a Simon Stylites. A saint and king held the stirrup for a Pope to mount. In this generation the possession of wealth is the goal of the pushing, plotting, struggling multitude. Godliness, cour- age, civic duty are not the roads we want to travel, and few there be that are found therein. John R. Paxton. LIBERTY" SAFE IN AMERICA. Note 100. Whatever at any time may be the dominion of evil in the community, or the power of the " boss " in public affairs, the future of the nation is always in the hands of the men who will keep themselves pure and true. We boast of our immense resources, our factories and farms and railways; but what are they in comparison with character ? It is well to repeat the solemn words with which Mr. Gladstone sums up his review of the probable future of England and America : " All this pompous detail of material triumphs is worse than idle, unless the men of the two countries shall remain or shall become greater than the things they produce, and shall know how to regard these things simply as tools and materials for the attainment of the highest purposes of their being." Liberty, that used to find her refuge in the mountains, now that, in the progress of civilization, the mountains are leveled and a highway is made through the sea, must seek her abode in the hearts of men. To you, men of America, 232 THE ADVANCED SPEAKEB. is committed a noble trust. In other lands Liberty is be- trayed in the house of her friends. The dagger of the Ni- hilist, the dynamite of the Invincible, the petroleum of the Commune, and the furious atheism of the International are immolating the liberty they would defend. To our shores have come the children of the men who fought at Sempach and at Naseby, at Flodden Fields and at Novara, who fol- lowed Gustavus and Garibaldi, who let in the sea at Leyden and watered the Vende with their blood. Liberty from every land has come with them to us. Here, in the com- mingled life that throbs in our veins, she has now her brightest hopes. Here she may look for her most benefi- cent domain. She who " was sought in the wilderness and mourned for by the waters of Babylon, who was saved at Salamis and thrown away at Choeronea, who was fought for at Cannae and lost forever at Pharsalia and Philippi ; she who confronted the armada on the deck with Howard," and then was harried out of the land at Hull; she who sum- moned Europe to freedom in '93, and was betrayed by the First Consul ; she who sprang again to her feet in '48, and was struck down by the Coup d'Etat ; she who, to-day, is. at once defended and destroyed by the standing armies of Europe, is safe in America just so long as the men of this land know the worth of their inheritance and maintain the princij^les by which it has been secured. The one require- ment, to-day and always, is that you, the average citizen, you of the common people, believe in the honor of your country, and live so true and pure a life that you can coura- geously maintain it. Henry A. Stimson. MORALITY ROOTED IN RELIGION. Note 101. Whatever may be the defects of this or that religious sys- tem, or of this or that creed, there is no question that pop- ular morality is rooted in religion. Our Plymouth ancestors may have been very hard and narrow. So was Mohammed MORALITY ROOTED m RELIGION'. 233 hard and narrow. But both he and they, Arab and Teuton, Proj)het and Puritan, felt and feared the Unseen, and had no other fear. Atheistic morality is not impossible, I sup-, pose. But it will never answer our purpose. The morality that holds great masses of sinewy people together, the mo- rality that stands the tremendous strain of this occidental civilization, must be very firmly rooted in honest, downright personal faith and fear. I pity the man who has not learned to fear. The mills which grind for us must be veritably "mills of the gods." Six hundred thousand young lives, North and South, were the penalty we have paid for one great national immorality. Then it was a question between the colors — black and white. Next time it will be a ques- tion between classes : partly thrust upon us from beyond the sea ; partly the epidemic of our whole modern civiliza- tion ; partly our own question exclusively. Political equal- ity like ours has a tendency to make social inequality only the more marked and maddening. Mere humane impulses cannot help us much. The social problem is something to be studied, profoundly studied. But just so sure as we lose our faith in God we shall lose, along with it, all right sense of our human brotherhood. Then follows, not very far be- hind, the deadly duel between labor and capital, which would leave both of them wounded and bleeding on the field. I am not greatly afraid of our atheists to-day ; but I warn my children against their children to-morrow. Every dragon's tooth is at last an armed man. But right and humanity, in every great crisis of our history, have always carried the day so far. Even our statesmen have not always taken sufficient account of the robust conscience of the na- tion. By some of the traditional standards we may not be considered a very strict, scrupulous, and reverent people. But let the foundations be disturbed, let the life or welfare of the nation be really endangered, and the day of judg- ment will have come. The cannon-balls that were hurled at Sumter hit Plymouth Rock. Rostyell D. Hitchcock. 234 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. OLD LETTERS. " Burn them wholesale ! Ancient scars Will bleed and throb if you delay. Thrust them in between the bars, Tied up in their packets " — " Stay ! I see my mother's writing, and My father's ; aye, 'tis theirs indeed, Though lettered in a large, round hand That their little son might read. How I prized them ! New to school, How my very soul did ache ! Grief had killed a little fool, If the heart could really break." " Clissold's writing ! ' Dear old boy, Whatever happens, I'm your friend.' He meant it, too ; without alloy Our friendship was, and feared no end. How oft, while dropping down the stream, Or idly stretched among the heather, We shared in youth's presumptuous dream, And vowed to storm the world together. O fool ! to trust a boyish word ; O fool ! to feel a boyish sorrow ; That Clissold, walking with a lord, Would cut me, if we met, to-morrow." " Burn the letters ! Ancient scars Will bleed and throb if you delay. Thrust them in between the bars, Tied up in their packets " — " Stay ! That hand so delicate and small, Traced upon paper pinky white, Does like a happy dream recall A time of heavenly delight. SLAVERY. 235 ' My life ! ray love ! ' (O tender girl ! ) * 'Twill kill me if you are not true.' And here's a brown and silky curl, Tied with the faithful color, blue. The honest silk has faded quite ; For would this only love of mine Shed, if she saw me dead to-night, A single tear for auld lang syne ? " 'Burn them wholesale ! Ancient scars Will bleed and throb with this delay. Thrust the letters through the bars, Open not another " — " Stay ! That foreign sheet I cannot burn ; 'Tis Tom's last letter ; give it me ! He writes in it of his return To those — he ne'er again should see. Burn it ; burn all. For they who traced The lines with such keen jxleasure read, Whose love can never be replaced, Are false, are fickle, or are dead. Burn them wholesale ! Ancient scars Will bleed afresh with each delay. Thrust them in between the bars ; They belong to yesterday." Chambers' Journal. SLAVERY. {Abridged.) Note 102. In that spirit of fatalism which pervades current litera- ture, it is the fashion to speak even of war and slavery as means of human progress. But war can only aid progress when it prevents farther war or breaks down anti-social barriers. As for slavery, I cannot see how it could ever 236 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. have aided in establishing freedom, and freedom, the syn- onym of equality, is, from the very rudest state in which man can be imagined, the stimulus and condition of prog- ress. Slavery never did and never could aid improvement. Whether the community consists of a single master and a single slave, or of a thousand masters and a million slaves, slavery necessarily involves a waste of human power ; for not only is slave labor less productive than free labor, but the power of masters is likewise wasted. From first to last slavery, like every other denial of the natural equality of men, has hampered and prevented progress. Just in pro- portion as slavery plays an important part in the social or- ganization does improvement cease. That in the classical world slavery was so universal is undoubtedly the reason why the mental activity which so polished literature and refined art never hit on any of the great discoveries and inventions which distinguish modern civilization. No slave- holding people were ever an inventive people. In a slave- holding community the upper classes may become luxurious and polished, but never inventive. Whatever degrades the laborer and robs him of the fruits of his toil, stifles the spirit of invention and forbids the utilization of inventions and discoveries, even when made. To freedom alone is given the spell of power which summons the genii, in whose keeping are the treasures of the earth and the viewless forces of the air. The law of human progress. W r hat is it but the moral law? Just as social adjustments promote justice, just as they acknowledge the equality of right between man and man, just as they insure to each the perfect liberty which is bounded only by the equal liberty of every other, must civilization advance. Just as they fail in this must advanc- ing civilization come to a halt and recede. Political econ- omy and social science cannot teach any lessons that are not embraced in the simple truths that were taught to poor fishermen and Jewish peasants by One who, eighteen hun- dred years ago, was crucified : the simple truths which, A PIECE OF BUNTING. 237 beneath the warpings of selfishness and the distortions of superstition, seem to underlie every religion that has ever striven to formulate the spiritual yearnings of man. Henry George. A PIECE OF BUNTING. Mte 103. On a Christmas morning, many years ago, I stood upon the deck of a merchantman, in the harbor of Cadiz. The cathedral and convent bells were ringing out their carols, in commemoration of that event which brought peace on earth and good-will to men. As I gazed at the beautiful town, that rose like a city of pearl from the sea, I could hardly realize my own identity : that I, a boy born and reared on the margin of the Great Lakes, was floating on the same waters which had borne the Phoenician fleets three thousand years ago; that I was looking on a city contem- porary with Carthage, and which was old before Eome was born. On the distant mountain-side I could see the towers of Konda, where Julius Caesar had fought a pitched battle, of which he said, that, although he had fought many times for victory, he had fought but once for his life, and here was the spot ; and Hannibal had here probably stopped when starting on that march which was to end only in Rome's abasement or her triumph. I thought of the advent of Christianity, and the dethrone- ment of the idols of Baal; of Roderick, the last of the Goths, and his faithful love; of the coming of the Moors, and of the empire they reared; of the sorrows of Boabdil, the man without a country, the king without a throne ; and as these imaginings floated across my brain as pinnaces be- fore a soft south wind, a strain of music struck upon my ear. As its cadences floated across the tremulous floor of the sea, it sounded womlrously familiar. It was our national hymn. I turned ; and there, thank God! our flag was fly- 238 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. ing at the peak of a man-of-war. What now to me were the historic scenes of Spain, and its fables, what its olive groves and acacias, what was Xeres, Sagnntum, the Alharn- bra, or the Guadal quiver ? Yet, to one who knew not its significance, it was but a piece of bunting with hues har- moniously blended, not half so attractive as a painting or a landscape; but no Murillo, nor the gardens of Atlantis, could have awakened any such emotions in my breast. What was it that endowed it with such power? It was the emblem of all I held dear on earth. It was home, coun- try, power, protection, inspiration, society in solitude, wealth in poverty. From it as from a camera were thrown upon my heart visions of those I loved, of the beautiful city where I was born, of my companions in its streets, of the primeval forests of my State, of its environing lakes, of my country and its happy homes. F. W. Palmer. JACaUES DUFOUR. Note 104. Strolling in the cool of evening, drinking in the balmy air, I met a strange wayfaring man bowed down with grief and care. Eighty years had left their foot-prints on his gaunt and ashen cheek, And his hands were gray and shrunken, and his voice was thin and weak : But his eyes, while he was speaking, kindled with a misty glow, 'Mid their whitened brows and lashes, like a crater in the snow. And this aged Frenchman told me (his name was Jacques Dufour), The story of the faded shred of ribbon that he wore : J A CQ UES D UFO UK 239 Just a scrap of scarlet ribbon pinned upon his shrunken breast, But to him more rich and beautiful than rubies of the East. 'Twas in eighteen-twelve he won it, in that terrible cam- paign, When the French invaded Russia, but invaded her in vain ; ► And the starved and freezing Frenchmen had begun that sad retreat Through the snow that proved for most of them both grave and winding-sheet. There had been a bloody skirmish 'twixt the rear-guard and the foe, And among the sorely wounded, whom the chance of fight laid low, "Was a gallant Polish Colonel, Marshal Davoust's favorite aide, And the Marshal, kneeling o'er him, turned about, and sharply said: ''Halt, Company of Grenadiers, and see this wounded Pole! He loves the French; he hates the Russ, with all his fiery (soul : "Will you let him fall a prisoner to his bloody-minded foe ? " And the Company of Grenadiers cried out as one man, No ! " Then lift him," said the Marshal. w You soldiers must have learned That our wagons we've abandoned, and our baggage has been burned- : Make a litter; you must bear him; I trust him to your love; He will burden, will impede you, but I know that you will prove That you do your duty ever, and will guard this wounded man As you guard your sacred colors when they lead the bat- 240 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. So they made the hasty litter, and the wounded man they bore, (Of the youngest and the cheeriest, was Sergeant Jacques Dufour). And day by day they fought their way, through deserts bleak and wild, Guarding the crippled Colonel, as a woman guards her child. But the work of love delayed them, and they slowly fell be- hind, Yet not one of all that Company of Grenadiers repined. Still they fought the cold and Cossacks; still they held their rugged way, Falling back, but never fleeing: retreating, yet at bay. But the foe was fell and agile, and the cold it waxed amain; And so one by one they perished — some were frozen, some were slain, Till the nineteenth day of marching came, and there were only five Of that Company of Grenadiers who still remained alive. Then spoke the wounded Colonel : " Oh, my comrades, it is vain: I can surely never live to see my native land again; You are squandering your lives for nought, lives it were sweet to save For France and future glory; so leave me, comrades, brave." " Peste ! " said Jacques Dufour, " my Colonel, we take leave to answer Nay. "We have orders to deliver you at Wilna, — we obey ! " So they lift again the litter, and they struggle on their way, Till the western clouds are lighted with the gleams of dy- ing day: And as they watch the glory, against those golden skies, The towers and walls of Wilna in welcome outline rise ! But too great the stress of feeling for those overburdened men: Too swift the refluent flood of hope that swelled their hearts again: J A CQ UES D UFO UB. 241 Far too weak their feeble bodies for this beatific sight: Two fell dying on the left hand; two fell dying on the right; And, as faded in the frozen air their last convulsive moan, Lo ! of all that noble Company, Dufour was left alone ! Did he falter ? No ! He lifted in his arms the wounded man, And with wild and desperate shouting towards the nearest outpost ran; And the pickets came with succor, and the sun had just gone down "When they bore the Sergeant and his charge in safety to the town. Then Dufour sent up a message to headquarters, quaint and short, That "the Company of Grenadiers desired to report." " Granted," said the bluff old Marshal, " let them do it here and now." And Jacques Dufour came marching in and made his stiff- est bow. "Where is my wounded Colonel ? " "Safe in the hospital, Where you ordered us to place him, Monsieur le Marechal." " Where is the Company ? They too have come in safety all ?" " The Company is present, Monsieur le Marechal." " Where is the Company, I repeat, the Company ? " once more. " The Company is present" said Sergeant Jacques Dufour. " But your comrades — there were ninety or a hundred men, you know." "Ah, mon Marechal, my comrades lie buried in the snow ! " Then up rose the stout old Marshal, with his eyes brimful of tears, Dashed aside the barriers of rank, the cold reserve of years : Caught the stripling to his bosom, gave him a reverent kiss, And the ribbon which Dufour has" worn from that far day to this. William W. Howe. 11 242 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. THE EMPIRE OF FREEDOM. Note 105. On the 3d day of November, 1620, while the lonely May- flower was breasting the long and weary seas, the wilder- ness the Pilgrims sought, from ocean to ocean, was granted by a king to a corporation to own and govern forever. "What a mockery of dominion ! The Pilgrim Fathers, stepping upon these shores in appar- ent weakness, but with the power of destiny, took a fee of the continent by the grant of God, in trust to the uses of liberty forever ! It was the birth-hour of an empire in which no emperor shall ever be. The Star of the East again stood still, marking the Child of Heaven obscurely born! The daring expeditions in greedy search for the New "World's gold, the fantastic pursuit of the fabled fountain of youth, the painful efforts to colonize for mere dominion's sake, the finding of the hemisphere even, Heaven has refused to sig- nalize as the origin of the new creation by which man was to be regenerate in liberty. To the little handful who came in poverty, in wintry storm, in mortal peril, in every outward circumstance of human weakness, but who came in the name of God for the freedom of men, He has given that sign of glory ; and history has registered the decree. No human excellence can escape the barnacles of error. Challenging by their isolation the world's criticism, the Pil- grims could hope for, and have found, no oblivion for their faults. They require none. They were human, not divine. Their hard bigotry, the focus of hostile censure, was sincer- ity, arrogantly over-conscious of worth and actions ; a nat- ural armor, necessary to their time ; the coarsely corrugated bark which defends the heart of the oak from external cor- ruption. To have then contemplated, as in the atmosphere which centuries have been requisite to clear, all the purity and perfection of liberty, their prevision should have been divine, not human. Their imperfections are like the ruts and breaks upon the mountain-side, which, though open to every ROMAN PRINCIPLES. 243 view, detain riot the eye straining for the lofty summit ; and on the mountain-range of the great events of human prog- ress, over which the sunshine of God's favor breaks upon men, its earliest and latest gleams touch with light and beauty the peak uplifted by the Pilgrim Fathers. William F. Vilas. ROMAN" PRINCIPLES NOT SAFE FOR. MODERN NA- TIONS. Note 106. Nothing can be more fundamentally unsound, more prac- tically ruinous, than the establishment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy. What was Rome ? Rome was an imperial State, a State, you may say, having a mission to subdue the world ; but a State whose very basis it was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the independent exist- ence of other nations. That was the Roman idea. It has been partially and not ill described in these lines from Virgil : ' ' O Rome ! 'tis thine alone with awful sway To rule mankind, and make the world obey, Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way." We are told to fall back upon this example. But what did the words " Liberty " and " Empire " mean in a Roman mouth ? They meant simply this : " Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind." No doubt Rome may have had its work to do, and Rome did its work. But mod- ern times have established a sisterhood of nations, equal, independent, each of them built up under that legitimate defence which public law affords to every nation, living within its own borders and seeking to perform its own affairs : but if one thing more than another has been de- testable to Europe it has been" the ajrpearance upon the stage, from time to time, of men who, even in the times of Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal 244 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part of Louis XIV., King of France, that led our forefathers freely to spend their blood and treasures in a cause not immedi- ately their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its centre, seemed to aim at an uni- versal monarchy. It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was launched and justly launched against Napoleon, that under his dominion France was not content even with her extended limits ; but Germany, and Italy, and Spain, apparently without any limit to this pestilent and pernicious process, were to be brought under the dominion or influence of France, and national equality was to be trampled under- foot and national rights denied. For that reason, England in the struggle almost exhausted herself, greatly impover- ished her people, brought upon herself, and Scotland too, the consequences of a debt that nearly crushed their ener- gies, and poured forth their best blood, without limit, in or- der to resist and put down these intolerable pretensions. It is the opposite principle which we are called upon to vindicate. I mean the sound and sacred principle that Christendom is formed of a band of nations who are united to one another in the bonds of right, and that they are without distinction of great or small. There is an abso- lute equality between them. The same sacredness defends the narrow limits of Belgium as attaches to the extended frontiers of Russia or Germany or France. I hold that he who by act or word brings that principle into peril or dis- paragement, however honest his intentions may be, places himself in the position of one inflicting injury upon his own country, and endangering the peace and all the most fun- damental interests of Christian society. William E. Gladstone. BE AIR OF MARAT. 245 DEATH OF MARAT. (Abridged. ) Note 107. On the 8th day of July, 1793, in the lobby of the Man- sion de VIntendance, where busy deputies are coming and going, a young lady with an aged valet, might have been seen taking graceful leave of deputy Barbaroux. She is of stately Norman figure : in her twenty -fifth year: of beauti- ful, still countenance: her name is Charlotte Corday. Bar- baroux has given her a note to deputy Duperret. Appar- ently she will go to Paris on some errand. " She was a Republican before the Revolution, and never wanted energy." A completeness, a decision is in this fair female figure. By " energy she means the spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country." What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her secluded still- ness, suddenly like a star, cruel-lovely, with half angelic, half dsemonic splendor, to gleam for a moment, and in a moment be extinguished: to be 4ield in memory, so bright complete was she, through the long centuries ! History will look fixedly at this one fair apparition of a Charlotte Cor- day: will note whither she moves, how the little life burns forth so radiant, then vanishes, swallowed of the night ! With Barbaroux's note of introduction and slight stock of luggage, we see Charlotte on the 9th day of July seated in the Caen coach, with a place for Paris. The drowsy coach lumbers along all night, all day, and again all night. Here is Paris, with her thousand black domes, the goal and purpose of her journey. Arrived at an inn, Charlotte de- mands a room : hastens to bed : sleeps all the afternoon and night. On the morrow she delivers her note to Duperret. It relates to certain family papers which he shall assist her in getting. This, then, was Charlotte's errand to Paris? She has finished this in the course of the day; yet says nothing of returning. She has, however, seen and investi- 246 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. gated several things. The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen. The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see. He is sick at present, and confined at home. About eight on the next morning she purchases a large sheath-knife in the Palais Royal: then straightway takes a hackney-coach to the residence of citizen Marat. The citi- zen Marat is ill, and cannot be seen; which seems to disap- point her much. Her business is with Marat, then ? Hap- less, beautiful Charlotte; hapless, squalid Marat ! Charlotte, returning to her inn, dispatches a short note to Marat, sig- nifying that she is from Caen, the seat of rebellion: that she earnestly desires to see him, and " will put it in his power to do France a great service." No answer. She writes another note, still more pressing: sets out with it herself. Hark, a rap, again! A musical woman's voice, refusing to be rejected. It is she who would do France a service. Marat, recognizing from within, cries, admit her. Charlotte Corday is admitted. "Citizen Marat, I am from Caen, the seat of rebellion: and wished to speak with you." "Be seated, my child. Now what are the traitors doing at Caen ? What deputies are at Caen ? " Charlotte names some deputies. " Their heads shall fall within a fortnight," croaks the eager "peo- ple's friend," clutching his tablets to write : " Barbaroux," " P'etion" writes he : " Petion," " Louvet," and — Charlotte has drawn her knife from its sheath: plunges it with one sure stroke into the writer's heart. His life with a groan gushes oat, indignant, to the shades below. And so, Marat, "people's friend," is ended: the lone Sty- lites has got hurled down suddenly from his pillar. Whither- ward? He that made him knows. As for Charlotte Cor- day, her work is accomplished: the recompense of it is near and sure. She quietly surrenders to the gendarmes : quietty goes to the prison. She alone, quiet, all Paris sounding in wonder, in rage or admiration, round her. Thomas Carlyle. Note 108. THE OLD MONK IN THE BELFRY. 247 THE OLD MONK TN THE BELFRY. I. Hark the mournful numbers rolling Where the hooded monk is tolling, Ever and anon his forehead Bending o'er his hempen coil; To and fro his shadow swinging "With the refrain he is ringing; Ah ! the mournful refrain, bringing To an end all human toil. n. Through the ivied loophole slender, Like an aureole of splendor, Poised amid those sounds abhorred, O'er the swaying cowl of serge, Streams the day's departing glory, Fitful gleams, now gold, now gory, Down the ample beard and hoary Timing with the chiming dirge. Sidelong to that lonely mortal, Through the sanctuary portal, Glimpses from the great Cathedral Steal upon his ravished sight; Glimmerings from the oriel, painted With angelic forms and sainted, Seen where incense clouds have fainted Softly in the holy light: IV. Twinklings from the waxen tapers Shining through those sacred vapors, Silvery flames that like a bede-roll Circle the celestial place; 248 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Hyacinths to purple glooming, Lilies virginally blooming, Roses heavy with perfuming, Clustering with ambrosial grace. v. Though dumb grief to weeping urges Yon gray ringer of the dirges, Yet his trembling hand can borrow Solace from the belfy rope, Drawing forth those notes of wailing That to heaven like prayers prevailing, Seem to rise not unavailing, Sounds whose echoes breathe of hope. VI. Lo ! in the vast minster only Summoned to this labor lonely, When the evening sun declining Sheds a glory over all, Toils the monk, and toiling prayeth, Though no whispered prayer he sayeth To the God his heart obeyeth, Whom its life-long throbs recall. VII. Radiant shines the gorgeous building Day's departing beams are gilding, Each minutest grace denning In one glare divinely bright; Loftiest trefoil, lowliest basement, Daintiest mullion of rich casement Scatheless smiles through time's defacement, Bathed in the celestial light. THE OLD 3I0XK IN THE BELFRY. 249 VIII. Hid from view, the inner splendor, Save what glimpse the porch can render To the silent watcher ringing Calmly on the checkered floor: He, as with his eyes beholding, Sees, from memory's store unfolding, All the pillared pomp upholding Groined roof fretted o'er and o'er: IX. Hears, though hushed, the organ sounding Forth its trumpet clang astounding, Dulcet treble attendant On the pedals' thunderous bass; Hears, in thought, the choral voices, Till his very soul rejoices, Lift the vibrant song that poises Eddying round the sacred place. Yet alone, the bell-note pealing Sounds ; till, hark ! from graveyard stealing Softly through the chiming pauses Of the solemn dirge he rings: "Rex tremendae majistatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis," Some far choir angelic sings, XI. Dying down in dim recession, "While the sorrowing procession Gathers round the tomb that causes These lamenting words to rise; 11* 250 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. 'Mid the vigil lie is keeping, See you not the old monk weeping, Scalding drops from heart-founts leaping, Trembling, raining from his eyes ? (The bell ceases.) Ah ! for whom those tears so wild ? Whisper close ! Hear the truth ! For the child of the child Of the love of his youth. Blackwood's Magazine. THE CORPORAL OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. I eemembee when the fight was on and the field was lost, and a beaten and broken army were falling back at Chan- cellorsville. I remember a regiment of soldiers in position behind batteries of artillery, near the Chancellor home. The wounded cried piteously for aid ; the shells crashed through the woods ; it was an hour of dread and despair for the Union soldiers-, of exultation and hope for the Confeder- ates. All the troops had fallen back in disorder ; a new line was being formed more than a mile to the rear. The sol- diers supporting the batteries were alone on a lost and bloody field. These troops and batteries were to be sacrificed to the army. They were put there to hold the victorious en- emy in check until a new line could be formed. The Con- federates, flushed with victory and enraged by resistance on a field they considered won, yelled like demons and poured an incessant fire upon the Union guns. The regiment sup- porting the batteries lay prone on the earth very still, while our artillery returned the enemy's fire. The shells came screaming over and into the regiment, not singly, not as skirmishers, but as if in columns. It was the first battle of THE CORPORAL OF GHANOELLORSVILLE. 251 the regiment. Between the brief pauses of loading and fir- ing, the men could hear the sharp commands of the Confed- erate officers, " Load and fire ! " It was the mouth of hell or gate of heaven for many of them. The men shivered and thrilled. It was appalling, yet it was glorious — to be living this minute and possibly dead the next. That was their situation. Officer after officer, soldier after soldier, was struck and heard no more on earth. The wounded moaned and cried for water ; the living — well, some tried to pray ; some shut their eyes and shivered as the shells came crashing through ; the crackling of the flames consuming the Chancellor house were clearly heard. "What did they feel or fear, those men being slaughtered score by score ? What visions of eternity, on the dizzy edge of which they were, flashed up in their souls! What did death mean? Wait till you are there to know. But in that regiment being rapidly thinned by the shells of the Confederates, I remember a man and his conduct. He was first corporal, and dressed the company on the right. Tall he was and goodly to look upon, a farmer's lad from Pennsylvania. We heard a voice, strong, clear, serene, con- fident ; we looked, and then on the right of the company, sitting upright, firm, while all of us lay down flat, we saw the corporal. His face was cold, a smile played over his features. He was so cold, so serene. He seemed to be looking away beyond the enemy's lines to something we did not see — to be utterly indifferent to the death-dealing shells. Here is what I heard from this corporal amid the carnage of the battle : " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble ; therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed and the mountain carried into the depths of the sea. For the Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." The voice and prayer of this corporal silenced many an oath, stifled many a groan, and nerved us to stand it out as no shriek of fife or battle-drum had ever done. What made our corporal the man he was, 252 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. at peace in battle, with a smile upon his lips in the jaws of death ? It was this : he was a God-fearing lad, reared in an old Covenanters' meeting-house. When the day came to show the stun 2 men were made of, it was the man with this fear of G-od in his soul, and no other fear, that put us all to shame and showed us how to die. John E. Paxton. MORAL LAWS THE SOULS GUIDE. Note 109. It is said that the dusty droughts which once in a few years dry up the grasses, grains, and flowers, and make a garden land a desert, are Nature's beneficent resort ; that the earth, being thus ridden of all her moisture, the sunshine and air may enter the labyrinth, and remake by their new agencies those cells to which the roots of the verdure will descend in the subsequent years, and over that desert of one summer there will wave seven summers of richer harvest. In the history of morals and religion there comes a similar phe- nomenon in each group of years. Something called a public calamity spreads over country and home, making a desert of what was yesterday a paradise. But if we assume that the chief end of man is the attainment of a noble character, then what are these calamities but hours in which the great human world is stripped of its vanity, that its soul ma}' lie open to the air and sunlight of a kind God, coming in the music of laws for which the soul was made, and without which it is hopeless poverty. These sublime laws of life ought to lead us to feel that grand must be the ideal des- tiny of man when Christ has flung down beneath Him such laws of ascent, pointing to the perfection of heaven. If the ladder which sprang up before Jacob in his dream, pointing up to the stars, with angels on its steps, was any hint to him and all who read the dream that there is a world above this, then these laws of human action, so lofty, and bringing REVERENCE FOR LA W. 253 a consciousness so sweet, should seem as it were a ladder with angelic spirits upon the steps, waving their hands up- ward and pointing out the destiny of the so ul. David Swing. REVERENCE FOR LAW. (Revised and arranged.) Note 110. One of the greatest evils arising from our form of govern- ment, is disregard of law and lack of reverence for consti- tuted authority. Under a popular government this is to some extent inevitable. There, caste distinctions are ob- literated: the barriers to preferment thrown down: no sen- timents of majesty gather round the bench: no venerable traditions of kingship invest the executive chair. Thus it happens that vast monopolies, entrenched behind immense, aggregated capital bid defiance to legal restraint: that legis- latures become the breeding-ground of corruption: that city governments grow venal: that undoubted criminals by indirection and bribery secure acquittal: that charges of dishonesty in public station are unregarded; and that ram- pant evils excite no more than trivial mention, and stalk abroad unpunished. Sooner or later we shah learn that the only safety is in honoring order, upholding justice, and revering law. But emergent hours do come when the breaking of the law becomes justifiable: and when setting aside the letter of the legal enactment would be the truest obedience. An event, illustrating this fact, is said to have occurred when the great obelisk brought from Egypt was erected in the square of St. Peter's at Rome. Tackle had all been arranged for the difficult and perilous task. To make all safe, and prevent the possibility of accident from some sud- den cry or alarm, a Papal edict had been issued, promising death to any man who should utter a loud word while the 254 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. work was in progress. When the day arrived all Rom ) was abroad. The streets were gay with flags and costumes; while hurrying crowds of women and children, students and priests, idlers and beggars, surged up to the square. As the monolith began to rise the populace closed in. The square was crowded with admiring eyes and beating hearts. Slowly that huge crystallization of Egyptian toil and skill rose on its base. Five degrees! Ten degrees! Twenty! It stops ! No matter ! No voice ! Silence ! It moves again. Twenty-five degrees ! Thirty ! Thirty-one ! It stops again. Now there is trouble ! The workmen pause at the windlasses. The engineers look at each other trem- bling, and then turn to watch that quivering, hanging mass. Among the crowd silence ! Silence everywhere ! Obedience to law ! Suddenly from out that breathless throng rang a cry clear as an archangel's trumpet : " Wet the ropes ! " " Wet the ropes ! " The crowd turned to look. There, tip- toe on a post, in a coarse jacket, his eyes full of prophetic fire, and his whole figure wild with irresistible emotion, stood a workman of the people ! His words flashed like lightning and struck. From the engineers to the lowest servant that lawless cry had instant obedience. Water was dashed upon the ropes. They bit fiercely into the granite. The windlasses were manned once more; and the obelisk rose to its place and took its stand for centuries ! Law never sutlers when it is broken in emergent hours like that. ENNOBLING RECOLLECTIONS OF THE REVOLUTION. It has been usual in speaking of the Revolution, to give a history of the wrongs endured by our fathers: but we have prouder and more ennobling recollections. They are to be found in the spirit displayed by our fathers, when all their petitions had been slighted, their remonstrances desrjised, and their apjDeals to the generous sympathies of "BE PEN AND BE S WO ABB." 255 their brethren utterly disregarded. Theirs was that pure and holy spirit of devoted patriotism which never quailed beneath oppression, which braved all dangers, trampled upon difficulties, and taught them to be faithful to their principles and to their country true. There is, however, one characteristic of the American Revolution, which, constituting as it does its living princi- ple, its proud distinction, and its crowning glory, cannot be passed over in silence. It is this: that our Revolution had its origin, not so much in the weight of actual oppression, as in the great principle, the sacred duty of resistance to the exercise of unauthorized power. Other nations have been driven to rebellion by the iron hand of despotism, the insupportable weight of oppression, which, leaving men nothing worth living for, has taken away the fear of death itself, and caused them to rush upon the spears of their enemies. But it was a tax of three-pence a pound upon tea, imposed without right, which was con- sidered by our ancestors as a burden too grievous to be borne. And why ? Because they were men who " felt op- pression's lightest finger as a mountain weight"; and "judged of the grievance by the badness of the principle." This .was the same spirit which inspired the immortal Hampden to resist, at the peril of his life, the imposition of ship-money: not because, as remarked by Burke, "the pay- ment of twenty shillings would have ruined his fortune : but because the payment of half twenty shillings or the principle on whieh it was demanded would have made him a slave." Robeet Y. Hayne. "DE PEN AND DE SWOARD." The " Colored Debating Society," of Mount Vernon, have some very interesting meetings. Happening to pass through that place a while ago, I was invited by a friend to accompany him to one of the " debates." The object of the argument 256 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. on that particular evening was the settlement at once and forever of the question, " Which am de mightiest, de pen or de swoard ? " Mr. Laukins said about as follows : " Mr. Chaarman, what's de use ob a swoard unless you's gwyne to waar? Who's lryar dat's gwyne to waar ? I isn't, Mr. Moorhouse isn't, Mrs. Moorehouse isn't, Mr. Newsome isn't ; I'll bet no feller wot speaks on de swoard side is any ideer ob gwyne to waar. Den what's de use ob de swoard ? I don't tink dere's much show for argument in de matter." Mr. Lewman said : " What's de use ob de pen 'less you knows how to write ? How's dat ? Dat's what / wants to know. Look at de chillum ob Isr'l — wasn't but one man in de hole crowd gwyne up from Egyp' to de Promis' Lan' cood write, an' he didn't write much. [A voice in the au- dience, " Wrote de ten comman'ments, anyhow, you bet." Cheers from the pen side.] Wrote' em.** wrote' em. 1 ? Not much ; guess not ; not on a stone, honey. Might p'r'aps cut 'em wid a chisel. Broke 'em all, anyhow, 'fore he got down de hill. Den when he cut a new set, de chill un ob Isr'l broke 'em all again. Say he did write 'em, what good was it? So his pen no 'count nohow. No, Saar. De swoard's what fotched 'em into de Promis' Lan', Saar. Why, Saar, it's ridiculous. Tink, Saar, ob David a-cuttin' off Goliah's head wid a pen, Saar ! De ideer's altogedder too 'poterous, Saar. De swoard, Saar, de swoard, mus' win de ar- gument, Saar." Dr. Crane said : " I tink Mr. Lewman a leetle too fas'. He's a-speakin' ob de times in de dim pas', when de mind ob man was crude, an' de han' ob man was in de ruff state, an' not toned down to de refinement ob cibilized times. Dey wasn't educated up to de use ob de pen. Deir hans was only fit for de ruff use ob de swoard. Now, as de modern poet says, our swoards rest in deir cubbards, an peas, sweet peas, covers de lan'. An' what has wrot all dis change ? De pen. Do I take a swoard now to git me a peck ob sweet- taters, a pair ob chickens, a pair ob shoes? No, Saar. I " BE PEN AND BE SWOARD." 257 jess take my pen an' write a order for 'em. Do I want money ? I don't get it by de edge ob de swoard ; I writes a check. I want a suit ob clothes, for instance — a stroke ob de pen, de mighty pen, de clothes is on de way. I's done." Mr. Newsome said : " "Wid all due 'spect to de learned gemmen dat's jus' spoke, we must all agree dat for smoovin' tings off an' a-levelin' tings down dere's notting equals de swoard." Mr. Hunnicut said : " I agrees entirely wid Mr. Newsome ; an' in answer to what Dr. Crane says, I would jess ask what's de use ob drawin' a check unless you's got de money in de bank, or a-drawin' de order on de store unless de store truss you ? S'pose de store do truss, ain't it easier to sen' a boy as to write a order ? If you got no boy handy, telegraf . No use for a pen — not a bit. Who ebber heard ob Mr. Hill's pen ? Nobody, Saar. But his swoard, Saar — de swoard ob ole Bunker Hill, Saar — is known to ebbery chile in de Ian'. If it hadden bin for de swoard ob ole Bunker Hill, Saar, whaar'd we niggers be to-night, Saar ? Whaar, Saar ? Not hyar, Saar. In Georgia, Saar, or wuss, Saar. No cul- lud man, Saar, should ebber go back, Saar, on de swoard, Saar." Mr. Hunnicut's remarks seemed to carry a good deal of weight with the audience. After speeches by a number of others, the subject was handed over to "the committee," who carried it out and "sot on it." In due time they re- turned with the following decision : " De committee decide dat de swoard has de most pints an' de best backin', and dat de pen is de most beneficial, and dat de whole ting is about a stan'-off." Haepee's Magazine. 258 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. A CHRISTMAS HYMN. It was the calm and silent night ! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up in might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars : Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain ; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago. 'Twas in the calm and silent night ! The Senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged iiis chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home ; Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway ; "What recked the Eoman 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 passed — for naught Told what was going on within : How keen the stars, his only thought : The air how cold, and calm, and thin, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago ! NAPOLEON'S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. 259 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 linked 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, charmed and holy now ! The night that erst no name 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 ! Alfeed Dommett. NAPOLEON'S RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN. {Abridged.) Note 111. Much has been said, and perhaps somewhat vaguely, on the subject of the Russian Campaign and the particular error committed by Napoleon in engaging in it. It is said that he trusted presumptuously in fate ; that he entered into a conflict with the elements. Not at all. He looked as cautiously after the helping hand of fate now as he had done at Friedland or Eckmiihl. " I was a few days too late," said he. " I had made a calculation of the weather 260 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. for fifty years before, and the extreme cold had never com- menced until about the 20th of December, twenty days later than it began this time." That man left nothing to fate. His intellect was still clear. This early setting in of the co]d was the first great cause of the failure of the Eussian attempt. The second was the burning of Mos- cow. Human prescience could have anticipated neither. The one great error which he committed in this expedition was, that he did not preserve his rear. He did not secure his retreat. The story of the Eussian Campaign of Na- poleon is the most solemn and tragic in the annals of mod- ern warfare. No poet of these times, so far as one may judge, has possessed a power necessary to its poetic delinea- tion. Perhaps, in their very highest moments, Coleridge, Shelley, or Byron might have caught certain of its tints of gloom and grandeur : now and then a tone of Mrs. Brown- ing's harp may reach the epic height of its sublimity. But he who depicted the woe of Othello and the madness of Lear ; and he who described the march of the rebel angels along the plains of heaven, might have joined their powers to bring out, in right poetic representation, the whole as- pects of the Eussian Campaign. It lies among those sub- jects of which common life affords no precedent, and com- mon language no words. Indeed, no description seems necessary or possible. The poetry of Nature, in its weird colors and dark, rhythmic harmonies, is already there. Those brave soldiers, those dauntless, devoted veterans, those children of victory, swift as eagles, fearless as lions, who had charged on the dikes of Areola, and hailed the sun of Austerlitz, who were the very embodiment of wild southern valor, following Napoleon, the sun of the lightning, beneath the dim vault of the northern winter, the northern blast singing over them its song of stern and melancholy triumph, to lay their fire-hearts under that winding-sheet of snow — what could be more sublime poetry than that ? And how grandly is the darkness broken as those flames touch all the clouds with angry crimson, and a great people thrill- THE PERILS OF DISUNION. 261 ing with an heroic emotion, lays in ashes its ancient cities rather than yield them up to an invader ! Worthy flowers to be cast by a nation in the way of that Emperor. Peter Bayne. THE PERILS OF DISUNION. Note 112. The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher de- grees of prosperity exists also. We have while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself ; it would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all the power of regaining lost, or acquiring new posses- sions ; it would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness. Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it : if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it : if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still under a new cultivation they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder capitol were to crum- ble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decora- tions, be covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt, but who sb:ill reconstruct the fabric of demol- ished government? Who shall rear again the well-propor- 262 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. tioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sov- ereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosj^erity ? No, if these columns fall, they will not be raised again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art : for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw — the edifice of Constitutional American liberty. Daniel Webster. THEORY AND PRACTICE IN GOVERNMENT. There is a very fashionable habit among men of waiving a proposition on the ground that it is mere theory. One would think to hear some people talk that if one could just succeed in inventing a practice without a theory, affairs would roll along as smoothly as the planets around the sun. Unfortunately it cannot be done. There is a bad theory at the bottom of every bad practice, and a good theory at the bottom of every good practice, and the most that can be said against a theory of human affairs is that it must seem likely to meet an actual want and then must be tested by faithful practical experiments. By their fruits ye shall know them. But will any American say that the system of equal rights and majority rule, a government of all by all, is not needed or has not been tested ? It stands to-clay tri- umphant against the most tremendous odds that Europe and the British Isles could send in the shape of forty ye^s* import of their lower classes, ignorant, alien, aggressive, and dazzled with sudden and ill-comprehended freedom ; and amidst all the conditions of the commotion and abuse from this and other causes the sober thought of the nation has never once taken a glance toward any other system of law THE STABILITY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. 263 and order. " Ah, but," replies the Conservative side, " with negroes it is no go. You do not understand the negro." The truth is, nobody has had to correct so many or such radical mistakes concerning the negro as the Southern- ers have themselves. I speak as one of them. We did not believe he would work of his own accord until we saw him do it. We did not believe he would study until we saw him do that. We still rejected the idea that he could learn anything more than the mere rudiments of an education ; when we saw him graduate from colleges we could scarcely believe our eyes. In short, we had not supposed he ever would or could qualify as an intelligent citizen. But for all that it is almost wholly due to the educational missions carried on by peoj^le in the South who did not, according to the belief on our side, understand the negro, that the South is to-day indebted for a corps of sixteen thousand colored teachers for its colored youth, and other thousands in other callings leading the thought and lifting the errors of their race. All that is really necessary to understand about the negro is, that he with all his differences, be they many or be they few, is a man of like passions with ourselves. George W. Cable. THE STABILITY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. {Abridged.) Note 113. When we despairingly talk of general declension and loss of human virtue and piety, let us remember that, true as it may be of special communities, it is never true of the whole world or the whole race. There may be no country of its size now in existence as cultivated and as marked by genius and refinement as Greece was in its palmy though brief life ; but when Greece was great and glorious the ordinary humanity of the globe was grossly barbarous. It is the whole world taken together that alone shows what steady 264 THE AD VANCED SPEAKER. gains liberty, education, and morality are making. It is not a Pericles or a Phidias here and there, a Numa, a Raphael, a Shakespeare, a Howard now and then, that shows where the general level of humanity stands. It is not the water- spouts, but the tide, that we must watch, if we would esti- mate the rising level and upward spring of humanity. The times are marked among merely literary men without moral enthusiasm or faith in man's spiritual origin, by new and increasing suspicions of the worth and durability of our democratic institutions. Unless humanity is stronger, better, safer, when it is trusted, when it is free, wholly equal before the law, than when it is doubted, feared, overawed, and guided by its superiors, then democracy is a ruinous, a short-lived, a death-struck fancy and folly. Such it seems to Englishmen, who regard us as on the rapid road to decline and certain to bring up against a constitutional king or a despot. Such it seems to some American capitalists as they see the threatening cloud of Communism slowly rising and blackening West and South. Certainly the people are not yet very wise in guiding government, or organizing in- dustries ; and if these, the ordinary tests of national success, were the true measure of our rightful hopes, then there were ground enough for anxiety and misgiving. But the wonder of America is the spread of self-respecting intelli- gence, aspiration, and private independence : the extent of family life in convenient dwellings : the nearly universal habit of reading : the attention given to education : the voluntary support of religion : the freedom of thinking and the free and patient relations between the foreign and native races. Never before were the masses of a nation in such essential equality of rights and privileges, in such cir- cumstances of intelligence and aspiration, in such freedom with such order. And this is all due to the national faith in humanity which alone can think freedom safe. It is because American democracy, in a sense in which kings were never entitled to use the words, exists "by grace of God," that it is to be trusted, that it is safe and will out- THE EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON. 265 live its inexperience. It has produced common "blessings never equalled elsewhere. Its principles are popular. They are "based on the ethics and faith of the Christian religion ; and they will conquer all doubts and survive all misgivings. H. W. Bellows. THE EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON. Note 114. One of the strongest muniments to save us from all harm is the example of Washington. Far be it from me to raise up a visionary idol. I have lived too long to trust in mere panegyric. Fulsome eulogy of any man raises with me only a smile. Indiscriminate laudation is equivalent to falsehood. "Washington, as I understand him, was gifted with nothing ordinarily denned as genius, and he had not had great advantages of education. His intellectual powers were clear, but not much above the average men of his time. What knowledge he possessed had been gained from asso- ciation with others in his long public career, rather than by secluded study. As an actor he scarcely distinguished himself by more than one brilliant stroke. As a writer the greater part of his correspondence discloses nothing more than average natural good sense. On the field of battle his powers pale before the splendid strategy of Napoleon Bona- parte. Yet, notwithstanding all these deductions, the thread of his life from youth to age displays a maturity of judgment, a consistency of principle, a steadiness of action, a discrimi- nating wisdom, and a purity of purpose hardly found united to the same extent in any other instance I can recall in history. Of his entire disinterestedness in all his pecuniary relations with the public, it is needless for me to speak ; more than all, and above all, he was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the 12 266 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. present hour, it is the total disregard of self, when in the most elevated positions for influence and example. The star of Napoleon was just rising to its zenith as that of Y/ashington passed away. In point of military genius Napoleon probably equalled, if he did- not exceed, any person known in history. In regard to the direction of the interests of a nation, he may have occupied a very high place. He inspired an energy and vigor in the veins of the French people which they sadly needed after the demoral- izing sway of centuries of Bourbon kings. "With even a small modicum of the wisdom so prominent in Washington, he, too, might have left a people to honor his memory down to the latest times. But it was not so to be. Do you ask the reason? It is this. His motives of action always centred in self. His example gives a warning, but not a guide. Had Napoleon copied the example of Washington, he would have been the idol of all later generations in France ; for Washington to have copied the example of Napoleon, would have been simply impossible. Charles Feancis Adams. THE RAJAH'S CLOCK. (By permission. ) Rajah* Balpoora, Prince of Jullinder, Reigned in the land where the Five Rivers ran ; A lordly tyrant, with none to hinder His wildest pleasure or maddest plan. His hall was beauty, his throne was splendor, His meat was dainties of every zone, Nor ever a joy that wealth can render, His whimsical fancy left unknown. For afar, in sight of his palace windows, His realm was gardens on every hand ; * Rajah, Rd'-jah or Rii'-jah. THE RAJAH'S CLOCK. 267 And the feet of a hundred thousand Hindoos Came and went at his least command. But one thing, worthy his pride to show it, Among his treasures eclipsed them all ; 'Twas the marvel of sage and the praise of poet, The wonderful clock in his palace hall. Brain and fingers of matchless cunning, Patiently planned the strange machine, — Framed, and balanced, and set it running, With a living heart in its wheels unseen. Behind the dial, the iron pallet Counted the seconds and just below Hung a silver gong, and a brazen mallet For every hour had a brazen blow ; And near, like windrowed leaves in the weather, Or battle-wrecks at a charnel door, Lay mock men's limbs all huddled together, In a shapeless heap on a marble floor ! And when the dial-hands creeping, pointed The smallest hour on the disk of day, Click ! from the piecemeal pile, rejointed, A new-made manikin jumped away ! Nimble-handed, a small, trim figure, Briskly he stooped where his work begun, Seized a mallet with nervous vigor, And loud on the echoing gong struck one. Clang ! — and the hammer that made the clamor Dropped, and lay where it lay before, And the arms of the holder fell off at the shoulder, And his head went rolling down to the floor, And the little man tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled, Till the human shape that he lately bore, With a shiver and start all rattled apart, And vanished — as if to rise no more. Dead ! ere the great bell's musical thunder In the listening chambers throbbed away — 268 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. (No eye discovered the hidden wonder That dreaming under the ruins lay), Dead as the bones in the prophet's valley, Waiting with never a stir or sound, While the pendulum's tick, tick, tick, kept tally, And the busy wheels of the clock went round, Till another hour, to its limit creeping, Its sign those bodiless limbs shot thro', And a pair of manikins swift upleaping, Loud on the echoing gong struck two. Clang ! Clang ! — and the brazen hammers Dropped, and lay where they lay before, And the arms of the holders fell off their shoulders, And their heads went rolling down to the floor, And the little men tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled, And vanished — as if to rise no more. Still as the shells of the sea-floor, sleeping Countless fathoms the waves below ; ' Still as the stones of a city, heaping The path of an earthquake ages ago, Lay the sundered forms ; but steadily swinging, Beat the slow pendulum, tick, tick, tick, Till lo, at the third hour, suddenly springing, Eose three men's limbs with a click, click, click, And, joined together, by magic gifted, In stature perfect and motion free, The trio, each with his mallet lifted, Loud on the echoing gong struck three. Clang ! Clang ! Clang ! — and the hammers Dropped, and lay where they lay before, And the arms of the holders fell off their shoulders, And their heads went rolling down to the floor. And the little men tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled, And vanished — as if to rise no more. And as many as each hour's figure numbered So many men of that small brigade, THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 269 Yv^iose members the marble floor encumbered, Made themselves, and as soon unmade ; Till at noon rose all, and, each one swinging His brazen sledge by its brazen helve, Set all the rooms of the palace ringing As their strokes on the silver gong told twelve. Rajah Balpoora, prince of Jullinder, Died. Bat the great clock's tireless heart Beat on ; and still in that hall of splendor .The twelve little sextons played their part. And the wise who entered the palace portal, Read in the wonder the lesson plain : Every human hour is a thing immortal, And days but perish to rise again. From the grave of every life we saddened Comes back the clamor of olden wrongs, And our deeds that other souls have gladdened Ring from the past like angel songs. Theeon Brown, in Good Cheer. THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. Note 115. The glories of the age of Charles Y. must find their true source in the measures of his illustrious predecessors. It was in their court that Boscan, Mendoza, and the other master spirits were trained, who molded Castilian literature into the new and more classic forms of later times. It was under Gonsalvo de Cordova that Leyva, Pescara, and those great captains with their invincible legions were formed, who enabled Charles V. to dictate laws to Europe for half a century ; and it was Columbus who not only led the way, but animated the Spanish navigator with the spirit of dis- covery. Scarcely was Ferdinand's reign brought to a close 270 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. before Magellan completed what that monarch had pro- jected, the circumnavigation of the Southern continent. The victorious banners of Cortes had already penetrated into the golden realms of Montezuma ; and Pizarro, a few- years later, following up the lead of Balboa, embarked on the enterpise which ended in the downfall of the splendid dynasty of the Incas. Thus it is that the seed sown under a good system contin- ues to yield fruit in a bad one. The splendors of foreign conquest in the boasted reign of Charles V. were dearly pur- chased by the decline of industry at home and the loss of liberty. The patriot will see little to cheer him in this " golden age " of the national history, whose outward show of glory will seem to his penetrating eye only the hectic brilliancy of decay. He will turn to an earlier period, when the nation, emerging from the sloth and license of a baba- rous age, seemed to renew its ancient energies, and to pre- pare like a giant to run its course : and glancing over the long interval since elapsed, during the first half of which the nation wasted itself on schemes of mad ambition and in the latter has sunk into a state of paralytic torpor, he will fix his eyes on the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, as the most glorious epoch in the annals of his country. William H. Pkescott. ALFRED THE GREAT. Note 116. It is not without reason that we look back upon Alfred as the typical English king. Both in his greatness and in his imperfections Alfred represents his people : patient, resolute, inexorably attached to duty, and truth, with a certain practical sagacity, but over-careless of logical con- sistency and sacrificing thought to fact, the future to the moment. The State Church, which we owe to Alfred, confounding ENGLAND'S TREATMENT OF IRELAND. 271 as it did, by its old theory, the duties of Christian and citi- zen, is a strange legacy for a statesman to have bequeathed to us. The English king, blinded by his moral ahhorrence of sin, laid down resolutely the first principles of religion by the side of the secular and inconsistent laws of his people. He had given them the ideal of life. Let them work it out as they could. A thousand years of clashing juris- diction, civil law contending with criminal, divine theories of kingship contending with people's charters, laws of mar- riage as a sacrament with laws of marriage as a contract, attest how that unextinguished torch has been handed down through successive generations. Yet, with all its in- consistencies, that Saxon and mediaeval theory of a people framing their life in accordance with God's law, and re- garding external truth, not cheap government or success, as the final cause of their existence, is among the grandest conceptions of history. It is Plato's republic, administered, not by philosophers, but by the vulgar : failing not from inherent baseness, but because its ideal was higher than men could bear. Charles Pearson. ENGLAND'S TREATMENT OF IRELAND. What is the case of Ireland at this moment ? Have the gentlemen considered that they are coming into contact with a nation ? This, if I understand it, is one of the golden moments of our history, one of those opportunities which may come, may go, but which rarely return, or, if they re- turn, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast. There have been such golden moments even in the tragic history of Ireland. There was such a golden moment, in 1795, during the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam, and at that moment it is historically clear that the Parliament of Grattan was on the point of solving the Irish problem The two great knots of that problem were, 272 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Catholic emancipation, and reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips and she was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely and ruthlessly dashed it to the ground in obedience to the wild and dangerous intimation of an Irish faction. There has been no great day of hope for Ireland, no day when you might hope completely and definitely to end the controversy, till now, after more than ninety years. The long periodic time has at last run out, and the star has again mounted up into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for herself 'in 1798, we at length have done. The Eoman Catholics have been emancipated — emancipated after a woful disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine years, emancipated slowly, sulleuly, not from good-will, but from abject terror, with all the fruits and consequ^ ^es that will follow that method of legislation. The second problem has been also solved : the representation of Ireland re- formed : the franchise given to her with the readjustment with a free and open hand. That gift of franchise was the last act required to make the success of Ireland in her final effort absolutely sure. We have given Ireland a voice and we must listen to what she says. We must all listen, both sides, both parties. Ireland stands at your bar expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is a deeper interest than hers. Go into the length and breadth of the world, search the literature of all countries, and find if you can a single voice, a single book in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted to stand ? No ! They are a sad exception to the glory of our country. They are more than a black blot upon the pages of its his- tory. And what we want to do is to stand by the traditions of which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland. So we treat our traditions : so we hail the THE POETRY OF WAR. 273 demand of Ireland for a blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for the future, and that will be a boon to us in respect to honor no less than to her in respect to happi- ness, prosperity, and peace. William E. Gladstone. THE POETRY OF WAR. Note 117. There is an element of poetry in us all. Whatever wakes intense sensibilities, pats one for' a moment into a poetic state : if not the creative state in which he can make poetry, at least the receptive state in which he can feel poetry. Therefore let no man think that, because he cannot appre- ciate the verse of Milton or Wordsworth, there is no poetry in his soul; let him be assured that there is something within him, which may any day awake, break through the crust of his selfishness, and redeem him from a low, merce- nary, or sensual existence. Why is it that on the battle-field there is ever one spot, where the sabres glitter faster, and the pistol's flash is more frequent, and men and officers crowd together in denser masses ? They are struggling for a flag, an eagle, or a standard. Strip it of its symbolism, take from it the mean- ing with which imagination has invested it, and it is noth- ing but a bit of silk rag, torn with shot and blackened with powder. Now go, s with your common-sense, and tell the soldier he is madly striving about a bit of rag. See if your common-sense is as true to him as his poetry, or able to quench it for a moment. Take a case: Among the exploits of marvellous and almost legendary valor, performed by that great English chieftain — who has been laid aside un- coroneted, and almost unhonored, because he would pro- mote and distinguish the men of work iu preference to the men of idleness,— among his achievements not the least wondrous was the subjugation of the robber tribes of the 12* 274 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Cutchee Hills in the north of Scinde. Those warriors had been unsubdued for six hundred years. They dwelt in a crater-like valley, surrounded by mountains, through which there were but two or three narrow entrances, and up which there was no access but by goat-paths so precipitous that brave men grew dizzy, and could not proceed. So rude and wild was the fastness of Trukkee that the entrances themselves could scarcely be discovered amidst the laby- rinth-like confusion of rocks and mountains. It was part of the masterly plan by which Sir Charles Napier had re- solved to storm the stronghold of the robbers, to cause a detachment of his army to scale the mountain-side. A ser- vice so perilous could scarcely be commanded. Volunteers were called for. There was a regiment, the Sixty-fourth Bengal Infantry, which had been recently disgraced in consequence of mu- tiny at Shikarpoor, their colonel cashiered, and their colors taken from them. A. hundred of these men volunteered. The commander, who knew the way to the soldier's heart, said: "Soldiers from the Sixty-fourth, your colors are on the top of yonder hill ! " I should like to have seen the precipice that would have deterred the Sixty-fourth regi- ment after words like those from the conqueror of Scinde ! And now, suppose that you had gone, with your common- sense and economic science, and proved to them that the colors they were risking their lives to win back were worth but so many shillings, tell me, which would the stern work- ers of the Sixty-fourth regiment have found it easiest to understand, common-sense or poetry ? Which would they have believed, Science, which said, " It is manufactured silk," or Imagination, whose kingly voice has made it, " colors " ? It is in this sense that the poet has been called, as the name imports — creator, namer, maker. He stamps his own feelings on a form or symbol, names it, and makes it what it was not before. Before, it was silk, so many square feet. Now, it is a thing for which men will die. Frederick W. Robertson. THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 275 THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. Fkom all over the land, by thousands and hundreds of thousands, the young recruits are marching to these work- ing camps — the cities. The father says " good-bye, my boy, be a man," the mother gives him all she has to bestow, her prayers and her tears; the last sight which fills his eyes and lingers forever in his memory, as the turn in the road hides the old house, is her waving farewell, and he never knows again what home is, until he has created one for himself. "We are a home-loving people and all our virtues are fos- tered by the fireside. As the recognition of the political equality of the individual is the basis of oar liberty, and the township is at the foundation of our government, so the home nurtures and protects the character, which saves the community from ruin and from rot. No man who has never tried it, or come in intimate contact with those who have, can know the perils begot of loneliness which surround the young stranger in the metropolis. The whirl and rush of the great city sweeps past him, and takes no note of his existence. Man is a social animal and the creature of his associ itions. It is a rare organization which can resist or rise above them. The young stranger knew everybody in the country; here, nobody. After the office, counting-room, or workshop is closed, what then ? He cannot stay in his room. Full of life and human sympathy, beasts of prey, in alluring form, lie in wait for him at every street corner. Does he strive for clean manliness ? They taunt him with assertions hardest for a sensitive boy to bear, that hay-seeds and clover-blossoms still adorn his coat and mark his rus- ticity. Does he say, " I am a Christian " ? They sneer at his superstition, and invite him to that broader freedom which breaks loose from servile creeds into the largest lib- erty of thought and action. He learns, often too late, that liberty with his friends means only license, and indulgence ruin, that his boasted freedom is only to burst the restraints 276 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. of the ten commandments, of the golden rule, and the teachings of home. At this point he is bound either to become a dangerous force in society, threatening all security for life and prop- erty, or to enlist on the side of all that we cherish as sacred and precious. The recruiting officer of the Young Men's Christian Association slaps him on the back and calls him "brother." He invites him to a reading-room where news- papers and magazines keep him abreast with the religious, social, scientific, and political questions of the hour; to the lecture-hall, where the leaders in every department of intel- lectual activity give him the results of their studies 'and re- searches; to the gymnasium, where he prepares a healthy body for a healthy soul; and to the religious gathering, where he recalls the weekly prayer-meeting in his village church. When his next letter reaches his distant home on the mountain or in the valley, his mother on bended knee offers the most grateful prayer of her life, for the provi- dence which has assured the safety and future of her son ; and at the same time the State has secured a soldier who will die, if need be, in the defence of its laws, and who is in a fair way to become one of its most useful and successful citizens. Chauncey M. Depew. THE CROSS OF HONOR. "WiLvr does it mean, boy ? why did the blood Leap to my cheek and my eyes grow dim With tears as they pinned on my faded coat That cross of bronze with its ribbon trim ? Why did I turn like a raw recruit And awkwardly grasp the colonel's hand, Instead of returning a prompt salute And waiting the next command ? THE CROSS OF HONOR. 211 You're right to wonder that one so old In the ranks as I should forget to stand As a soldier should, and not move an inch Till his officer gives command. But wait till you've heard what my feelings were. How my heart was thumping within its cell; How scenes of the past came before me there, And the present, like mists, from around me fell. I fancied I saw the crowd once more That lined Broadway in the April sun; I heard its cheers; that deafening roar It gave as we marched in " Sixty-one," To prove that New York was in the fight — In to stay, and would do her part — Do it with all her royal might, To ward the blows at the nation's heart. I was a boy then, scarce eighteen; You'd think that what happened so long ago Would have slept in peace, but that April scene Seems in each year to brighter grow, And to-night as the cross on my breast was placed, "While comrades gathered on every side, You can guess how memory's feet retraced The ground so filled with a soldier's pride. If the chance were offered of ten years more Of life in exchange for that famous day, When the Capital's heart went up in thanks At sight of the black and gray; Aye, twenty or forty — I'd still say no; For it's graven deep on my inmost soul, And I want it there when at last I go To answer the call of the silent roll. 278 THE AD VANCED SPEAKEB. And on through the years that have passed since then, Come a thousand memories warm and bright Of other scenes that we Seventh men Commemorate by our cross to-night; Days when again the waiting throng Has made the air with its cheering ring, •As the regiment proudly marched along To the old-time " Seventh swing." Or the sullen mob has been made to feel That not for play are we taught alone, That the message borne in our shining steel Tells that the city will guard its own. You can fancy then that my heart was stirred As scenes like these, for the time " broke ranks," And the colonel's words I proudly Ijeard: " For your long and faithful service, thanks." Harry C. Duval. MARIE-ANTOINETTE'S TRIAL. (Abridged.) Note 118. On Monday, the fourteenth of October, 1793, a cause is pending in the new Revolutionary Court, such as those old stone-walls never witnessed — the trial of Marie- Antoinette. The once brightest of queens, now tarnished, defaced, for- saken, stands here at Tinville's judgment-bar, answering for her life. The indictment was delivered to her last night ! To such changes of human f ortuna what words are adequate ? Silence alone is adequate. There are few printed things one meets with of such tragic, almost ghastly, significance as those bald pages of the bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, which bear title: "Trial of the Widow Capet." Dim, dim, as in disastrous eclipse; like the pale kingdoms of Dis ! Plutonic judges. NAPOLEON IN ITAL T. 279 Plutonic Tinville ! The very witnesses summoned are like ghosts: exculpatory, inculpatory, they themselves are all hovering over death and doom. Tall Count d'Estang, anx- ious to show himself patriot, cannot escape; nor Bailly, who, when asked if he knows the accused, answers with a reverent inclination toward her: " Ah, yes, I know Madame." Ex-patriots are here sharply dealt with; ex-ministers shorn of their splendor; for all has now become a crime in her who has lost. Marie-Antoinette, in this her utter abandonment and hour of extreme need, is not wanting to herself the impe- rial woman. Her look as that hideous indictment was be- ing read, continued calm. You discern, not without inter- est, across that dim Revolutionary bulletin itself, how she bears herself queen-like. Her answers are prompt, clear, often of laconic brevity. " You persist then in denial ? " " My plan is not denial; it is the truth I have said, and I persist in that." At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and two nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and other darkening of counsel, the result comes out: Sentence of death. " Have you anything to say ? " The accused shook her head, without speech. Night's candles are burning out; and with her, too, time is finishing, and will soon be eternity and day. This hall of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted, except where she stands. Silently she withdraws from it, to die. Thomas Caelyle. NAPOLEON IN ITALY. (Abridged.) Note 119. Of all the periods in the life of Napoleon, the mind is apt to rest with most enthusiasm upon his early campaign in Italy. His fame may 1 e said to have been as yet unsullied: and he had won his exalted position through so honest and 280 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. ■unmistakable a display of intellectual power ! Unfriended among the myriads of revolutionary France, and at first scowled upon by envious incompetence, be bad approved bimself a man of indubitable and overpowering capacity, wbo could think, who could act, whom it would clearly be advantageous to follow. One can but experience a thrill of emotion as the imagination pictures him in his first appear- ance among the soldiers of .Italy. Of all warrior-faces Na- poleon's is the finest. Not only had it that clearness of line, that strength and firmness of chiseling which gives a nobleness to the faces of all great soldiers: there is in it, in the eye especially, a depth of thought and reflection which belongs peculiarly to itself, and suggests not merely the soldier, but the sovereign. And perhaps the face of Napo- leon never looked so noble as when first an army worthy of his powers waited his commands: the calm assurance of absolute self-reliance giving a statue-like stillness to his brow, on which still shone the brightness of youth; and the light of a fame, now to be all his own, kindling ' that intense and steadfast eye. Cannot one fancy his glance going along the ranks, lighting a gleam in every eye, as he presented himself to his troops ? " Soldiers " — thus ran his proclamation — " you are almost naked, half-starved. The Government owes you much and can give you nothing. Your patience, your courage in the midst of these rocks have been admirable; but they reflect no splendor on your arms I am about to conduct you into the most fertile plains of the earth. Eich provinces, opulent cities will soon be in your power: there you will find abundant harvests, honor, and glory. Soldiers of Italy, will you fail in cour- age ? " In a moment he had established between him and his soldiers that understanding by which victories are won. Privates and commanders at once felt that this was the man to follow. Then commenced that marvellous series of campaigns which makes the year 179G an era in the history of warfare: in which the eye of the world was first fixed in wondering PRETENSION. 281 gaze on the fully unveiled face of Napoleon. As we note the progress of that intrepid, indomitable Corsican, we kin- dle with the emotions which animated his troops: which sent the grenadiers through the grape-shot sweeping like snow-drift along the bridge at Lodi: which renewed and renewed the bloody struggle on the dikes of Areola: and which made the French columns scorn rest and delay: rise over the faintness of fatigue: crush down the gnawing of hunger: and march through mountain-paths all night and spring exultant on the foe at break of dawn, if only the way was led by him. Peter Bayne. PRETENSION. Note 120. I have heard an experienced counsellor say, that he never feared the effect upon a jury of a lawyer who does not be- lieve in his heart that his client ought to have a verdict. If he does not believe it, his unbelief will appear to the jury, despite all his protestations, and will become their unbelief. This is the law whereby a work of art, of whatever kind, sets us in the same state of mind wherein the artist was when he made it. That which we do not believe, we can- not adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often. It was this conviction which Swedenborg ex- pressed, where he described a group of persons in the spirit- ual world endeavoring in vain to articulate a proposition which they did not believe; but they could not, though they twisted and folded their lips even to indignation. A man passes for what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us; and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so. If a man know that he can do anything, that he can do it better than any one else, he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment-days: and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action 282 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new- comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed, and temper. A stranger comes from a distant school, with better dress, with trinkets in his pockets, with airs and pretensions. An older boy says to himself : " It's of no use ; we shall find him out to-morrow." " What has he done ? " is the divine question which searches men and transpierces every false reputation. A fop may sit in any chair of the world, nor be distinguished for his hour from his Homer and Wash- ington; but there never need be any doubt concerning the respective ability of human beings. Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor Christianized the world, nor abolished slavery. A man passes for what he is worth. What he is engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters of light. Concealment avails him nothing: boasting nothing. His vice glasses his eye, cuts lines of mean expression in his cheek, pinches his nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of the head, and writes O fool ! fool ! on the fore- head of a king. Ealph Waldo Emerson. . THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM. Darkness closed upon the country and upon the town, but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses transmitted the war message from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village, the sea to the backwoods, the plains to the highlands, and it, wis never suffered to droop till it had been borne North and South and East and West throughout the land. It spread over the bays that received THE REVOL UTIONARY ALARM. 283 the Saco and the Penobscot ; its loud reveille broke the rest of the trappers of New Hampshire, and, ringing like bugle notes from peak to peak, overleapt the Green Mountains, swept onward to Montreal, and descended the ocean river till the responses were echoed from the cliffs at Quebec. The hills along the Hudson told to one another the tale. As the summons hurried to the South, it was one day at New York, in one more at Philadelphia, the next it lighted a watch-fire at Baltimore, thence it waked an answer at Annapolis. Crossing the Potomac near Mt. Vernon, it was sent forward without a halt to "Williamsburg. It traversed the Dismal Swamp to Nansemond, along the route of the first emigrants to North Carolina. It moved onward and still onward, through boundless groves of evergreen to Newbern and to Wilmington. " For God's sake, forward it by night and day," wrote Cor- nelius Harnett, by the express which sped for Brunswick. Patriots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border and dispatched it to Charleston, and, through pines and pal- mettos and moss-clad live-oaks, farther to the South, till it resounded among the New England settlements beyond the Savannah. The Blue Bidge took up the voice and made it heard from one end to the other of the valley of Virginia. The AHeghanies, as they listened, opened their barriers that the " loud call " might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the Watauga, and the French Broad. Ever renew- ing its strength, powerful enough even to create a common- wealth, it breathed its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky, so that hunters who made their halt in the valley of the Elkhorn commemorated the nineteenth day of April, 1776, by naming their encampment " Lexington." With one imjmlse the Colonies sprang to arms ; with one spirit they pledged themselves to each other, "to be ready for the ex- treme event." With one heart the continent cried, " Liberty or death ! " George Bancroft. 284 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. WASHINGTON'S MILITARY CAREER. {Adapted.) To do justice to Washington's military career, we must consider that he had to fuse the hardest individual materials into a mass of national force, which was to do battle, not only with disciplined armies, but with frost, famine, and dis- ease. Missing the rapid succession of brilliant engagements between forces almost equal, and the dramatic storm and swift consummation of events, which European campaigns have made familiar, there are those who see in him only a slow, sure, and patient commander, without readiness of com- bination or energy of movements. But the quick eye of his prudent audacity seized occasions to deliver blows with the prompt felicity of Marlborough or Wellington. He evinced no lack of the highest energy and skill when he turn- ed back the tide of defeat at Monmouth, or in the rapid and masterly movements by which, when he was considered en- tirely ruined, he swooped suddenly down upon Trenton, broke up the enemy's posts on the Delaware and snatched Philadelphia from a superior and victorious foe. Some eulogists have characterized him as a passionless, imperturbable man: but at Monmouth General Lee discov- ered, that from those firm, calm lips could leap words hotter and more smiting than the hot June sun that smote down upon their heads. Washington's incessant and various activity answered to the strange complexity of his position as the heart and brain of the Revolution, which demanded not merely generalship, but the highest qualities of the statesman, the diplomatist and patriot. As we view him in his long seven years' strug- gle with the perilous difficulties of his situation, with his eye fixed on Congress, on the States and on the people, as well as on the enemy: compelled to compose sectional quarrels, to inspire faltering patriotism, and to triumph over all the forces of stupidity and selfishness: compelled to watch and wait, OLD JONES IS DEAD. 285 warn and forbear, endure as well as act : compelled amid vex- ations and calamities to transmute tlie fire of the fiercest pas- sion with an element of fortitude : as we view him coming out of that terrible scene of trial and temptation, without any bitterness in his virtue or hatred in his patriotism, but full of the loftiest wisdom and serenest power, that placid face grows grandly sublime, and in its immortal repose looks rebuke to our presumptuous eulogium of the genius which brightens round it. E. P. Whipple. OLD JONES IS DEAD. I sat in my window, high overhead, And heard them say, below in the street : I suppose you know that old Jones is dead ? " Then the speakers passed, and I heard their feet Heedlessly walking their onward way. : Dead ! " what more could there be to say ? But I sat and pondered what it might mean Thus to be dead while the world went by : Did Jones see further than we have seen ? Was he one with the stars in the watching sky ? Or down there under the growing grass Did he hear the feet of tbe daylight pass ? Were day-time and night-time as one to him now, And grievin * and hoping a tale that is told ? A kiss on his lips, or a hand on his brow, Could he feel them undsr the churchy ird mold, As he surely had felt them his whole life long, Though they passed with his youth-time hot and strong ? They called him " ol 1 Tones " who-; at last he died; " Old Jon s " he had been for many a year ; 286 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Yet his faithful memory time defied, And dwelt in the days so distant and dear When first he had found that love was sweet, And recked not the speed of its hurrying feet. Does he brood in the long night under the sod On the joys and sorrows he used to know ; Or far in some wonderful world of God, Where the shining seraphs stand, row on row, Does he wake like a child at the daylight's gleam, And know that the past was a night's short dream ? Is he dead, and a clod there down below; Or dead and wiser than any alive; Which ? Ah, who of us all may know, Or who can say how the dead folk thrive ? But the summer morning is cool and sweet, And I hear the live folk laugh in the street. Louise Chandler Moulton. CiESAR. (Abridged.) Note 121. Cesar was thoroughly a realist and a man of sense; and whatever he undertook and achieved was pervaded and guided by the cool sobriety which constitutes the most marked peculiarity of his genius. To this he owed the power of living energetically in the present, undisturbed either by recollection or expectation. To this he owed the capacity of acting at any moment with collected vigor, and applying his whole genius even to the smallest and most in- cidental enterprise. To this he owed the many-sided power with which he grasped and mastered whatever understand- ing can comprehend and will compel; and the self-possessed ease with which he arranged his periods and projected his campaigns. CvflSAR. 287 Gifts such as these could not fail to produce a statesman: and from early youth Caesar was a statesman in the deepest sense of that term. His aim was the highest which man is allowed to propose to himself — the political, military, intel- lectual, and moral regeneration of his own deeply-decayed nation, and of the still more deeply-decayed Hellenic nation intimately akin to his own. The hard school of thirty years' experience changed his views as to the means by which this aim was to be reached: but his aim itself remained the same in the times of his hoj)eless humiliation and of his unlimited plenitude of power: in times when, as demagogue and conspirator, he stole toward it by paths of darkness, and in those when, as joint possessor of the supreme power and then as monarch, he worked at his task in the full light of day before the eyes of the world. We cannot, therefore, properly speak of isolated achieve- ments of Caesar. He did nothing isolated. With justice, men commend Caesar the orator for his masculine eloquence, which, scorning all the -arts of the advocate, like a clear flame at once enlightened and warmed. With justice, men admire in Caesar the author, the inimitable simplicity of the composition, the unique purity and beauty of the language. With justice, the greatest masters of war of all subsequent times have praised Caesar the general, who, in a singular degree, disregarding routine and tradition, knew always how to find out the mode of warfare by which in a given case the enemy was conquered: who, with the certainty of divination, found the proper means for every end: who, after defeat, stood ready for battle like William of Orange, and ended the campaign invariably with victory ! The politic 1 life of nations has, during thousands of years, again and again reverted to the lines which Caesar drew; and the fact the peoi^es to whom the world belongs still designate the highest of their monarchs by his name, contains a warning deeply significant, and ; unhappily, fraught with shame. Theod-.jfe Mommsen. 288 THE AD VANCED SPEA KEB. THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. Note 122. A mile away to the southeast of Gettysburg is a range of hills bent round like a capital U, the extremities pointing southward. On the centre is Cemetery Hill, where for years the villagers have laid their sacred dead. The left side as you look toward Gettysburg, terminates in two lofty bluffs. The right is flanked by a creek. The exhausted survivors of the First and Eleventh Corps retreated to Cemetery Hill. Anxiously they waited. If help did not come they were doomed, the battle lost, and the country ruined; a signifi- cant " if " in the world's history ! But help did come. At midnight, Meade and the Corps of Slocum and Sickles; at dawn, the Corps of Hancock and Sykes. The battle of Gettysburg proper occurred on the 2d and 3d of July. It was in many respects peculiar. It was not a long-continued struggle for a contested advantage. The position held by the armies necessarily made it a series of artillery duels and infantry charges. The battle was begun by an attack on the left wing. The Confederates, elated by the success of the preceding day, make the charge so spir- ited that the Union lines fairly melt away before it. Bri- gade after brigade feed the fight. The Union troops are about to fall back, when Sedgwick's Corps comes to turn the tide of battle. At last the Confederates are driven back across the valley and into the woods beyond. On the afternoon of the 3d of July the final onslaught was made on the left centre at Cemetery Hill. It was the most terrible and sanguinary of the bittle. Dark masses of the Southern troops, like the shadow of thunder-clouds, come creeping across the valley. Shrieking shells announce the coming storm. As they approach the ascent, Pickett, with tbe reckless daring of Murat, his long hair tossing wildly in the wind, springs to the head of the column and leads the desperate charge. They dash on yelling like demons. The Union lines stand .firm as the bluffs on the 18 IT COME? 289 seashore. The Confederate lines like angry billows roll on, nearer and nearer. They leap into the very "jaws of death." The rifles spit fire in their faces. Inch by inch they retire. The Union troops sweep round to outflank them. The batteries pouring into them an enfilading fire, do their deadly work. The smoke rolls away: but where are they who made that wild, magnificent, awful charge ? Ketreating ? Broken ? No : swept away like autumn leaves. The cheers of the living, the groans of the dying mingle in strange confusion. Night draws the curtain: the battle is ended: death has offered its sacrifice to freedom: the cause of the Union has triumphed ! William DeLoss Love. IS IT COME? Note 123. Is it come ? they said, on the banks of the Nile, Who looked for the world's long-promised day, And saw but the strife of Egypt's toil With the desert's sand and the granite gray. From the Pyramid, temple, and treasured dead, We vainly ask for her Wisdom's plan; They tell us of the tyrant's dread : Yet there was hope when that day began. The Chaldee came with his starry lore, And built-up Babj'lon's crown and creed; And bricks were stamped on the Tigris' shore With signs that our sages scarce can read. From Ninus' temple and Nimrod's tower, The rule of the old East's empire spread Unreasoning faith and unquestioning power; But still, Is it come ? the watcher said. *3 290 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. The light of the Persian's worshipped flame O'er the ancient bondage its splendor threw; And once on the "West a sunrise came, When Greece to her freedom's trust was true: "With dreams to the utmost ages dear, With human gods, and with god-like men, No marvel the far-off day looked near . To eyes that looked through her laurels then. The Komans conquered and revelled, too, Till honor and faith and power were gone; And deeper old Europe's darkness grew As, wave after wave, the G-oth came on. The gown was learning, the sword was law; The people served in the oxen's stead; But ever some gleam the watcher saw, And evermore, Is it come ? they said. Poet and seer that question caught, Above the din of life's fears and frets; It maiched with letters, it toiled with thought, Through schools and creeds which the earth forgets. And statesmen trifle, and priests deceive, And traders barter our world away; Yet hearts to that golden promise cleave, And still at times, Is it come ? they say. The days of the nations bear no trace Of all the sunshine so far foretold; The cannon speaks in the teacher's place : The age is weary with work and gold; And high hopes wither, and memories wane, On hearth and altars the fires are dead; But that brave faith hath not lived in vain: And this is all that oar watcher said. Frances Brown. THE LAST ACT OF THE COUP D'ETAT. 291 THE LAST ACT OF THE COUP D'ETAT. {Adapted and Abridged.) Note 124. It is known that the most practiced gamesters grow weary sometimes of their long efforts to pry into the future world which chance is preparing for them; and that in the midst of their anxiety and doubt they are now and then glad to accept guidance from the blind, confident guess of some one who is younger and less jaded than themselves; and when a hot-headed lad insists that he can govern fortune, and shakes the dice-box with a lusty arm, the pale, doubt- ing elders will sometimes follow the lead of youth's high animal spirits: and if they do this and win, their hearts are warm to the lad whose fire and wilfulness compelled them to the venture. Whether it be true, as is said, that in the hour of trial Louis Napoleon and his brother conspirators were urged forward by Colonel Fleury's threats, or whether he was able to drive them on by sheer ascendency of a more resolute nature, it is certain that he well earned their grati- tude, if by any means he forced them to keep their stake on the table. For they won. They won France. They used her hard. They took her freedom. They laid open her purse, and were rich in her wealth. They went and sat in the seats of kings and statesmen, and handled the mighty nation as they willed in the face of Europe. They who hated freedom, and those who bore ill-will toward the French people made merry with what they saw-. These are the things which Louis Napoleon did. "What he had sworn to do was set forth in the oath which he took on the 20th of December, 1848. On that day he stood be- fore the National Assembly, and lifting his right hand to- ward heaven, thus swore : " In the presence of God, and before the French people represented by the National As- sembly, I swear to remain faithful to the democratic Repub- lic one and indivisible, and to fulfil the duties which the Constitution imposes upon me." 292 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Thirty days from the night of the 2d of December, the rays of twelve thousand lamps pierced the thick, wintry fog that clogged the morning air, and shed their difficult light through the nave of the historic pile, which stands marking the lapse of ages and the strange, checkered destiny of France. There, waiting, were the bishops, priests, and dea- cons of the church; for the swearer of the oath of the 20th of December had deigned to apprise them that again, with their good leave, he was coming into the " presence of God." And he came. "Where the kings of France had knelt, there was the persistent manager of the company that had played at Strasbourg and Boulogne; and with him, it may well be believed, there were Morny, rejoicing in his gains, and Magnan, soaring high above sums of four thousand pounds, and Maupas no longer in danger, and Fleury, more eager perhaps to go and be swift to spend his winnings, than to sit in a cathedral and think how the fire of his temperament had given him a strange power over the fate of a nation. The church began her service. The bishops and priests went up to the high altar and scattered rich incense, and knelt and rose, and knelt and rose again. Then in the hear- ing of thousands there pealed through the isles that hymn of praise which purports to waft into heaven the thanksgiv- ings of a whole people for some new and signal mercy vouchsafed to them by God. It was because of what had been done to France within the last thirty days that the hosannas arose in Notre Dame. What is good ? What is evil ? And who is he that de- serves the prayers of a nation ? If any man, being scrupu- lous and devout, was moved by the events of December to ask these questions, he was answered that day in the Cathe- dral of Our Lady of Paris. Alexander William Kinglake. THE SIRENS. 293 THE SIRENS. {By permission.) Sweetly they sang in the days of old, Till the mariners heard them far at sea, And, lured by that music, the brave and bold, Buffeting billows wild and free, Forget their duty, and shifting sail, Steered to the treacherous music's fall; Ah ! better have battled the sharpest gale, Than lent the ear to the Sirens' call. For, bleaching bare on the cold, white sand, Lo ! countless victims, who bent an oar From the safe, strong waves, to the false, fair land, And perished there on the cruel shore. You say no longer the Sirens sing, And cheat the souls of the sons of men; That over life's breakers no harp-notes ring, With perilous sweetness fraught, as when In the gray, dim dawn of the waking world The sailors leaned from the decks to hear Those wooing strains, till their flag they furled, And sped to the tempters who cost them dear. Be not too sure ! Till the lips are dumb, And the brow is chill in the damp of death, There are always Sirens to overcome, And their tones are sweet as a bugle's breath. Who faints and falters, in heart and hand, When nights are dreary and storms are cold, Who hears, as if by the zephyrs fanned, False love-notes blown, as in days of old, 294 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Who barters his hope of the peace of God For a present ease, a delusive rest, Is treading the path that is always trod By feet astray from the steadfast best. And the mocking Sirens, who comb their locks And weave their charms for the foolish heart Till it breaks itself on the sunken rocks, Still smile and sing with a fatal art. Who spends his money before 'tis earned; Who covets the splendor he cannot buy; Who silently listens, when good is spurned; For the coin of honor, who gives a lie; Who, weak of armor, does not endure, When the conflict deepens, and wounds are felt; The man, whose soul is no longer pure As when at his mother's knee he knelt, Has heard where the white-caps kiss the reef, The baleful strain that the Sirens sing ; Though his joy be bright, it shall still be brief, And the hateful harps shall his death-knell ring. You may stop your ears as you sail along, And drift away from their misty coast; Or better still, you may lift a song That is sweeter than theirs, for all their boast. That song shall soar to the heights above, And thence, like a silver star, shall fall, To hearten and cheer, with tones of love, All souls that list to its dulcet call. In vain do the Sirens sing for one Whose spirit is tuned to higher praise, And who meekly fills, with duties done, The rounded spheres of life's common days. Margaret E. Sangster, in Good Cheer. HONESTY. 295 HONESTY. Note 125. The test of honesty lies not in what a man will do when he finds a great jewel: but what he is, whether he find the jewel or not. Whether he is like one of those fine instru- ments on shipboard, a lamp or a compass, so contrived that no matter what may be the disturbance beneath, the thing itself is always even; or whether he be like a loose cask, that takes its impulse from every lurch of the ship, and at last batters itself to pieces in the thick of the storm. It is a curious fact, that no matter what we may be our- selves, dishonest as Satan or Judas, we instinctively rest on honesty as a foundation, though the whole superstructure be a lie. There is no pirate on the high seas who does not demand an honest chronometer and chart You cannot get him to trust himself to a knave in ink or brass, for then he could not even be a pirate; and he will have his vessel as honestly made to the tip of the mast and the bunting of his black flag, as the most upright merchantman that ever left a port. The burglar relies with absolute certainty on the honesty of his revolver and of the steel of his drills and chisels. " He must be an honest man this time," the advocate said to the jury, in an old trial at the York Assizes, " for the robbery was done at London at such a moment, and these good men testify that the prisoner was on Bowl- ing Green in this city, within such a time after that: and I put it to you whether two hundred miles could be spanned in that space ? " The prisoner was acquitted, but he was guilty: and it was the honest might of good Black Bess galloping over the ground until her heart broke in the effort, that saved his neck that day from the gallows. It is the most honest, watchful, and perfect integrity to the last detail, in paper, ink workmanship, and finish, that the only chance of the rogue lies when he wants to forge and palm off his bank-notes: just a shade of dishonssty there makes all the difference. 296 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. Honesty is the sub-base of life. We never think of try- ing to do without it in some form. We may outrage and blaspheme her fair, sweet presence; but we have to ask at her alt r for the very means of our transgression, and creep under her mantle as our only refuge while we defile her name, as robbers have been known to go with their plunder to the sepulchre beneath a church as the safest hiding- place from justice. BOBERT COLLYER. IN THE CATACOMBS. {By permission ) Never lived a Yankee yet, But was ready to bet On the U. S. A. If you speak of Italy's sunny clime " Maine kin beat it, every time ! " If you tell of iEtna's fount of fire, You rouse his ire, In an injured way He'll probably say, "I don't think much of a smokin'hill, We've got a moderate little rill Kin make yer old volcaner still; Pour old Niagery down the crater, 'N'l guess 'twill cool her fiery nater." You have doubtless heard of those ancient lies, Manufactured for a prize ; The reputation of each rose higher, As he proved himself the bigger liar. Said an Englishman, " Only t'other day, Sailing from Dover to Calais, IN THE CATACOMBS. 297 I saw a man without float or oar, Swimming across from the English shore, Manfully breasting the angry sea — " ■ Friend," said the Yankee, " that was me ! " Mindful of all these thrice-told tales, Whenever a Yankee to Europe sails, The boys try every sort of plan To rouse his astonishment, if they can. Sam Brown was a fellow from way down East, Who never was " staggered " in the least. No tale of marvellous beast or bird Could match the stories he had heard. No curious place or wondrous view : Was ekill to Podunk, I tell you." They showed him the room where a queen had slept; 'Twan't " up to the tavern daddy kept." They showed him Lucerne. But he had drunk From the beautiful Mollichunkamunk. They took him at last to ancient Kome, And inveigled him into a catacomb. Here they plied him with draughts of wine, (Though he vowed old cider was twice as fine), Till the fumes of Falemian filled his head, And he slept as sound as the silent dead. They removed a mummy to make him room, And laid him at length in the rocky tomb. They piled old skeletons round the stone, Set a " dip " in a candlestick of bone, And left him to slumber there alone, Then watched from a distance the taper's gleam, Waiting to jeer at his frightened scream, When he should awake from his drunken dream. 13* 298 THE ADVANCED SPEAKER. After a time the Yankee woke, But instantly saw through the flimsy joke; So never a cry or shout he uttered, But solemnly rose and slowly muttered, " I see how it is. It's the judgment day, "We've all been dead, and stowed away; All these stone furrener's sleepin' yet, An' I'm the fust one up, you bet ! Can't none o' you Bomans start, I wonder ? United States is ahead, by thunder ! " H. H. Ballard, in Good Cheer. APPENDIX WOEDS OFTEN INCOEEECTLY PEONOUNCED, AND CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME. a, e, I, o, u, y, long; a, e, o, less prolonged; a, 8, 1, o, u, j, short ; a as in far ; a as in fast ; §L as in fall ; t as in there ; c as in facile ; gh as g in go ; th as in this ; N, French nasal, very nearly ng. Note 1, p. 2. — Apostolic, dp-os-tol'-ie. Augean, au-ge'-an. Worcester, Wobs'ter. Note 2, p. 8.— Charlotte Corday, Char' -lot Cor-ddy'. Tin- ville, Tdn-veV. Marat, Md-rd'. Conciergerie, Ko^-serj-er-e' '. Guillotine, ghil-lo-ten'. Squaliclest, squd'-lid-est. Jean, Zhon. Marie, Md-ree'. Apotheosis, ap-o-the'-o-sis. Note 3, p. 10. — Exquisite, eks'-kivi-zit. Accolade, ac-co-ldde'. Novitiate, no-vish'-i-dte. Adonis, A-don'-is. Note 4, p. 11. — Sophocles, Sof-6-klez. Antigone, An-tig'- d-ne. Scutari, Skoo'-td-ree. Launches, Uinch'-ez, not laivnches. Fahricius, Fd-brish f -e-us. Note 5, p. 13. — Isolation, iz-o-ld'-tion. Simplon, Sdn'-ploN. Portcullis, port-cuV-lis. Domains, do-mains'. Note 6, p. 15. — Carcassonne, Car-cd-sonne' . Aignan, Ain- ydn'. Narbonne, Nar-bun'. Perpegnan, Per-pen-yan 1 '. Li- moux, he-moo' . Note 7, p. 16. — Research, re-search'. Alembic, dl-em'-bic. Chalice, chdl'-ice. Naseby, Ndze'-by. Note 8, p. 19. — Paradise, pdr'-d-dise. Disastrous, diz-as'- trous. Heroism, her'-d-ism. Note 9, p. 21. — Heroism, her'-d-ism. Balaklava, Bal-d-kld'-vd. Allies, al-lies'. Note 10, p. 22.— Beneficent, be-nef'-i-cent. Adherents, ad- her'-ents. Misanthrope, mis' -an-thr ope. (299) 300 APPENDIX. Note 11, p. 27. — Ingraham, In' -gram. Koozta, Koot'-za. Note 12, p. 28. — Argos, Ar'-gos. Stalwart, stdl'-ivurt. Athos, Ath'-os. Citheron, Cith'-e-ron. Prometheus, Pro-me f -the~us. Note 13, p. 30. Revolted, re-vol'-ted. Turrenne, Tu-renn'. Conde, K6^-da'. Note 14, p. 31. — Trafalgar, Traf -dl-gar' . Chivalrous, Shiv'- algous. Note 15, p. 35. — Imperious, im-pe'-ri-ous. Prescience, pre'- shi-ens. Dynamite, Dy'-na-mite. Mirage, Me-rdzh'. Note 16, p. 38. — Goethe, Go'-teh. Sacrifice, sac'-ri-fiz. Al- lied, al-lied'. Egotistic, eg-o-tis'-tic. Chivalric, shiv-dl' ric. Pageants, paj'-ents. Diet, Dee'-et. Note 17, p. 42. — Marathon, Mdr'-a-thon. Leonidas, Le-on'- i-dds. Note 18, p. 46. — Adherents, ad-Mr' -ents. Probity, prob'-i-ty. Vehement, ve'-he-ment, not ve-he '-merit. Note 19, p. 47. — Allied, al-lied'. Menacing, men'-a-cing. Inherent, in-her'-ent. Dauntless, dant'-less, not dawnt-less. Note 20, p. 49. — Puissant, pu-is'-sant. Gigantic, gl-gan'-tic. Bivouac, biv'-wak. Deputed, de-pu'-ted. Note 21, p. 50. — Produce, prod'-uce. Alternate, dl-tern'-ate. Note 22, p. 54. — Bivalvular, bi-val'-vu-lar. Testaceous, tes- ta'-ce-ous. Note 23, p. 56. — Gautamas, Gau-ta'-mas. Bade, bade. Squalor, squa'-lor. Note 24, p. 61. — Comrades, Jcum'-rades. Guttenberg, 6rOo'- ten-berg. Theses, the'-sez. Note 25, p. 62. — Richelieu, Resh'-le-uh. Titians, Tish'-an. Angelo, An'-jd-lo. Prometheus, Pro-me'-the-us. Desdemona, Dez-de-mo'-nd. Iago, E-d'-go. Note 26, p. 64. — Inexorable, in-ex'-o-ra-ble. August, au- gust'. Undaunted, un-ddn'-ted. Exhaust, egz-hdust. Undis- mayed, un-diz-mayed' . Exalt, egz-dlt'. Note 27, p. 66.— Architecture, ar'-ki'-tekt-yur. Stupendous, stu-pen'-dous. Gigantic, gi-gan'-tic. Novalis, No-vci'-lis. Note 28, p. 69.— Facile, fas'-lle. Dynamite, dy'-na-mite. Gondolas, gon'-do-las. Gargoyles, gdr'-goils. Catamaran, cat-d-md-rdn'. Gastronomic, gds-tro-nom'-ic. Anchovies, an-cho'-vies. Note 29, p. 71.— Extirpated, ex-tir' -pa-ted. Voltaire, Vol- ter\ Rousseau, Roo'-so'. Pompeii, Pom-pd'-yee. Candelabra, APPENDIX. 301 can-de-la' bra. Promethean, Pro-me'-the-dn. Incomparably, in-com'-pd-rd-bly. Buoyed, bivoyd. Note 30, p. 76.— Camille, Cam-el'. Eobespierre, Ro'-bes- peer'. Danton, Dan'-tdn, or Don'-to^'. Fabricius, Fd-brish'- e-us. Tinville, Tdn-veV. Girondists, Ji-ron'-dists. Rever- berates, re-ver'-be-rates. Vehement, ve'-he-ment. Canaille, Ka-naV. Note 31, p. 79. — Aristotle, Ar'-is-tot'-le. Jacquard, Zhdk'- Jcar'. Carnot, Car-no'. Vauscanson, Vo'-ko^'-so^'. Note 32, p. 81. — Atrocious, a-tro'-shus. Clandestine, clan- des'-tine. Pulaski, Pudds'-kee. Steuben, Stu'-ben. Kosci- usko, Kos-si-us'-ko. Note 33, p. 83. — Pompeiian, Pom-pa' -y an. Epicurus, Ep- i-cu'-rns. Heroism, her'-o-ism. Gig-antic, gt-gan'-tic. Colos- sal, co-los'-sal, not losh. Haranguing, lid-rang '-ing. Note 34, p. 86. — Justinian, Jus-tin' -i-an. Protagoras, Pro- tag'-o-ras. Hippias, Hip'-pi-as. Simplicius, Sim-plish'-i-us. Recesses, re-ces'-ses. Innocuously, in-noe '-u-ous-ly '. Epicte- tus, Ep-ic-te'-tus. Dismayed, Diz-may'-ed. Apoproagmenon, Ap-o-pro-dg'-men-on. Note 35, p. 88. — Knout, nout. Stirrup, stir'-up. Note 36, p. 92. — Chivalric, shiv-al'-ric. Immortelles, im- mor-telles'. Note 37, p. 94. — Porcelain, por'-qe-lan. Voltaire, Vol-ter'. Note 38, p. 97. — Vatican, Vat'-i-can. Byzantine, By-zan'- tine. Accessories, ac'-ces-so-ries. Architecture, ar'-ki-tect-yur. Michael Angelo, Me'-kd-el An-jd-lo. Leonardo cli Vinci, Ld-o- nar'-do da-Vin'-chee. Milan, Mil' -an. Raphael, Rdf-d-el. Durer, Du'-rer. Note 39, p. 99. — Blucher (German), very nearly Ble'-sher. Frichemont, Freesh-mo^'. Gigantic, gi-gan'-tic. Vive TEm- pereur, Vev-ldN-per-ur' '. Sauve qui peut, Sov'-ke-puh' ("Save himself who can"). Harangues, hd-rangs'. Agape, a-gdpe'. Genappe, Zhiih-ndp'. Bernard, Ber-ndr' . Bertrand, B'er- trox'. Note 40, p. 100. — Toussaint L'Overture, Too'-sd^'-loo'-ver'- tilr'. Hayti, Hd'-ti. St. Joux, Sdn'-Zhoo'. Commandant, com-man-dant' . Note 41, p. 102. — Rouged, roozhed. Robespierre, Ro-bes- peer'. Clootz, Klots. Note 42, p. 103.— Verdi, Var'-dee. Trovatore, Tro-vd-to'-re. 302 APPENDIX. Non ti scordar di me, non-tee-scor'-dar-dee-md'. Bronze, bronz. Betrothed, be-trothed, not be-trothed. Note 43, p. 107. — Harangue, lid-rang'. Disastrous, diz-as'- trous. Note 44, p. 108. — Kaphael, Raf-d-el. Concentrated, con-cen'- tra-ted. Dante, Dan'-td. Commedia, Com-md'-de-a. Goethe, Go'-teh. Aroma, d-ro'-md. Facets, fas'-ets. Note 45, p. 110. — Quirinal, Kee-ree-ndV . Cavour, Kd-voor'. Garibaldi, Gar-i-bdl-dl.- Dante, Dan'-td. Note 46, p. 112. — Commodus, Com-mo'-dus. Caracalla, Cdr- d-cdl'-ld. Alaric, A-ldr'-ic. Attila, At'-ti-ld. Remediless, re-med'-i- less. Note 47, p. 115. — Rapine, rdp'-ine. Incongruous, in-con'- gru-ous. Grievances, griev'-an-ces. Derogation, der-o-ga'-tion. Note 48, p. 116. — Dante, Ddn'-td. Civilization, civ-il-iz-a- tion. Galileo, Gal-i-lee'-o. Garibaldi, Gdr-i-bal'-di. Note 49, p. 118. — Dynamite, dy'-na-mite. Illimitable, il-lim'- it-a ble. Beneficence, be-nef'-i-cence, not nif. Note 50, p. 123. — Pageant, paf-ent. Colossal, co-los'-sal, not losh. Figure, jig'-ure, not fig-ger. Papinian, Pa-pin' -i-an. Caracalla, Car-d-cal'-ld. Ulpian, Ul'-pi-an. D'Auguesseau, Da-ges-sd'. Romilly, Rom'-il-i. Pantheon, Pan'-the-on. Ben- tham, Ben' -tarn. Beccaria, Bek-kd'-re-d. Note 51, p. 125. — Burgoyne, Bur-goin'. Maintenance, main'- te-nance. Allies, al-lies'. Patriotic, pd-tri-ot'-ic. Diplomacy, di-plo' -ma-cy . Note 52, p. 128. — Charlemange, Shar'-le-man'. Isolated, iz'-o-la-ted. Literature, lit'-e-rate-yure. Note 53, p. 131. — Beneficent, be-nef'-i-cent. Hearthstone, harth' -stone. Note 54, p. 132. — Chirurgery, Ki-rur'-je-ry. . Cassandra, Cas-sdn'-drd. Narrower, nar'-row-er, not ndr. Aerolites, d'-er-o-lites. Leverrier, Leh-ver'-re-er. Uranus, U-rd'-nus. Note 55, p. 134. Richelieu, Resh'-le-uh, Formidable, for'- mid-a-ble. Dauntless, dant-less. Note 56, p. 135. — Ruffians, ruf'-ydns. Squad, squdd. Aus- terlitz, Ows'-ter-lits. Sedan, Seh-don'. Communism, Com- mun'-ism. August, au-gust '. Eisleben, Is'-ld-ben. Note 57, p. 137. — Gaunt, gdnt. Ailanthus, Ai-lan'-thus. Offenbach, Of'-en-bak. Handel, Han 1 -del. Stevedore, ste'-ve- dove. Anak, A'-ndk. Browsing, browz'-ing. Fragile, fraj-ile. APPENDIX. 303 Note 58, p. 140. — Strown, strown. Gaping, gdp'-ing. Elys- ium, E-Uzh'-i-um. Bade, bade. Note 59, p. 143. Momentous, mo-men' -tous. Cornet, cor'- net. Birmingham, Bir'-ming-um. Note 60, p. 147. — Crusade, crusade'. Intemperance, in-tem'- per-ance, not in-t em-prance. Note 61, p. 148. — Kadikoi, Kdd-e-koi' '. Eesources, re-sour' - ces. Vehement, ve'-he-ment. Quagmires, qudg'-mires. Allah, Al'-lah. Inexorable, in-ex'-o-ra-ble. Swathes, swathes. Note 62, p. 150. — Legate, leg' -ate. Indomitable, in-dom'-it- a-ble. Insular, insu'-lar. Execrable, ex'-e-crd-ble. Trafalgar, Tra'-fal-gar'. Boulogne, Boo-lon'. Note 63, p. 152.— Saarbruck, Sdr'-bruk. Sedan, Seh-don'. Dynasty, din'-as-ty. Mazzini, Mat-see' -nee. Garibaldi, Gdr-%- bal-di. Note 64, p. 153. — Le Basque, Le Bask'. Lolonnois, Lo-lon- noy'. Du Plessis, Dil-pldse'. Mer du Nord, Mer du Nor'. Eapine, rap' -me. Gracias a Dios, Grd ' -ce-ds-d-Dee '-6s. Ninas, Neen'-yds. Note 65, p. 157. — Mythologies, myth-ol' -6-gies. Exalted, egz-alt'-ed. Note 6Q, p. 159.— St. Cecilia, St. Ce-cil'-i-a. Handel, Han- del. Haydn, Hd'-dn. Mozart, Mot'-sart. Beethoven, Bd'- to-ven. Note 67, p. 160. — Narrower, ndr'-row-er. Lichens, ll'-kens. Larvae, lar'-vee. Note 68, p. 162. — Chevalier Bayard, Shev-a-leer' Bl'-ard. Truths, trooths. Sacrifice, sac'-ri-fiz. Note 69, p. 163. — Brougham, Broo'-am. Allied, al-lied'. Note 70, p. 164. — Architects, ar'-ki-tects. Crouched, kroncht. Note 71, p. 166. — Indissolubly, in-dis'-so-lu-bly. Exaltation, egz-al-ta'-tion. Steppes, steps. Arab, Ar'-ab. Note 72, p. 168. — Surajah Dowlah, Sur-d-ja Doiv'-lah. Sol- stice, solstice. Ugolino, U-gd-lee'-no. Debauch, de-bauch'. Figures, fig'-ures. Note 73, p. 174. — Oases, o-d'sez. Milan, Mil' -an. Pisa, Pee'sd. Genoa, Gen'-o-d. Demonstrated, de-mon'stra-ted. Guerdoned, gher'-duneJ. Note 74, p. 177. — Accoutered, ac-koo'-ter-ed. Cader Idris, Kd'-der Id'-ris. Prestatyn, Pres-ta'-tyn'. Suowdon, S}iow- don. Preux Chevalier, Proz Shev-a-leer'. Exchequer, ecks- check'-er. Venodotia, Ven-6-do'she-d. Litigious, li-tij'-us. 304 APPENDIX. Note 75, p. 178. — Ivry, Ev-re'. Heroism, Mr-'o-ism. Achil- les, A-chil'-les. Note 76, p. 180. — Exhausts, egz-hausts' '. Patriotism, pd'-tri- ot-ism. Note 77, p. 181.— Faneuil, Fun'-il. Thoreau, Tho'-ro. Boc- caccio, Bok-kdt'-cho. Heroism, her'-o-ism. Sachem, Sd'-chem. Note 78, p. 183. — Formula, for'-mu-ld. Elusive, e-lu'-sive. Subtle, sut'-l. Domain, do-main'. Abstracts, abstracts'. Note 79, p. 185. — Mythological, myth-o-log'-ic-al. Benefi- cent, be-nef'i-cent. Undismayed, un-diz-mayed' . Note 80, p. 186.— Charondas, Kd-ron'-dds. Eubceans, Eu- be'-ans. Decades, dek'-ddes. Cuirass, Jcwe-rds'. Note 81, p. 188. — Racially, rd'-she-al-ly. Internecine, in- ter-ne'-ceen. Antietam, An-tee'-tam. Derisive, De-ri'-sive. Note 82, p. 191. — Salamis, Sdl'-d-mis. Chceronea, Ker-o- nee'-d. Pharsalia, Far-sd'-li-a. Worcester, Woos'-ter. Sem- pach, Sem'-pdh. Phillippi, Phil-lip'-pi. Note 83, p. 192.— Vagary, vd-gd'-ry. Communism, com'- mun-ism. Complex, com'-plex. Kosciusko, Kos-ci-us'-ko. Note 84, p. 196. — Haunts, hants. Apocalypse, A-poc'-a-lips. Luxuriance, lugz-u'-ri-ance. Romance, ro-mance'. Inherent, in-her'-ent. Note 85, p. 197. — Communism, com' -mun-ism. Incorrig- ible, in-cor '-rig-i-ble. Crusade, cru-sade'. Genealogy, gen-e- dl'-o-gy. Abominable, a-bom'-i-nd-ble. Pharsalia, Far-sd'-li-a. Note 86, p. 199. — Beneficent, be-nef'-i-cent. Mausoleums, mau-so-le '-urns. Note 87, p. 201. — Cohering, co-Mr' -ing. Prestige, pres- tezh'. Solace, sol'-ace. Condolence, con-do' -lence. Puissant, pu-is'-sant. Lodi, Lo'-dee. Note 88, p. 203. — Patriotism, pd'-tri-ot-ism. Patriot, pa'- tri-ot. Disdaining, diz-dain'-ing. Note 89, p. 205.— Itinerant, i-tin'-er-ant. Sovereign, suv'- er-in. Lacquered, lack'-erd. Incognito, in-cog'-ni-to. Note 90, p. 206.— Consummate, con-sum -mate. Diploma- tists, di-plo'-ma-tists. Divination, div-i-na'-tion. Note 91, p. 208.— Mahomet, Md'-ho-met. Moslem, Moz'-lem,. Allah Akbar Islam, Al'-lah-Ak'-bar-Iz'-lam. Papuans, Pap-u- dns'. Arab, Ar'-ab. Delhi, Del' -lee. Grenada, Gre-nd'-dd. Note 92, p. 209.— Expanse, ex-panse'. Amenities, a-men'-i- ties. Gyves, jivz. Produce, prod'-uce. APPENDIX. 305 Note 93, p. 211. — Fra Luigi, Frd Lob-e'-je. Anemones, a-nem'-o-nes. Basilica, Ba-zil'-i-cd. Paolo Santo,. Pd-o'-lo San' -to. Porphyry, por'-phy-ry. Balclacchiiio, Bdl-ddk- kee'-no. Shone, shon. Note 94, p. 215. — Mythology, myth '-ol-o-gy : Beneficent, be-nef'-i-cent. Indissolnby, in-dis'-so-lu-bly. Note 95, p. 219. — Stupendous, stu-pen '-dous. Defalcations, dif-al-ca'-tions. Chicane, she-cane'. Begrimed, be-grim-ed, not be-grimed. Note 96, p. 223. — Urim, U'-rim. Thummim, Thum'-mhn. Note 97, p. 224. — Serape, se-rape'. Ave Maria, A'-vd Md- re'-d. Sufficed, suf-flzed'. Suppleness, sup'-ple-7iess. Vin- tage, vint'-age. Coyote, coi-ote'. Note 98, p. 227.— Gallows, gdl'-lus. Grandeur, grand'-yur. Alternate, dl-ter'-nate. Phidias, Phid'-i-as. Apelles, A-pel - les. Angelo, An'-jd-lo. Thucydides, Thu-cyd'-i-des. Dante, Ddn'-td. Justinian, Jus-tm'-i-an. Parrhassius, Par-rhd'- shi-us. Mozart, Mot'-sart. Note 99, p. 229. — Adonis, A-don'-is. Pompeiian, Pom-pa' - yan. Naseby, Naze'-by. Decius, De'-shi-us. Sinaitic, Si- nit'-ic. Horatius, Ho-ra'-she-us. Manes, md'-nez. Stylites, Styl-i'-tes. Note 100, p. 231. — Eesources, re-sour '-ces. Detail, de-tail' . Civilization, civ-il-iz-d'-tion. Dynamite, dy'-na-mite. Sem- pach, Sem'-pah. Naseby, Naze'-by. Novara, No-vd'-ra. Gus- tauvus, Gus-td'-vus. Garibaldi, Gdr-i-bdl'-di. Leyden, La'-den. Vende, Vox-da'. Chceronea, Ker-o-nee'-d. Cannae, Kdn'-nee. Pharsalia, Far-sa'-U-d. Coup d'Etat, Koo'-da-td'. Note 101, p. 232. — Mohammed, Mo-hdm'-med. Arab, Ar'-ab. Note 102, p. 235. — Literature, lit'-e-rate-yure. Luxurious, lugz-u'-ii-ous. Genii, ge'-rvi-i. Note 103, p. 237.— Cadiz, Ca'-diz. Phoenician, Fe-nish'-an. Baal, Bd'-al. Boabdil, Bo-ab'-dil. Acacias, A-ka'-shi-d. Xeres, Ha' -res. Saguntum, Sd-gun'-tum. Alhambra, Al- ham'-brd. Guadalquiver, Gaiv'-dal-kiviv'-er. Murillo, Moo- reel'-yo. Note 104, p. 238.— Jacques Doufour, Zhdks Du-foiir'. Da- vousts, Dd'-voos. Sergeant, sar'-jant. Agile, aj-ile. Peste, pest. Wilna, Wil'-nd. Refluent, ref-lu-ent. Monsieur le Marechal, Mos-ser' le Mdr-e-shdV. Mon Marechal, Mox-Mar-e- shdl'. 306 APPENDIX. Note. 105, p. 242.— Isolation, iz-o-la'-tion. Contemplated, con-tem'-pla-ted. Note 106, p. 244.— Launched, lanched. Exhausted, egz- haus'-ted. Narrow, ndr'-row. Note 107, p. 245. — Mansion de l'lntendance, Man-zos' d& Lin-tan' -dance. Valet, vdl'-a. Barbaroux, Bar-bd-roo'. Char- lotte Corday, Char' -lot Cor-day'. Duperret, Du-pa-ra'. Fig- ure, fig'-ure. Sacrifice, sac'-ri-fiz. Demonic, de-mon'-ic. Ap- parition, ap-pa-ri'-tion. Caen, K6t$. Palais Eoyal, Pal-d' Roy-ydV. Squalid, squa'4id. Petion, Pd-se-6N'. Louvet, Loo-vd'. Stylites, Styl-i'-tes. Gendarmes, Zhdn-darm'. Note 108, p. 247. — Forehead, for'-ed. Eefrain, re-frain'. Aureole, au'-re-ole. Oriel, o'-ri-el. Solace, sol' -ace. Scathless, scdth'-less. Note 109, p. 252. — Droughts, drowts. Beneficent, be-nef'-i- cent. Verdure, verd'-ure. Note 110, p. 253. — Preferment, pre-fer'-ment. Dishonesty, diz-on'-es-ty. Obelisk, ob'-e-lisk, not o'-be-lisk. Tackle, tdck'-l. Monolith, mon'-o-lith. Archangels, ark-an'-gels. Note 111, p. 259.— Friedland, Freet'-ldnt. Eckmiihl, Ek'- mul. Eussian, Rush'-an. Moscow, Mos'-co. Prescience, pre'-shi-ens. Austerlitz, Ows'-ter-lits. Note 112, p. 261. — Disastrous, diz-as'-trous. Architecture, ar'-ki-tect-yur. Sovereignty, suv'-ur-in-ty. Coliseum, Col-i- se'-um. Parthenon, Par'-the-non. Note 113, p. 263. — Phidias, Phid'-i-as. Numa, Nu'-md. Eaphael, Raf'-d-el. Note 114, p. 265. — Panegyric, pan-e-jir'-ic. Fulsome, ful'- sum, not fool' -sum. Modicum, mdd'-i-cwn. Note 115, p. 269. — Boscan, Bos-can'. Mendoza, Men-do'- thd. Leyva, Ld'-vd. Pescara, Pds-cd'-rd. Cortes, Cor-tcs'. Pizarro, Pe-zdr'-ro. Dynasty, dm'-as-ty. Note 116, p. 270. — Inexorably, in-ex'-o-ra-bly. Sacrificing, sac'-ri-fiz-ing. Sacrament, sac'-ra-ment. Inherent, in-her'-ent. Note 117, p. 273. — Exploits, ex-ploits'. Legendary, lej'-end- a-ry. Scinde, Bind. Shikarpoor, Shik-ar-poor' . Imports, im-ports'. Note 118, p. 278.— Tinville, Tdn'-veV. D'Estang, des'-tax'. Bailly, Bd'-le'. Madame, Ma-dame'. Note 119, p. 279.— Exalted, egz-dlt'-ed. Fertile, fer'-tll. In- trepid, in-trep'-id. Lodi, Lo'-dee, Exultant, egz-ult'-ant. APPENDIX. 307 Note 120, p. 281. — Protestations, Prot-est-a' -shuns. Swe- denborg, Swe'-den-bdrg. Forehead, fdr'-ed. Note 121, p. 286. — Isolated, iz'-o-ldt-ed. Masculine, mas'-cu- line, not line. Routine, roo-ten'. Divination, div-i-na'-tion. Designate, des'-ig-nate, not dez. Note 122, p. 288.— Creek, creek, not krik. Exhausted, egz- haust'-ed. Murat, Mu'-rd'. Enfilading, en-fi-ldd'-ing. Sacri- fice, sac'-ri-ftz. Note 123, p. 289.— Chaldee, Chdl'-dee. Ninus, Ni'-nus. Note 124, p. 291. — Fleury, Fluh'-re. Strasbourg, Straz'- burg. Boulogne, Boo-lon'. Morny, Mor'-ne. Magnan, Mdn'- yoN. Maupas, Mo'-pd'. Notre Dame, Notr'-dam'. Note 125, p. 295. — Bowling, Bow-ling. Gallows, gal'-lus. Detail, de-tail'. The Very Latest School Speakers. (JUST PUBLISHED.) The National Speakers. By O. E. BRANCH, {The Successful Compiler of the Hamilton Speaker .) These Speakers contain the best selection of pieces for decla- mation by pupils of all ages ever offered to the public. Hack- neyed extracts have been thrown aside, and the standard orators represented by fresh selections from their works, while space has been given to those pieces which have most recently gained the favor of public readers and elocutionists as best adanted to declamation. Primary Speaker, designed for children between the ages of 5 and 10. Boards, 50 cents. Junior Speaker, for pupils from 10 to 16. Cloth, 75 cents. Advanced Speaker, for Older Pupils, with Suggestions to Scholars and a Vocabulary of Words Difficult to Pronounce. Cloth, $1.25. English History in Knyme. By Mrs. Chas. H. Gardner. 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It may be fairly said to be the most useful and convenient book ever devised for the purpose of making permanent the results of the Student's, Writer's, and Professional man's reading. Its system and arrangement are such, that with the minimum of effort it secures a lasting record of every reference that may be thought worthy of preservation in the course of the widest reading. Says the author : " When you read anything which you may here- after need, place the principal word in the margin under the first let- ter in the word, and the first vowel in it. I will here give some ex- amples as they stand in my own Index. Suppose I wish to note some- thing relating to America. I turn to A and the vowel e, because A is the first letter, and e is the first vowel, thus : — On page A-e. America " Atheism " R-o. Rousseau, " W-i. Wilbcrforce, " X-y. Xylochartion, supposed to be known in the time of Homer: Thomas's History Print, volume i, pa^e 20. of France, Picture of : Schlegel's Lecture: Volume 2, page 199. morbid imagination of : Ftewari on the mind : Volume 1, page 277. character as a speaker; Port. Rhet Reader: Page 250. or bark paper, description of: Am. Quart. Rev. v. 2.'" OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " I have no hesitation in saying that the plan of the ' Index Rerum,' by Rev. Dr. Todd, is better adapted to the object for which it is intended, than any other with which I am acquainted. Its great excellence consists in its simplicity, and this ren- ders its advantages so obvious, that to those who want anything of the kind, an inspec- tion of the work must preclude the necessity of any recommendation." — Ex President Mark Hopkins, Williams College, Mass. '' It has been in nse for over half a century, and experience has shown it to be an in- dispensable part of every literary man's equipment." — Chicago Interior. "It is unquestionably the best book of the kind issued." — Albany Evening Jour nal. "The ' Indec Rerum,' as invented and prepared by Rev. Dr. John Todd, is per- haps one of the best possible means of arranging the results of one's reading, so as to make them afterward readily accessible 'this hide Rerum, or something simi- lar to it, should be studied and used by one who would make his store of learning accessible." — N. IV. Christian Advoc.ite. Sent post-paid, on receipt of price, by BAKER & TAYLOR, Publishers, © Bond Street, ISTe-w ~5T©rlr_ WAVERLEY NOVELS By Sir Walter Scott, Centenary edition, in 25 volumes, illustrated with 158 steel plates and containing additional copyright notes from the author's pen, not hitherto published, besides others by the editor, the late David Laing, LL.D., with a general index, and separate In- dices and Glossaries. Sold only in sets, in boxes. i2mo. Cloth, extra gilt top, - - - - $31.25 Half calf, extra, - - - * 68.75 Half morocco, - - - - 68.75 This is intended for, and believed to be generally acknowledged as, the best Library Edition of Scott's novels in the market. The half calf and half morocco bindings are elegant examples of the binder's art, while the dark blue cloth, with gilt top, similar to the Riverside Edition of Emerson, makes a plain but beautiful binding. PRESS NOTICES. " Baker & Taylor could not have put their imprint on a more substantial and valu- able set of books than the new edition of the ' Waverlev Novels,' which they have just issued. The plates are entirely unworn, an excellent quality of paper has been used, and the volumes are very attractively bound for the library.'" — Christian Union. 11 A handsome and convenient set, neatly bound in dark blue cloth. Each volume has a special glossary and an index, and the illustrations are numerous." — New York Nation. " The edition is an admirable one. It is one of the best editions available for com- fortable reading." — New York Tribune. " This new edition is really a good one. The print is clear and good ; the binding serviceable, and even in the cloth form tolerably ornamental. _ There are numerous steel plates, and, besides an unusual number of notes, there are indices and glossaries for each volume, together with a general index." — Boston Daily Advertiser. " This is a beautiful edition, a neat i2mo, printeJ in new and very distinct type, with fine steel engravings. It promises to be a favorite edition, portable, beautiful, and moderate in price." — Zion" 1 s Herald. " Always popular. In its new and neat dress it cannot fail to hold its own against all competitors." — The Congregatio?ialist. Sent to any address (express paid), in neat boxes, on receipt of the advertised price, by BAKER & TAYLOR, PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS, No. 9 Bond Street, New York. ■