Yale University Library

Ji^^ 39002022471891
Bartlett , Elisha
An Oration. . .
Lowell, 1848.

'?

1. v:-::'^*
• '.¦4, %f 'sSoV^ i '
i (
YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

1942

ORATION

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES

AND THE

CITIZENS OF LOWELL,

JULY 4, 1848,

BY ELISHA BARTLETT.

PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE OE ARKANGEMENTS.

LOWELL:
JAMES ATKINSON, PRINTER.
1848.

ORATION.

There are many in this assembly who will not hes
itate to believe, that it is no affectation when I say
that I am overwhelmed and borne down by the emo
tions which this occasion inspires. Twenty years ago,
this hour, my old friends and fellow-citizens, at your
instance, I stood as I now stand before you, to do my
humble part — to mingle my then untrained and inex
perienced voice with yours, in social and patriotic com
memoration of the birth-day of our National Inde
pendence. It was the dewy morning of my manhood ;
"time had not thianed my flovring hair," — life, with
its boundless hopes and its golden visions, spread far
alld fair before me; and cheered by your words of
encouragement, and aided by your helping hands, —
your associate and co-worker, and in your service, — a
stranger, but welcomed with frank confidence and
trust, — I had just entered upon its arduous and up
ward pathway. After the lapse of the fifth part of a
century, — of two-thirds of the period of an entire
generation, — and with the exception of short and
flying visits, after an absence of several years, I find
myself once more in my old home, surrounded by its
various associations, and gladdened by the smiles of

its old familiar faces. I stand again in the presence
of those with whom the busiest period of my life has
been passed, who shared with me its early struggles,
and from whose hands its first honors and rewards
were received. I should be more or less than human,
if I could remain unmoved in the scene, and amidst
the circumstances that are about me ; and you will
pardon me, I know, for attempting in this imperfect
manner, to give expression to the feelings that are
awakened in my bosom. But other thoughts crowd
themselves upon me, and struggle for utterance. The
multitudinous stir of the present ceases, — its din and
its tumult are hushed, — and I hear only the solemn
sounds which come up to us from the depths of the
receding and vanishing past. I listen, and it is the
voice of the dead, and not of the living, that I hear ;
it is a vision, not of time, but of the dim eternity,
that I see. It is impossible to stand, as we do here,
and look back over the twenty years which separate
us from the period of our former meeting, without
bemg impressed and awed by the number of high and
important places which death has left vacant amongst
us. How many of those who started with us on the
active journey of life, or who jomed us at some of its
subsequent stages, — whom we were wont to meet on
occasions like the present, — who laid the broad
foundations of our infant city, and who guided it on
ward ia its rapid and vigorous career, — who watched
over its welfare with the solicitude of paternal love, 
how many of them, in the very strength of theu-
years, have gone from their labors to their rewards !
Not often, in so narrow a field, and m such brief
space of tmie, has death garnered so rich a harvest.
Moody, and Colburn, and Appleton, and Lewis,

and Glidden, and Knox, and Boott, and Walker,
and Lawrence, and Mansur, and Goodwin, and
Locke, and Davis, and Means, and Phelps, and
Adams, with the fresh turf of yesterday above him.
It is fitting that before entering upon the gayer and
more joyous celebration of the day, we should thus
pause for a moment to give another tear to their
memories, and to hang a new garland on the urn that
holds their ashes. As we turn from their graves to
the duties and the pleasures before us, let us resolve
while we cherish the remembrance of their virtues,
to imitate and to make them our own.
The commemoration in which we are engaged has
nothing of a sectarian or partisan character. And I
am glad that it is so. We meet together, here, as
American citizens, to celebrate, with one accord,
moved by one common impulse, in one common
spirit, the anniversary of our independence. We lay
aside, not in mere formality, and in seeming only, but
in real fact and earnest, our differences of opinion
upon the thousand questions, social, religious, and
political, which keep in constant but wholesome agi
tation, the public mind, in order that we may mingle
together our mutual congratulations, that we are the
free citizens of this free republic; and to render
thanks to the great Giver of all Good, for the bles
sings and the benefits which this citizenship confers
upon us. Leaving, for the day, each his narrow ora
tory of private devotion, we gather round the common
altar of our country, to renew our vows, and to kin
dle afresh its fires ; forgetting for the hour the shib
boleth of our sects and parties, we join with one voice
in the choral and swelling hymn that now rises from
aU the broad surface of the land in which we live.

We may witness, somewhere within our borders,
every year, and almost every day, scenes that are
made sublime by their moral, significance and beauty,
and there are few amongst them more striking than
this. It is an extraordinary fact in the history of
empires, — this universal attachment of twenty mil
lions of people to their political mstitutions, — the
entire and unquestioning loyalty with which they
cling to the forms and the principles of the govem
ment which they have chosen. There are persons in
every society, bereft of their reason ; here and there,
too, a crotchetty individual may be found who denies
the truth of the Newtonian system of philosophy,
and the existence of material things ; so, it may some
times happen, that a man — or a woman — may be
discovered amongst ourselves, — some staunch and
uncompromising believer in the absolute and univer
sal corruption of humanity, or some amiable but
crazy-headed philanthropist, who raves at all institu
tions because they fail to make men angels, and do
not at once bring back the Eden that we have lost, —
who is dissatisfied with our general and local govern
ments, and who would go back from them to some
form of absolutism, or who would scatter them to the
winds, and trust to chance and anarchy to evolve
from the wreck and chaos some new Eutopia. But
with these exceptions — so frivolous as to be not
worth naming — I suppose that hardly a single per
son can be found amongst us ^native or adopted
citizen — the descendant of the Plymouth pilgrim, or
the emigrant who landed yesterday on our shores,
from whatever clune or country he may have come 
who would wish to change, in its fundamental structure
and principles, the government under wliich we live.

We differ, sometimes widely enough, about measures
of domestic and of foreign policy; about the consti
tution of a court ; the mode of an election ; the ex
tent and the limits of the state and the national
governments ; but we are all republicans, — some of
us more and others of us less radical and democratic, —
but all republicans, with neither doubt nor reserva
tion in our creed. Our wide-spread and swelling
population is coming to be made up of very various,
dissimilar, and heterogeneous materials. Our eastern
and western walls are the two great oceans of the
globe, — the fitting and magnificent boundaries of
"Time's noblest empire and its last; " — between our
northern and our southern termini, we embrace every
extreme and variety of climate; our inexhaustible
abundance spreads out its stores to the famishing
multitudes of Europe, our freedom proffers to the
victims of oppression its fullest participation, and the
entrance to this great asylum is thrown wide open to
all who choose to come. It follows inevitably, that
our people should be constituted of most miscellane
ous, and in some respects, of jarring and discordant
elements. How little in common is there between
the lordly cotton planter of Louisiana, and the small
but thrifty and independent farmer of the northern
and eastern states, tilling his own acres with his own
hard hands,— each the type and representative of a
numerous class. The frugal Scotchman leaves his
misty mountains, to find a home in a new Caledonia
here, bringing Scotland with him, in the remem
brance of its heathered hUls, and in the poetry of
Burns ; the Celtic swarm flees from the wretchedness
of its own unthrift, and the wrongs of its Saxon
master; even the sturdy and unplastic Englishman

8
sometimes finds his way hither ; the German seeks
another and a kindlier father-land beyond the Alle
ghanies, or west of the Mississippi ; the Italian finds
that freedom under our glowing skies, which was
denied him beneath his own ; and many others, whom
I have no time to enumerate, — the Spaniard, the
Frenchman, the Pole, the Russian,— Jew and Gen
tile—Christian and Pagan — bond and free,— be-
longmg to widely different races, professing various
and mutually hostile religions, educated under dissim
ilar social and political institutions, — flock to our
shores, and make their homes withm our borders.
But notwithstanding these diversities, in spite of all
these circumstances, there is but one opinion in the
land in regard to the essential principles and the
practical working of the government under which
we live. We have faith in its general justice, its effi
ciency, its beneficence. Like all work of human
hands, it is imperfect; it may be faulty, — in some
respects it is guilty of great wrong ; but we would
reform and perfect, not subverse and destroy it. This
is the universal feeling and conviction. There are no
elements of revolution amongst us. And in this
respect, we are alone amidst the nations of the earth.
The pyramid of our government stands upright and
immovable upon its basis ; with few and minor ex
ceptions, those of the rest of the world are propped
upon their apexes, or they are reeling and rocking
on their edges, like ships on a stormy sea. England
boasts of her stability ; she looks out over the tem
pest that is now lashing the ocean mto friry, and
covering it with wrecks, breaking at her feet, and
howling through her palaces ; — she looks out, smiling
serenely upon the wild war of the social elements.

proclaiming herself as secure in her strength as her
island itself, fast-anchored amidst the waves. But
what a contrast between her condition, and our own !
Where and what are the security and the stability of
which she boasts 1 Is there any human prescience
that can foresee, ever so dimly, the doom and the
destiny that are before her"? Does she herself know,
with any certainty, what changes, ten years, or a sin
gle year, may bring to her 1 Has she any surety for
the future ? Every day, are there not tongues of fire
calling for the demolition of her throne, and the
overthrow of her altars ; and every night, do not
millions of her subjects lay their unkempt heads
upon their straw pillows, muttering curses and exe
crations upon the government and the rulers, under
which they struggle and starve 1 Are these the ele
ments of internal strength "? Are these the conditions
of security and repose"? Are these the sentinels to
watch over and to guard a nation's
"Domestic awe, niglit-rest, and neigliborliood ? "
On the contrary, is it not as certain as^ any thing of
this nature can be, that England's future must inevi
tably be a future, not of change and of reform merely,
l\ut of radical and destructive revolution 1
These refiections upon the stability of our political
institutions, into which I have been led much further
than I intended to go, when I commenced them,
have been naturally enough suggested by this spec
tacle, presented to-day, throughout the whole length
and breadth of the land, to which I have referred, of
entire unanimity of conviction and of feeling in the
celebration of our national festival.
In the further performance of the duty before me,
I am embarassed at the outset by the extent and va-

10
riety of the subjects which offer themselves to our
consideration, and solicit our -regard. The Fourth of
July, 1776, was one of the great epochs of modern
history; it has grown into one of the loftiest emmen-
ces ever reared along the pathway of the ages ; and
standmg as we do to-day, on the sun-lit summit of its
anniversary, not only is it difficult to take in with our
feeble vision the broad horizon that stretches off into
infinity, and mmgles itself with it, but it is not easy
to determine in what direction, and to what objects,
we shall turn our gaze. I see Alpine pinnacles,
steeped in sunshine, or shrouded in darkness, shoot
up into the heavens ; I see dreary wastes of desolation
and of death, covered by brooding shadows, and rav
aged by continual storms; I see green valleys, and
wooded hill-sides, of more than Arcadian beauty,
crowned with abundance, covered with lowing herds,
and dotted over with secure and peaceful human habi
tations. But what jiew spectacle is this that bursts
so suddenly upon our vision ] From our lofty out
look, I see the whole hemisphere, along the eastern
horizon, dark with eager and swarming masses of
armed and unarmed men ; I see, over almost a whole
continent, the uprisen people ; I see Idngs, and prin
ces, and potentates, flying in abject and trembling ter
ror from their regal and sumptuous abodes, for life
and for shelter to alien shores ; I see the prison walls
of despotic ¦ tyranny battered down ; I see the chains
stricken from the limbs of the slave ; and there comes
to me, borne on the eastern breezes, a mingled and
tumultuous sound of the wild shouts of fi-eedom new
ly won, and the muffled and solemn roar, — lilve that
of a distant a-\'alanche on the Wettcrhorn, — of shat
tered and falling thrones. And this wild turmoil of

11
the nations of Europe is closely linked, I see, with
the day and the occasion that have called us together,
— the faces of these excited multitudes are all turned
hitherward. I suppose it may be said, without any exaggeration,
that never since the great act, seventy-two years ago,
which made this day illustrious amongst the days,
has it had an anniversary so full of interest as the
present. And this interest, in great part at least, de
pends upon and grows out of these recent and stu
pendous occurrences to which I have alluded, in west
ern and central Europe. It would be extravagant to
say that they are entirely the offspring of our Decla
ration of Independence, but it is not so to say that
they are more directly related to it than to any other
single great era or event of history. If not the
children of our revolution, they are its near kindred,
— of the same faith and the same household, — bora
of the same spirit, and baptized with the same bap
tism of fire. It is natural then, that flrst amongst
the subjects of our meditation to-day should be these
occurrences. In no one of the thousands of similar
assemblages, which this hour vntnesses, — at no one
of the thousands of festive boards, which are this day
spread, will they fail to be noticed.
I do not possess, either the qualifications or the
ability, even if this were a suitable time and occasion
for such undertakings, for any elaborate study of these
events. Their profound and philosophical analysis,
the estimate and appreciation of their complex causes
and relations, their tendencies and their results, con
stitute a task altogether above and beyond the reach
of my humble powers, and which I have neither the
foUy nor the temerity to attempt. I can only look,

12
for a moment, at one or two of their more obvious
and strildng aspects; I can only endeavor to study
one or two of their simpler and plainer lessons.
It was George Canning, if I aim not mistaken, who
said, soon after the overthrow of Napoleon, and the
re-establishment of the old order of things on the con
tinent, that the next general war in Europe would be
a war between the aristocratic and the democratic ele
ments of society, — between prescription and privilege
on one side, and equality of right on the other. This
is an old conflict — older than human ci\ilization —
almost as old as humanity itself Power in the hands
of the few has always arrayed itself against the rights
of the many ; and it has for the most part successfully
maintained its usurpations. The particular trial of
strength between these antagonist forces, which Mr.
Canning foretold, and which it was impossible not to
foresee, has at last commenced in earnest. The cam
paign has opened, — the flrst great battle has been
fought, — the flrst great victory has been won ; — and
we can hardly faU to be struck with the vastness and
the splendor of the triumph, the wealth of the tro
phies left in the hands of the victors, and the small
ness of the cost at which they have been obtained.
Thrones that were reared in the middle ages, and
which their fond occupants imagined were of iron and
of adamant, have fallen to pieces, like the play-houses
that chUdren buUd of cards,— blown away in a nio-ht
by the breath of the popular tempest, and utterly con
sumed by its flre; — dynasties that had gro^Ti up
with the centuries, strengthened by wide and complex
alliances, their strong-holds of power girt round and
guarded, as they deemed in their fancied security, by
loyal bayonets, and by hnpregnable fortresses, have

13
been scattered to the winds in an hour. Almost with
a single voice, — in universal and spontaneous ac
claim, — the people have demanded and have ob
tained, — flrst, entire freedom of speech and of the
press, — the right to utter and to hear, for each and
for all, whatever the fr'ee head may think, or the free
heart may feel; — second, universal suffrage, — the
selection, by themselves, of their own immediate law
givers and rulers, — delegated by them to do their
work, and responsible to them for the manner in
which it is done ; — and, thfrd, their own armed or
ganization, — the appropriation by themselves of the
whole physical force of the state, — the necessary
guaranty, and security from treachery and assault, of
all their other interests and rights, — the new tripod,
from which the sybU of modem democracy utters her
startling and sacred oracles. There is nothing in the
history of this European movement more striking
than the entire unanimity, and the complete success,
with which these three great elementary rights and
powers have been asserted and maintained.
I have spoken of the smallness of the cost at
"which these conquests have been secured. I allude
particularly to the few lives that have been sacrificed
when comparison is made with simUar struggles in
former times. I know very well that this number
may yet be fearfully augmented; and even if such
should not be the case, I do not need to be told of
the value of that which has already been lost. I
have no desire to underrate it. I know that the
young and gallant hearts which poured out their
blood on the barricades of Paris and Berlin, were
beating high with hope, and that the eyes which
closed at noon forever, -opened in the morning on a
2

14
future as full as yours of promise and of joy. I
would not say a word that might be tortured into a
vindication or an apology for war. The saddest sight
in the history of man is that of his sanguinary flght-
ings. Nineteen-twentieths of them have been the
fruits of his baser passions,— unnecessary, wanton,
and wicked. Love is the great, central, aU-pervading
power of the universe ; I have faith in its flnal om
nipotence, as well as in its present divinity. That
God works by love, is a truth of vrider application,
and of deeper signiflcance than it has yet entered into
the hearts of most priests and theologians to con
ceive. It is by the sUent sunshine, the soft summer
showers, the gentle winds, .and the dew distUled from
the serene night air, that the beautiful mystery and
miracle of life is evolved and carried on. But there
is death as well as life, in the world ; and in the pres-
.ent condition of things, I do not see how the sword
can be altogether dispensed with. Force as well as
love, is one of the instruments and agencies of nature.
God works by it as well as by love ; at least it is one
of the occasional and stern necessities in his economy.
Hp keeps the ocean sweet with the breath of his tem
pests, and he purifles the stagnant atmosphere with
the flre of his forked lightnings. So, it seems to me,
that in default of the sufficiency of mUder measures,
the old fortresses of wrong and iniquity in the world
must be puUed down ; if the tyrant refuses to unbar
Ilis .prison doors, they must be battered open ; if the
oppressor wUl not unfasten the fetters of his ^ictim,
they must be snapped by the rude hand of violence
asunder ; rights that are not yielded to entreaty must
be taken; harpies must be driven fi-om their foul
nests in the rocky fastnesses ; bastUes must be demol-

15
ished, though it be with devouring flames, and their
foundations washed away, though it be in rivers of
blood. It would seem indeed to be almost a neces
sary condition, that great changes in the government
and institutions of nations should be wrought in the
midst of tumult and violence.
" Eor all the past of Time reveals
A bridal da'wii of thunder-peals,
Wherever tho^ught hath, ¦wedded fact."
******
9 " And yet, if Nature's e-vil star
Drive men in manhood, as in youth,
To follo-sv flying steps of Truth
Across the "brazen bridge of -war —
" If "New and Old, disastro^us feud,
Must ever shock, like amjed foes,
And this be true, tOl Time shall close,
That Principles are rain'd in blood ;
" Not yet the -wise of heart -would cease
To hold his hope through shame and gmlt,
But ¦with his hand against the hilt,
Would pace the troubled land like Peace ;
" Not less, though dogs of Paction bay, •
Would serve his Mnd in deed and ¦word,
Certain if kno-wledge bring the s-word.
That kno-wledge takes the s-word a-way."
I have spoken of a work already accomplished, of
a victory already won. These expressions, it is ob"vd-
ous enough, stand in nteed of much quahfication ; —
they are true only in part, and "with many reservations.
It is natural, and ine"vitable indeed, that in the first
flush of triumphant success, we should magnify the
extent of our achievements, and underrate the dan
gers and the difficulties which surround and await
us ; it is only after the smoke of the battle has clared
away, that we can clearly see and comprehend them.
Let us be careful how we suffer ourselves to indulge
expectations that can terminate only in disappoint
ment. It is important for us to remember that this
European movement does not constitute the end and

16
consummation of the great work of human progress ;
it is only one of many steps which humanity has to
take in her struggling and difficult career; — that
bow of promise, to which the eyes of the nations are
turned, is yet resting on a dark and stormy back
ground. We are to remember especiaUy that the
present revolutionary movement must inevitably faU
to accomplish all that it now hopes for and promises ;
and that it wUl be foUowed, necessarUy, by a reaction
and a retrograde movement, the extent of wJlich vnil
be measured by the amount of its 0"rti violence and
excess. The labors of the Hercules of Freedom and
Democracy are not flnished, but begun only. He has
throttled the serpents that were sent to strangle him
in his cradle, and killed the Nemean Hon ; but there
are Lernsean hydras also yet to be destroyed, and Au
gean stables to be cleansed, — and he himself is to be
purifled of the blood of the centaurs he has slain, not
after but before the golden fr-uit in the garden of the
Hesperides can be gathered.
In endeavoring to estimate the issues and results of
the recent revolutions, we must be guided, principaUy,
by the general condition of the peoples and commu
nities that have accomplished them. They may be in
some degree affected ^ — hindered and disturbed, or
favored and promoted — by external and foreign forces
and influences, but their upshot and destiny must de
pend chiefly upon this general condition. With the
experience and convictions, which we in this country
have acquired, it has become only a truism to sav,
that self-government, — popular, free, and democratic
institutions, — can be secured, and made to work suc
cessfully and well, — fully accomplishing their great
and beneficent ends, — only by the general inteUi-

17
gence, and the general uprightness of the people —
the rulers and the ruled. It seems plain enough, in
the very nature of things — from the principles and
laws of humanity — that this must be so. An indi
vidual who is ignorant, and corrupt, and idle, is dis-
qualifled for the management of his own concerns,
and they consequently fall into disorder, and end in
ruin; the same thing is true of a family — of a
neighborhood — of an empire. It may be difficult
to say with how small a modicum of this general
mental and moral elevation, the forms of free govem
ment may be maintained, and some of its ruder benei-
fits enjoyed — witness the repubUcs of Mexico, and
of South America — but it is quite clear that the
extent and degree of these beneflts wUl be in propor
tion to the extent and degree of this intellectual and
moral culture.
Brought to this standard, and tried by this test, we
may properly and profltably enough inquire, what
the probabUities are, in regard to the progress and
results of the political and social changes, of which
I am speaking. In attempting to answer this inquiry,
the flrst thing that meets us is the fact of the wide
differences which exist in the physical and moral
condition of the people of the different countries and
communities where these changes have taken place.
They have spread through nations variously and
widely diverse, in their culture, their ci"vUization,
their experience, their institutions, their usages, their
religion, and in race.
Occupying the centre of this movement, and lead
ing its van, is France. It is for her especially that
our sympathies are excited ; she was the ally of our
own revolution, she stood by us in the day of our
2*

18
adversity, when we needed her aid ; and she has been
struggling for more than half a century for the prize
that is now within her reach. In regard to her, my
own hopes are stronger than my fears. She has
activity, a good degree of intelligence, and industry.
The masses of her people are the proprietors of her
soU; they tUl it with their own hands; they are
mostly free from extreme wretchedness and po"\erty,
and they are warmly attached to their frugal and con
tented homes ; — they are rarely seen in the train of
the emigrant. She is homogeneous ; pervaded by an
intense feeling of nationaUty ; proud of her achieve
ments in art and in arms; and not distracted and
weakened by separate castes in society, by rival reUg-
ions, or by differing races. She has a more entire
and profound conviction of the brotherhood of hu
manity, — of the fundamental and absolute equaUty
of human rights, — irrespective of color, or race, or
condition, — than any other nation in the world. The
aristocratic element is feebler in France than it is any
where else. She believes what Pope and his coun
trymen sing very weU, but do not beUeve : —
" Honor and shame from no condition rise, —
Act -well your part — there all the honor lies."
She defers less than we do to conventional celebrities,
and to the vulgar power of wealth. She burnt up
in the flre of her flrst revolution the very rags and
tatters of these tyrannical and shabby absm-dities.
She has, of necessity, her weaknesses and defects.
She is over-fond of glory, and of mUitary fame. She
has a chUdish passion for spectacles, — she loves to be
dramatic. Every occasion must he feted — with aU
possible pomp and circumstance— with martial music,
and with streaming banners,— fi-om the establishment

19
of a club of patriot Amazons, to the apotheosis of a
hero, or the inauguration of a state. Worst of aU,
she lacks the rugged strength, especially amongst
her more highly educated and polished classes, that
comes from the union of a deep religious faith, and a
stem morality. But it is a mistake, I think, to caU
her frivolous ; they are wide of the mark who look
upon her as a nation of dancing-masters and flddlers.
The work that she has done, and the names that grace
her annals, in art, in literature, in science, in phUoso
phy, of which England herself might well be proud,
and in which she has held in doubtful equipoise the
supremacy of the haughty mistress of the seas, ought
forever to give the lie to this unworthy and contemp
tuous estimate. Furthermore, it is the testimony of
aU observers, that she has made, since the period of
her first revolution, great improvement in all those
quaUties of character, wherein she was most defective.
And, certainly, the love of order, the mingled mod
eration and firmness, the clemency, and the generous
forbearance, which have marked her conduct, during
the stormy and perUous transition through which she
is now passing, furnish the strongest possible guaranty
of her ultimate success. Her people have shown
themselves prepared for their newly acquired free
dom ; and Providence has raised up leaders worthy
of them, and of their o"wn high mission. There is
hardly ^my thing in the records of civic greatness,
more imposing and sublime, than that brilliant tm-
provization of historic reno-wn, in the modern Athens,
by its better Pericles, — the great, the heroic, the now
immortal Lamartine. ,
Of Germany, as a whole, it is difficult to speak
with any precision, so various and dissimUar are the

20
states and communities that enter into her confedera
tion ; and lack of time, even if there were no other
reasons, would prevent me from attempting to do so
with any considerable detaU. Some portions of her
people are, at least in some important respects, better
prepared for the establishment and maintenance of
popular institutions thap the French ; others are in
all respects vastly less so. Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria,
Baden, and perhaps some of the smaUer powers —
the duchies and free cities — belong to the former
class ; — the greater part of Austria proper and its
heterogeneous dependencies, belong to the latter. The
better elements of the German character are superior
to those of the French; its texture, if less fiexible,
has more of the toughness and endurance that belong
to the Northern races. The old Germanic stock,
though of slower growth than the French, strikes its
strong and vigorous roots into a deeper, richer, and
more genial soil. More than all, there is in Germany
a deeper religious faith than in France, a purer moral
ity, and everywhere, giving new strength, as weU as
gracefulness and beauty to the character, and to life,
a finer and wider development of the domestic affec
tions. Nothing could be more striking, and at the
same time more characteristic, than the contrast
presented by one little incident, during the revolu
tions in France and Prussia. The patriots of Paris
followed the remains of their fallen comrades to thefr
last resting-place, under the column of July, on the
site of the BastUe, singing on their way the words of
the beautiful but Pagan song, —
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ; —
the young students and the sturdy burghers of Berlin
accompanied, amidst lamentations and tears, the fu-

21
neral procession of their slain brothers, to their final
home in Goal's acre, chanting, as they went, the solemn
and lofty chorus of Luther's Christian hymn.
On the other hand, the Germans are less , plastic
than the French ; they are more firmly wedded to
old usages, habits, and institutions, and less ready to
adapt themselves to new circumstances ; — the culture
and spfrit of the higher and middle classes have not
penetrated, in any considerable degree, into the lower ;
their society is stUl pervaded by the aristocratic ele
ment, and miUions of the masses throughout wide
regions of the empire are still sunk in the most abject
degradation. We must conclude, then, it seems to
me, on the whole, that Germany is yet but partiaUy
and imperfectly prepared for thoroughly popular insti
tutions ; so far as this matter is concerned, she is in
healthy and vigorous growth, but stUl in the chUd
hood of her career. Her better states may have
reached the period of their political majority; but
those who hope to see Austria proper and her Sclavo
nic appendages enter at once upon the full possession
of democratic liberty, with safety and advantage to
themselves, are sure to be disappointed.
Yery simUar remarks may be made in regard to
Italy. Its different states are as diverse in thefr con
dition as are those of Germany. WTiUe the people of
Tuscany, and of some other portions of Northern
Italy are, for the most part, physically well off, and
in some degree intelligent, nothing within the range
of European ci"vdlization can exceed their ignorance
and poverty in others. The Italian race has magnifi
cent powers, and a fine organization ; but the elements
of its character have not been kindly mingled, and its
discipline.and culture have been any thing but friendly

22
to private happiness, or social order. Nowhere m
the world can there be found nobler examples of in
di-vidual excellence, — finer combinations of aU that
is great, and good, and graceful in humanity; but
these are, unhappUy, rare instances, — scattered oases
in a wide desert, — soUtary pharoses amidst the black
and weltering waters. ItaUan history has been for
ages, one dark tissue of monstrous and miUtiform
crime, — written aU over with cruelty, and treachery,
and guUe. Poisoning and assassination have been
her famUiar deeds; aqua Tofana, and stiletto, are
words of her own coining, for secret and deadly
weapons^ of her own manufacture. Her freedom has
been the wUd Ucense of lawlessness ; her reUgion has
been bigotry, and her morals but a name. This
gloomy picture is but partiaUy reUeved by the single
examples of which I have spoken, or by the splendor
of her achievements in the sciences, in poetrj", and in
art. Great changes for the better have, I know,
been graduaUy and in some regions pretty rapidly
taking place ; but it requires a long period for such
changes to be thoroughly wrought ; — a nation does
not transform itself in a day, nor in a century. The
people of Tuscany, — the citizens of Leghorn, and
Genoa, and MUan, "with their neighbors, — may be
qualified for the fi-eedom of popiUar institutions ; but
I cannot believe that this is the case with those of
Naples, and some of the smaller duchies, — corrupted
and degraded and oppressed, as they have been, for
successive generations, by proffigate and tyrannical
rulers. This may seem like a harsh judgment on
this loveliest of lands, —
"The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand,
Wherein -were cast the heroic and the free,
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea."

23
May it prove to be so. To no foreign clime, not
linked to us by ties of kindred or of race, do our
sympathies more spontaneously and warmly turn.
She was the romantic dream of our boyhood; her
story was one of its earUest lessons ; the names of
Washington and Bunker Hill are not more famUiar ¦
to us than are those of the Caesars and of Rome.
She has at least, we may hope and believe, cast off,
utterly and forever, the odious domination of the
Austrian, and thus prepared the way for the better
days that are in store for her ; — a deliverance that
may well content one generation. I do not forget
neither, that the voluntary herald and pacific leader
of this European movement was the occupant of the
Pontifical chair ; and I should disappoint your just
expectations, and do violence to my own feelings, did
I suffer this occasion to go by without rendering
hearty homage to the great, the good, the wise, the
liberal, the Christian, Pope Pius the Ninth. The
prayers of the nations go up to heaven for his pro
tection, and their blessings wait upon his name. He
has won for himself a brighter diadem than his triple
crown. The central region of which I have been speaking
is in great part surrounded and hemmed in by a circle
of nations, into which the ideas and principles by
which the former is agitated, have but very partially
entered, or not at all. Let us rapidly sweep round
this mighty segment, beginnmg at its southern ex
tremity. We find here the contiguous and kindred
nations, Spain and Portugal. They once led the way
in aU perUous and romantic achievement, and the
chivalrous valor of CastUe was rung in praises through
every land. The new world received them into its

24
"virgin bosom, and poured its lavish treasures into
their lap. But they are shorn of their strength, and
their glory has departed. Their people have now the
worst elements of the Romanic character in excess,
and almost none of its redeeming qualities; their
very virtues have degenerated into vices. They have
been so long neglected and oppressed by effeminate
and profligate rulers, — kings in the shape of imbecUe
simpletons, — and queens in that of intriguing women,
or weak and ignorant girls, — aided by licentious
favorites, or mUitary adventurers, and by an intolerant
and exacting priesthood, — that their old "virtue and
manhood have all gone out of them. I see no hope
for them, unless God in his love shall raise up some
paternal guardian and guide, like the Roman Pius ;
or set over them in his merciful wrath, some stern
but beneflcent despot, — one of their owa Francias or
Tacons, — who shall purge the land as by flre, of its
corruptions, send life into the stagnant death that
broods over it, and so open the way at least for a
better order of things.
Of Mohammedan Turkey I "mil only say, that she
hag made more substantial progress ui refoi-m, and
in ameliorating the condition of her subjects, than
many of her Christian neighbors.
The whole eastern arc of the segment is occupied
by the vast sweep of the Russian dominions. This
colossal power is the great material and outward bul
wark of despotic rule. The masses of her people
are but just emerging from the night "of barbarism.
An iron tyrant now occupies her throne. Her best
hope is in a succession of wise, humane and paternal
rulers. The day of her democratic redemption is yet
afar off.

25
The mutually related and adjacent countries, Swe
den, Norway, and Denmark, are legitimate branches
of the old Teutonic stock; they wUl bear its fruit,
and share its destiny. They wUl follow in the steps
of their Germanic kindred.
Finally, we complete our cUcuit with the British
islands, — the seat and centre of the British empfre.
I shall not be guUty of the presumption of attempt
ing to cast the horoscope of her destiny; this has
been done often enough, by men both wiser and
foolisher than myself, — with what success, it needs
not to be told. I can only say what some of the
more obvious aspects and appearances are, in her con
dition and prospects, which strike us, as seen from
our present point of view — the American Fourth of
July, eighteen hundred and forty-eight. She looks to
us here, like a nation of enormous and inflnite con
tradictions. She is the richest and the poorest country
in the world, — the fullest of wealth and the fullest
of pauperism. She is covered with glory, and steeped
in shame. Her limbs are decrepid "with age, whUe
her brow is radiant with the manhood of a young
Apollo. She stands before us, like the great image
seen in a "nsion by the king of Babylon, — " whose
brightness was excellent, and the form thereof terri
ble," and whose head was of flne gold, but whose feet
were part of fron, and part of miry clay. Her literature
and her science are amongst her richest treasures —
her highest titles to glory; but the men who have
created these treasures, and won these titles, she has
always held in an inferior social position; and she
has often suffered them to languish in obscurity and
want. Newton, and Shakspeare, and Burns, if they
were now living, would be admitted only on suffer-
3

26
ance, to sit for a permitted hour by the side of lord-
lings and Croesuses, at their princely tables ; —
" The learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool."
She fills the islands that sit in darkness with the
light of Christian civilization, and leaves worse than
Pagan multitudes to perish at her own threshold, for
lack of the bread of life. She arrays the religion of
Him who had not where to lay his head, in regal
pomp and magnificence, and her successors of the
poor fishermen of GalUee are clad in purple and fine
linen, and fare sumptuously every day. Her legisla
ture votes, almost in the same breath, paltry hundreds
for the education of her ignorant chUdren, and la"vish
thousands for the stables of the husband of her queen.
She rightfully claims to have been the parent of con
stitutional government ; and she recognizes the "wUl
of the people as the real and ultimate sovereignty of
the state ; but she turns pale at the name of democ
racy, and she clings with the tenacity of a death-grasp
to the most monstrous inequalities. Her loyalty is
as intense and bigoted, as her feeling of nationality ; —
to us it seems amazing, that a people of such high
civUization, of such strong Saxon sense, of such true
appreciation of justice and right, bred in the .school
of freedom, disciplined and tried in the service of
humanity, enlightened by phUosophy, and possessing
a form of Christianity that asserts the right of private
judgment, and protests against the dictation of a
supreme central authority, should, not merely tolerate
as a necessity, but cherish as the very ark of their
safety, and the very elements of their strength,  a
hereditary aristocracy, endowed by the law with enor
mous and exclusive privUeges; — an opulent and

21
aristocratic priesthood, supported by the state ; — and
the chUdish bauble of a crown, with its costly. and
wasteful appendages. She seems to be hardly less m
love with the abuses and defects of her system, than
she is "with its exceUencies. She gazes with hardly
less pride upon the gnarled knots and the decaying
branches of her glorious old oak, than upon its sturdy
stem, and its green, and wide-waving foliage. She
not only exhibits, but all her institutions encourage
and render permanent, the widest extremes of human
condition. The highest civUization, — luxurious and
elaborate refinement, — various learning, — every at
tainable enjoyment and good — physical and intel
lectual — are the inheritance, more or less generally,
of her upper classes ; — her lovver, — and that too in
miUions that outnumber by twenty to one the for
mer, — are fastened and left in the foulest depths of
degradation and shame. Her very soU is not the
property of her people; they are forever shut out
from its possession ; — tenants at wUl, and not pro
prietors ; — their homes are not their o"wn. She is
loaded with a frightful burden of taxation, under
which she stoops and staggers at every step, — the
drain of that stupendous debt for which she has
nothing to show. I do not see what can save her
from the rock towards which she is, slowly it may be
but irresistibly drifting, but the abolition of her hered
itary aristocracy and her exclusive pri"vUeges; the
withdrawal of a corrupting and iniquitous state
patronage from a particular form of religion; and
the speedy curtaUment of her enormous national
expenditure, — all which, until the day comes, when
she shaU regard the happiness and welfare of her
people as of more importance -than the greatness of

28
her name, and the extent of her dominion and power,
is not very likely to happen. God grant that these
apprehensions, and the forebodings of some of her
o"wn wise men may prove to be unfounded and imagi
nary. May she see the dangers that are before and
around her, and escape them. The worid owes to her
a debt of gratitude which it can hardly repay. She
lighted, far back m the ages, the earUcst signal-fire of
true liberty ; and although she has shut in and con
flned its Ught, she has guarded and defended it val
iantly and weU. Her language, her literature, her
religion, are our own; we came from her "vigorous
loins, and her free blood circulates in our veins. We
indulge towards her no feelings either of ea\j, or
prejudice, or hate. Our best wishes wait upon her,
our best prayers attend her, and our hope is that she
may show herself worthy of her power, her position,
and her race.
" Grave mother of majestic -works.
Prom her isle-altar gazing do-wn.
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And, kiag-Kke, -wears the cro-wn :
" Her open eyes desire the truth.
The -wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears ;
" That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Turning to scorn -with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes."
I could linger much longer in these various fields,
through which we have so cursorUy rambled, but the
flying minutes, and your patience, which is likely soon
to be turned to impatience, if my steps are suffered to
loiter, warn me to hasten on.
My task would be left unfinished, if I did not tum,
at least for a moment, to our own country, before I
close ; but the sands of my allotted hour have already

29
run out, and my words must be brief and few. The
flrst thing that strikes us, in our hurried survey, is
the wondrous growth of the American Union, in ex
tent of territory, in power, in wealth, in resources, —
in population; which has taken place since the period
of my former address. I shall not weary you with
statistics; it is enough for me to say, that her im
mense domain has been enlarged by nearly a quarter
of its entire area ; — the line of her Paciflc coast now
almost rivals in extent her old Atlantic shores, and
the spreading plains of her far west are beheld no
longer from the ridge of the Alleghanies, but from
the summits of the CordUleras and the Rocky Moun
tains. Her population has almost doubled ; and on
the azure field of her banner, six new stars have been
emblazoned, — almost half its original number.
In looking at our internal condition, our ardor is
chUled and our first exultation is lowered by the pres
ence of one contradiction, greater and more fiagrant,
than any that I have attributed to England. You
wiU aU understand me. In some of the states of the
Union, certian portions of the population are held in
comptdsory bondage by the rest. Slavery is one of
their established institutions. It would be foreign
from the design and purpose of my address, to enter
into its general discussion, even if I had time to do
so. I can only admit its inconsistency with the prin
ciples of our government ; deplore its existence as an
e"vU and an anomaly ; disclaim for ourselves any share
in its responsibUities, and hope, by the co-operation
of all true lovers of humanity and of their country,
at the North and the South, in a spirit of justice, for
bearance, and love, for its gradual amelioration and
final removal.

30
With the qualification now stated, I do not see
any thing in our condition and our prospects, which
we may not regard with a reasonable degree of com
placency, and "with confident hope. We are not
exempt from the weaknesses and imperfections of
humanity, and we make no claim to be so. There is
rudeness enough amongst us ; but there is also, e"V"ery
day, a higher and wider refinement, a more general
and genial cultm-e, and aU the "wide "wUderness "wUl
yet blossom like the rose. There is poverty enough ;
but less than in any other land under the sun, —
nowhere else is there such general and boundless
plenty. There is ignorance enough ; but its amount
is daUy diminishing, and no object of pubUc concern
is regarded "with more favor or promoted "with more
zeal, than the universal and improved education of
the people. There is irreligion and "vice enough ; but
there is also as general and "vital a faith as is anywhere
to be found, and a high and pure morality. There is
crime, as there must be wherever human passions are
at play ; but nowhere are more dUigent and successful
efforts made for its repression, and for the reformation
of its perpetrators. We have the deaf, the blind, the
insane, and the idiotic ; but aU over the land are scat
tered asylums for their solace and then- cure. Our
physical and external acti"vity; our material pros
perity ; the general diffusion of competence, and the
rapid accumulation of wealth ; the almost exclusive ap.
propriation of labor and capital, not to the gratification
of the luxurious wants of the few, or to the support
of idle pageantry and power, but to the ad^-ancement
of the moral and physical well-being of the whole, 
all this is unparalleled in the history of the world.
These remarks are applicable, more or less eutfrely.

31
to the whole country. But I wish to say a word of
more limited application ; I must speak for a moment
of Massachusetts alone. And I single her out from
the other free states, not because she is unlike them,
but because she exhibits and sums up their several
better quaUties, and because I am standing upon her
soU. Besides, she is the oldest amongst them, —
" I said an older soldier, not a better." —
She has had the longest experience, — in her bosom
are the graves of our fathers ; she has drunk, longest
and deepest, "vigor and immortal youth from the old
Puritan fountain ; she has felt the refining with almost
nothing of the corrupting infiuences, which fiow fr-om
a large and opulent city ; and she has been elevated in
wisdom, and learning, and virtue, by her venerable
and exceUent university. These circumstances have
placed her in some respects somewhat in advance of
her younger sisters. I may say this without any
danger of being charged with arrogance; I do not
intend to make any invidious or unbecoming compari
sons. I am the native citizen of a state which claims,
and justly too, to have been her far forerunner and
teacher in the great cause of religious toleration and
religious freedom. The other states, which may not
be in all respects her equals, are in some her superiors,
and they are all foUowing close in her footsteps. I
say then, with these preliminaries, — and I am guUty
of no extravagant rhapsody — I am indulging in no
exaggerated, and empty rhetoric,— I am speaking my
sober and deUberate con"victions, the soundness of
which it seems to me no intelligent man can doubt or
deny, — that never since the dawn of human civiUza
tion has the world witnessed so grand a spectacle of
human good, — of general happiness, prosperity, Intel-

32
ligence, freedom, virtue, and progress, — of social order
and individual well-being, — as that which is now
presented by this glorious old commonwealth. The
masses of her people live, — not in ceUars, and huts,
and cabins, and shanties, — but in their o"wn weU-
buUt and comfortable houses, furnished always with
the conveniences of every-day life, and graced often
with the adornments of cultivated and polished soci
ety, — their tables covered with the newspapers, the
magazines, and current volumes of the day, and their
book-cases filled "with the standard learning and Utera
ture of the old and the new world. Can this be
said, — could it ever before have been said of any
nation or people under the sun 1 I know, as every
body knows, that smaU classes may be selected from
the upper ranks of life, in almost every country of
Europe, more learned than we are, "with a higher cul
ture of the sensuous nature, of the imaginative, and,
as the Germans say, the aesthetic faculties; better
drUled in the conventional usages of society, and the
graces of the drawing-rOom ; but in the great elements
of human good that I have enumerated, shared by
the entire mass of the population, I say again, that
she stands, "with her kindred states, alone and unap
proachable ; — they have not now nor ever had either
paraUel or rival.
I must bring my oration to a close. I do not know
that I can do so in any way more appropriately, than
with the mention of three great truths, amongst many
others, that we have demonstrated, — three great les
sons that we have taught to the world.
The first of these is the primary and fundamental
truth of the capabUity of man for what is called self-
government. This had never been sho"vvn before on

33
<^ay considerable scale of extent or duration. The
republics of antiquity, and of Italy in the middle
ages, so far as they taught any thing, taught the con
trary truth. They were almost constantly tossed to
and fro between a turbulent and lawless democracy,
and a corrupt and despotic, even if elective, oligarchy,
in both which the rights and interests of the citizen
were alike forgotten and disregarded. The entire
people never secured to themselves justice, equality,
and freedom, resting upon and guarded by law. This
great problem it has been left for us to solve. The
conditions of its solution, in the mtelligence and virtue
of the people, I have already stated. We have demon
strated the stabUity, the safety, the efficiency, and the
economy of popular govemment. Nowhere in the
world are person and property better protected, or
more secure, than they are here, and nowhere else
does this protection cost so little. It is worthy of re
mark, as a most strUdng and significant fact, that the
general confidence in this capabUity has been steadUy
increasing ever since the organization of our govem
ment. Our faith grows every day stronger and not
weaker. Our fears are dissipated, and our hopes are
confirmed. That " tide of successful experiment," of
which Jefferson spoke years ago, has met with no
check, and has had no ebb. We are constantly en
larging the sphere of the dUect action of the people
in the administration and conduct of public affairs.
Nothing can be more obvious than this democratic
tendency and progress, in all parties, and amongst all
classes, and the daUy strengthening of this democratic
faith. The second of these truths is that of the entire
absence of any necessity, in a fi-ee state, for a standing

34
army. The theory and practice of government have
always been, that internal order and external security
could only be maintained by a constant and formidable
array of force, — that its own subjects could be kept
in subordination, and other nations at bay, only by
bristling bayonets aU over its surface, and aU round
its frontiers. The treasuries of the nations have been
drained, and the people of aU Europe have been
impoverished, for ages, by the enormous waste and
consumption of these idle, corrupt, and worse than
worthless armies. The Christian nations of the
world — as they call themselves — have always pre
sented, and they stUl continue to present, this strangest
of spectacles, — general toU and poverty and wretched
ness borne for continuous generations — in order that
they may be armed to the teeth for the triple purpose,
of guarding and sustaining the exclusive privUeges of
the few ; coercing the rest into submission ; and in
vading or repelling the invasions of their neighbors.
We have shown all this to be as unnecessary as it is
costly, corrupting, and oppressive. We have shown
that the only peace establishment, requisite for the
security of order and good government, and for the
maintenance of our rights, is the civU police on the
land, and an armed police on the sea ; and that, Tvith
an adequate number of educated leaders, the most
efficient of all war establishments is a citizen mUitia, —
a soldiery springing voluntarUy from the ranks of in
dustry and labor, for the defence of the country when
this defence is caUed for, and returning to the same
ranks when their work has been accomplished.
In the third place, we have shown, that the highest
of all human interests, those of religion, are most
positively secured, and most efficiently promoted, by

35
separating it wholly from the state, and leaving it, so
far as the state is concerned, entirely to itself The
patronage of government is only a fetter on its free
limbs, and poison in its veins. I am not speaking of
religious freedom and toleration merely. The out
rageous and impertinent tyranny of an enforced con
formity to certain prescribed forms and dogmas — that
atrocious violation of the most sacred rights and
instincts of the human soul — we long ago resisted
and cast off. I am not speaking of this, but of that
later-discovered truth, that God is sufficient for him
self; that the progress of His kingdom upon the earth
is not advanced but hindered by the direct interference
of human governments ; that the relations between
Him and His creatures are multiplied, and strength
ened, and drawn closer, when they are left to arrange
themselves in spontaneous obedience to His laws, and
not under the coercion of ours.
These truths are of infinite value. Their general
recognition would regenerate the world. They wUl
be denied and rejected at the perU of all that is best
and greatest in the condition and the destiny of man.
I can hardly help saying, in conclusion, that some of
our transatlantic commentators and revUers, — critic
flies, peering with microscopic vision into the flaws
and inequalities on the dome of St. Peter's, — might
be better and more profitably occupied, in the study of
these truths, and the other aspects of our position,
which I have mentioned in this address, than in maud
lin and cockney lamentations over the bowie-knife of
a backwoodsman, or the idiom of a Yankee rustic.
I have spoken of the prospects of our country. I
know well enough how easy it is to cherish extrava
gant _ and ridiculous anticipations, and how often we

36
ourselves have been charged with this facUe infirmity.
But I do not see how it is possible for us to contem
plate this subject and not kindle into the glowing
ardor of enthusiasm and exultation. It seems to me
that a grander and more magnificent destiny awaits —
not probably but inevitably — this American Union,
than was ever before vouchsafed to any nation or
people of the earth. The historic glories of the Assyr
ian, the Greek, and the Roman name shaU " pale their
ineffectual fires " before the advancing splendor of her
noon-day sun. She has within herself more potent
and gigantic elements of moral and material greatness
than were ever before brought together in kindly
co-operation. Her swarming population shaU cover
the continent ; and her censuses shaU be reckoned by
hundreds of millions. Peace shall be "within her
walls, and prosperity "within her palaces; her sons
shall be brave, and her daughters "virtuous ; and her
chUdren shall rise up and call her blessed. And in
the indulgence of these high expectations, my thoughts
are limited by no narrow horizon ; nor are they founded
upon any brief experience, or any principles of merely
local application. They are world-wide in their em
brace, and they rest in the eternal order of things. I
do not believe in any .natural and necessary decay and
dissolution of empires ; I have an unalterable faith in
the steady advancement of humanity : —
" I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs.
And the thoughts of men are -widened -with the process of the suns."
Prophecy and phUosophy alike declare, that the king
dom of God shaU yet come to us here below. The
problem of human good shall be solved; the great
destiny of humanity shall be finally wrought out;

&7
oppression, and tyranny, and wrong, shall cease ; the
reign of justice and right shaU be estabUshed, —
" And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law."
In regard to the destiny of our o"wn republic, there
is one great contingency, to which I must aUude ; I
mean that of the dissolution of the Union, — the dis
ruption of the bond that holds these confederated
states together. This has been looked upon by our
wisest men, and by our people generally, sometimes
as the most imminent, and always as the most fearful
and momentous, of the perUs that await us. It and
the do"wnfaU of our greatness have been written
together. It may happen. I should lament if* it did ;
but I do not believe that it wUl. I devoutly trust,
that our proud nationaUty — with its common remem
brances, and its common hopes — wUl never be de
stroyed. But if in the ordering of Providence, or
through our 0"wn folly, this evU should faU upon us,
I wovdd stUl hold fast to my confldence ahd my faith.
There is a direr calamity than this, — the dying out
from the great heart of the people of its manhood
and its "virtue, — and there is no other that is irretriev
able and flnal. Some years ago, when this possible
catastrophe seemed nearer and more threatening than
it ever has since, I Ustened with some few others who
are here, to one of those magniflcent perorations of
the great American orator, which swell upon the ear,
now Uke the trumpet of doom, and now like the jubi
lant song of the seraphim; So far as I know, it has
never been published. He was standing, he said, upon
the bruik of a yawning gulf, full of unfathomable
darkness ; he turned his eyes to the heavens, and he
saw ^he firmament breaking up, and, in his own
words — not easUy forgotten — fi-om amidst the gloom

3-8
of its shattered fragments, the federal stars, Uke those
once beheld in the great Apocalyptic vision, falling
together, from their serene elevations, down into the
blackness of the chasm at his feet. With my stronger
faith, though "with feebler sight, I could see, it seemed
to me, another and a different vision. I saw the
shattered fragments re-adjust and re-unite themselves ;
the gloom that wrapped them in darkness was dis-
peUed ; and I saw these stars of the northern hemis
phere, jostled only from their orbits, arranged in new
systems, and marshalled into new consteUations, —
stUl wheeling in the eternal spaces, — never to set, —
and to be blotted out only in that hour when the
heavens themselves shaU be roUed together as a scroU,
and the Angel of the Lord shaU proclaim that it is
finished.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 02247 1891

' 1. V

u > H ' . v^ ¦•, 1
,'# ), ¦ ' 111 ^'•:,.,

-¦'if

^^S-;-A

i '

' V

. ''1^ ^'\t^ ij I , '

. / ,' ',

; I

''^x' >

-4'{V a*' 'V-

fT
^ '-.^w^
i!.i
,'1 .r /
- /^ i>f. Vj„i
y .>, ^ ^ ^"^ T' ^ 'toft ^^'f /-'' ' "^, ¦'< 'A ^ f/,V!^' t -^ " / , '"^ f '-*'
•-'''.''*;* "I ' '.,,.< \ . ' ' -Jv'%.:-^,'-^' 7.'-'
-II' ."' tl ' "*• -^ -^
-.J'-Jl-
liU'V^^
_ < ' I J • 4 ; • J • ' - . ; I . '
w*J^W It. *". '
V,
' /i' I