Chapter XX: Part II: Readings and Recitations From the Most Celebrated Authors (6)

And there is loud laughing and cheering all round.

The pretty little captain had not studied her classical
dictionary for nothing. “I have paid off an old ‘score,’” she
said. “Set down my damask roses against the golden apples of
Hippomenes!” It was that one second lost in snatching up the
bouquet which gave the race to the Atalantas!

PHILLIPS OF PELHAMVILLE.

Short is the story I say, if you will
Hear it, of Phillips of Pelhamville:

An engineer for many a day
Over miles and miles of the double way.

He was out that day, running sharp, for he knew
He must shunt ahead for a train overdue,

The South Express coming on behind
With the swing and rush of a mighty wind.

No need to say in this verse of mine
How accidents happen along the line.

A rail lying wide to the gauge ahead,
A signal clear when it should be red;

An axle breaking, the tire of a wheel
Snapping off at a hidden flaw in the steel.

Enough. There were wagons piled up in the air,
As if some giant had tossed them there.

Rails broken and bent like a willow wand,
And sleepers torn up through the ballast and sand.

The hiss of the steam was heard, as it rushed
Through the safety-valves; the engine crushed

Deep into the slope, like a monster driven
To hide itself from the eye of heaven.

But where was Phillips? From underneath
The tender wheels, with their grip of death,

They drew him, scalded by steam, and burned
By the engine fires as it overturned.

They laid him gently upon the slope,
Then knelt beside him with little of hope.

Though dying, he was the only one
Of them all that knew what ought to be done;

For his fading eye grew quick with a fear,
As if of some danger approaching near.

And it sought—not the wreck of his train that lay
Over the six and the four feet away—

But down the track, for there hung on his mind
The South Express coming up behind.

And he half arose with a stifled groan,
While his voice had the same old ring in its tone:

“Signal the South Express!” he said,
Then fell back in the arms of his fireman, dead.

Short, as you see, is this story of mine,
And of one more hero of the line.

For hero he was, though before his name
Goes forth no trumpet-blast of fame.

Yet true to his duty, as steel to steel,
Was Phillips the driver of Pelhamville.

ALEXANDER ANDERSON.

POOR LITTLE JIM.

The cottage was a thatched one, the outside old and mean,
But all within that little cot was wondrous neat and clean;
The night was dark and stormy, the wind was howling wild,
As a patient mother sat beside the death-bed of her child:
A little worn-out creature, his once bright eyes grown dim:
It was a collier’s wife and child, they called him little Jim.

And oh! to see the briny tears fast hurrying down her cheek,
As she offered up the prayer, in thought, she was afraid to speak,
Lest she might waken one she loved far better than her life;
For she had all a mother’s heart, had that poor collier’s wife.
With hands uplifted, see, she kneels beside the sufferer’s bed,
And prays that He would spare her boy, and take herself instead.

She gets her answer from the child: soft fall the words from him:
“Mother, the angels do so smile, and beckon little Jim,
I have no pain, dear mother, now, but oh! I am so dry,
Just moisten poor Jim’s lips again, and, mother, don’t you cry.”
With gentle, trembling haste she held the liquid to his lip;
He smiled to thank her as he took each little, tiny sip;

“Tell father, when he comes from work, I said good-night to him,
And, mother, now I’ll go to sleep.” Alas! poor little Jim!
She knew that he was dying; that the child she loved so dear
Had uttered the last words she might ever hope to hear:
The cottage door is opened, the collier’s step is heard,
The father and the mother meet, yet neither speak a word.

He felt that all was over, he knew his child was dead,
He took the candle in his hand and walked toward the bed;
His quivering lips gave token of the grief he’d fain conceal,
And see, his wife has joined him—the stricken couple kneel:
With hearts bowed down by sadness, they humbly ask of Him,
In heaven once more to meet again their own poor little Jim.

ORATIONS BY FAMOUS ORATORS.

An oration, strictly speaking, is an elaborate discourse delivered on some special occasion, and in a somewhat formal and dignified manner. As this class of recitations stands by itself and is quite different from the other selections contained in this volume, I have grouped together here a number of Famous Orations, all of which have given their authors celebrity. These are well suited for public delivery by those who prefer this kind of recitation and have the oratorical ability required for reciting them.

TRUE MORAL COURAGE.

BY HENRY CLAY.

When reference is made to America’s greatest orators it is customary to mention the name of Henry Clay among the very first. He was frequently called “The Mill Boy of the Slashes,” from the fact that he was a poor boy and was born in a district in Virginia called “the Slashes.” Mr. Clay was tall and slender and had a voice of wonderful range and sympathy, was remarkably easy and graceful in manner, and few orators who ever lived possessed such persuasive power.

The opening part of this fine selection should be delivered in a rather quiet, slightly satirical tone; but in the later passages the speaker should grow warm and enthusiastic, and voice and gesture should express a full appreciation of the lofty sentiments he is uttering.

There is a sort of courage, which, I frankly confess it, I do not
possess—a boldness to which I dare not aspire, a valor which I
cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the way of the welfare
and happiness of my country. That, I cannot—I have not the
courage to do. I cannot interpose the power with which I may be
invested—a power conferred, not for my personal benefit, nor for
my aggrandizement, but for my country’s good—to check her onward
march to greatness and glory. I have not courage enough. I am too
cowardly for that.

I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a threat, lie
down, and place my body across the path that leads my country
to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely
different from that which a man may display in his private
conduct and personal relations. Personal or private courage
is totally distinct from that higher and nobler courage which
prompts the patriot to offer himself a voluntary sacrifice to his
country’s good.

Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes
impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the
greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of
courage.

But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private
life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in
the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these
passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle
of his own personal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn
from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his
firmness, himself.

The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriotism
which, soaring toward heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or
selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought
of the good and the glory of one’s country, are never felt in
his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its
inspiration of the immortal God, and, leaving at an immeasurable
distance below all lesser, groveling, personal interests and
feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of
valor, of devotion, and of death itself—that is public virtue;
that is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues!

THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY.

BY JOSIAH QUINCY.

An American orator and patriot, born in Massachusetts in 1744, Mr. Quincy, by his fervid and convincing eloquence, was one of the most powerful champions of the popular cause of independence.

Be not deceived, my countrymen. Believe not these venal
hirelings, when they would cajole you by their subtleties into
submission, or frighten you by their vaporings into compliance.
When they strive to flatter you by the terms “moderation and
prudence,” tell them that calmness and deliberation are to guide
the judgment; courage and intrepidity command the action. When
they endeavor to make us “perceive our inability to oppose our
mother country,” let us boldly answer—In defence of our civil
and religious rights, we dare oppose the world; with the God of
armies on our side, even the God who fought our fathers’ battles,
we fear not the hour of trial, though the hosts of our enemies
should cover the field like locusts. If this be enthusiasm, we
will live and die enthusiasts.

Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a
“halter” intimidate. For, under God, we are determined, that
wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make
our exit, we will die freemen. Well do we know that all the
regalia of this world can not dignify the death of a villain, nor
diminish the ignominy with which a slave shall quit existence.

Neither can it taint the unblemished honor of a son of freedom
though he should make his departure on the already prepared
gibbet, or be dragged to the newly-erected scaffold for
execution. With the plaudits of his country, and what is more,
the plaudits of his conscience, he will go off the stage. The
history of his life, his children shall venerate. The virtues of
their sires shall excite their emulation.

Is the debt we owe posterity paid? Answer me, thou coward, who
hidest thyself in the hour of trial! If there is no reward in
this life, no prize of glory in the next, capable of animating
thy dastard soul, think and tremble, thou miscreant! at the whips
and stripes thy master shall lash thee with on earth—and the
flames and scorpions thy second master shall torment thee with
hereafter!

Oh my countrymen! what will our children say, when they read the
history of these times, should they find that we tamely gave way,
without one noble struggle for the most invaluable of earthly
blessings! As they drag the galling chain, will they not execrate
us? If we have any respect for things sacred, any regard to the
dearest treasure on earth; if we have one tender sentiment for
posterity; if we would not be despised by the world; let us, in
the most open, solemn manner, and with determined fortitude,
swear—we will die if we cannot live freemen. While we have
equity, justice, and God on our side, tyranny, spiritual or
temporal, shall never ride triumphant in a land inhabited by
Englishmen.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.

BY HENRY ARMITT BROWN.

From the oration delivered upon the occasion of the Centennial Anniversary of the meeting of the first Colonial Congress in Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia. This oration is the masterpiece of a young orator who died when but little past the age of thirty, having already gained a wide celebrity for scholarly attainments and commanding eloquence. It is remarkable for boldness of thought and fervor of expression.

The conditions of life are always changing, and the experience of
the fathers is rarely the experience of the sons. The temptations
which are trying us are not the temptations which beset their
footsteps, nor the dangers which threaten our pathway the dangers
which surrounded them. These men were few in number; we are
many. They were poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we
are strong. What is it, countrymen, that we need to-day? Wealth?
Behold it in your hands. Power? God hath given it you. Liberty?
It is your birthright. Peace? It dwells amongst you.

You have a Government founded in the hearts of men, built by the
people for the common good. You have a land flowing with milk and
honey; your homes are happy, your workshops busy, your barns are
full. The school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing press,
have welded you together into one. Descend those mines that
honeycomb the hills! Behold that commerce whitening every sea!
Stand by your gates and see that multitude pour through them from
the corners of the earth, grafting the qualities of older stocks
upon one stem; mingling the blood of many races in a common
stream, and swelling the rich volume of our English speech with
varied music from an hundred tongues.

You have a long and glorious history, a past glittering with
heroic deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and imperishable
examples. You have passed through danger, endured privation,
been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by suffering. You have
journeyed in safety through the wilderness and crossed in
triumph the Red Sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who
led you hath not faltered nor the light of His countenance been
turned away.

It is a question for us now, not of the founding of a new
government, but of the preservation of one already old; not of
the formation of an independent power, but of the purification
of a nation’s life; not of the conquest of a foreign foe, but of
the subjection of ourselves. The capacity of man to rule himself
is to be proven in the days to come, not by the greatness of his
wealth; not by his valor in the field; not by the extent of his
dominion, nor by the splendor of his genius.

The dangers of to-day come from within. The worship of self, the
love of power, the lust for gold, the weakening of faith, the
decay of public virtue, the lack of private worth—these are the
perils which threaten our future; these are the enemies we have
to fear; these are the traitors which infest the camp; and the
danger was far less when Catiline knocked with his army at the
gates of Rome, than when he sat smiling in the Senate House. We
see them daily face to face; in the walk of virtue; in the road
to wealth; in the path to honor; on the way to happiness. There
is no peace between them and our safety. Nor can we avoid them
and turn back. It is not enough to rest upon the past. No man or
nation can stand still. We must mount upward or go down. We must
grow worse or better. It is the Eternal Law—we cannot change it.

My countrymen: this anniversary has gone by forever, and my
task is done. While I have spoken, the hour has passed from us;
the hand has moved upon the dial, and the old century is dead.
The American Union hath endured an hundred years! Here, on this
threshold of the future, the voice of humanity shall not plead to
us in vain. There shall be darkness in the days to come; danger
for our courage; temptation for our virtue; doubt for our faith;
suffering for our fortitude. A thousand shall fall before us, and
tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall pass beneath
our feet, and century follow century in quick succession. The
generations of men shall come and go; the greatness of yesterday
shall be forgotten; to-day and the glories of this noon shall
vanish before to-morrow’s sun; but America shall not perish, but
endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons.

SPEECH OF SHREWSBURY BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH.

BY FREDERIC VON SCHILLER.

God whose most wondrous hand has four times protected you, and
who to-day gave the feeble arm of gray hairs strength to turn
aside the stroke of a madman, should inspire confidence. I will
not now speak in the name of justice: this is not the time. In
such a tumult, you cannot hear her still small voice. Consider
this only: you are fearful now of the living Mary; but I say it
is not the living you have to fear. _Tremble at the dead—the
beheaded._ She will rise from the grave a fiend of dissension.
She will awaken the spirit of revenge in your kingdom, and wean
the hearts of your subjects from you. At present she is an object
of dread to the British; but when she is no more, they will
revenge her.

No longer will she then be regarded as the enemy of their faith;
her mournful fate will cause her to appear as the grand-daughter
of their king, the victim of man’s hatred, and woman’s jealousy.
Soon will you see the change appear! Drive through London after
the bloody deed has been done; show yourself to the people, who
now surround you with joyful acclamations: then will you see
another England, another people! No longer will you then walk
forth encircled by the radiance of heavenly justice which now
binds every heart to you. Dread the frightful name of tyrant
which will precede you through shuddering hearts, and resound
through every street where you pass. You have done the last
irrevocable deed. What head stands fast when this sacred one has
fallen?

THE PROSPECTS OF THE REPUBLIC.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

This, then, is the theatre on which the intellect of America is
to appear, and such the motives to its exertion, such the mass
to be influenced by its energies, such the crowd to witness its
efforts, such the glory to crown its success. If I err in this
happy vision of my country’s fortunes, I thank God for an error
so animating. If this be false may I never know the truth. Never
may you, my friends, be under any other feeling than that a
great, a growing, an immeasurably expanding country is calling
upon you for your best services.

The most powerful motives call on us for those efforts which
our common country demands of all her children. Most of us are
of that class who owe whatever of knowledge has shone into our
minds, to the free and popular institutions of our native land.
There are few of us, who may not be permitted to boast, that we
have been reared in an honest poverty or a frugal competence, and
owe everything to those means of education which are equally open
to all.

We are summoned to new energy and zeal by the high nature of
the experiment we are appointed in Providence to make, and the
grandeur of the theatre on which it is to be performed. When the
Old World afforded no longer any hope, it pleased Heaven to open
this last refuge of humanity. The attempt has begun, and is going
on, far from foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under
the most benignant prospects; and it certainly rests with us to
solve the great problem in human society, to settle, and that
forever, that momentous question—whether mankind can be trusted
with a purely popular system?

One might almost think, without extravagance, that the departed
wise and good of all places and times are looking down from
their happy seats to witness what shall now be done by us;
that they who lavished their treasures and their blood of old,
who labored and suffered, who spake and wrote, who fought and
perished, in the one great cause of freedom and truth, are now
hanging from their orbs on high, over the last solemn experiment
of humanity.

As I have wandered over the spots, once the scene of their
labors, and mused among the prostrate columns of their senate
houses and forums, I have seemed almost to hear a voice from the
tombs of departed ages; from the sepulchers of the nations, which
died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us, to be
faithful to our trust.

They implore us, by the long trials of struggling humanity, by
the blessed memory of the departed; by the dear faith, which
has been plighted by pure hands, to the holy cause of truth and
man; by the awful secrets of the prison houses, where the sons
of freedom have been immured; by the noble heads which have been
brought to the block; by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent
ruins of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light which
is rising on the world. Greece cries to us, by the convulsed lips
of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes; and Rome pleads with us, in
the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully.

THE PEOPLE ALWAYS CONQUER.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

As a finished scholar and eloquent speaker, Mr. Everett gained the highest distinction. His silvery tones and flowery periods held multitudes spellbound. His orations were always prepared with the greatest care, delivered from memory, and are models of elevated thought and sentiment and brilliant diction. He was the finished orator, noted for the classic beauty of his writings.

Sir, in the efforts of the people—of the people struggling for
their rights—moving, not in organized, disciplined masses, but in
their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart—there
is something glorious. They can then move forward without
orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming
lines of battle without entrenchments to cover or walls to shield
them.

No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful
soldier the freshness of that home, where his mother and his
sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to
hear good news from the wars; no long service in the ranks of a
conqueror has turned the veteran’s heart into marble. Their valor
springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to
the preservation of a life knit by no pledges to the life of
others; but in the strength and spirit of the cause alone, they
act, they contend, they bleed. In this they conquer.

The people always conquer. They always _must_ conquer. Armies may
be defeated, kings may be overthrown, and new dynasties imposed,
by foreign arms, on an ignorant and slavish race, that cares not
in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in
whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out.

But the people never invade; and, when they rise against the
invader, are never subdued. If they are driven from the plains,
they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are
their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket their palisado; and
nature, God, is their ally! Now he overwhelms the hosts of their
enemies beneath his drifting mountains of sand; now he buries
them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snows; He lets loose
his tempest on their fleets; He puts a folly into their counsels,
a madness into the hearts of their leaders; He never gave, and
never will give, a final triumph over a virtuous and gallant
people, resolved to be free.

“For Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son
Though baffled oft, is ever won.”

TO THE SURVIVORS OF BUNKER HILL.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER.

One of the towering names in American statesmanship is that of Daniel Webster, “the great defender of the Constitution.” Mr. Webster was not more remarkable for intellectual power than he was for masterly eloquence. His triumphs in Senatorial debate and on great public occasions are historic. In person he was large and brawny, with a swarthy complexion, massive head, and always conveyed the impression of strength, and, at times, even of majesty. His orations are masterpieces of patriotic fervor and scholarly culture.

Venerable men: you have come down to us from a former generation.
Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might
behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years
ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors,
shoulder to shoulder, in the strife of your country. Behold how
altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same
ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now
no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and
flame rising from burning Charlestown.

The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous
charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to
repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated
resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an
instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death;—all
these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is
peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs,
which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen
in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for
the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight
of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you
with a universal jubilee.

Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying
at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it,
are not means of annoyance to you, but your country’s own means
of distinction and defence. All is peace; and God has granted
you this sight of your country’s happiness, ere you slumber in
the grave for ever. He has allowed you to behold and partake the
reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons
and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present
generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty,
to thank you!

But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned
your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy,
Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band.
You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country
in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But
let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of
men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had
been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your
country’s independence established and to sheathe your swords
from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of
Peace, like

“another morn,
Risen on mid-noon;”—

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.

SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER.

The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South
Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her revolutionary
and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not
acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard
for whatever of distinguished talent, or distinguished character,
South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor; I partake
in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one
and all. The Laurenses, Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters,
the Marions—Americans all—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in
by state lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of
being circumscribed within the same narrow limits.

In their day and generation, they served and honored the country,
the whole country, and their renown is of the treasures of
the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman bears
himself—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his
patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes
had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts instead of
South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit
a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No,
sir—increased gratification and delight, rather. Sir, I thank
God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said
to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I
trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or
elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happened to
spring up beyond the limits of my own State and neighborhood;
when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage
due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere
devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon
endowment of heaven—if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue
in any son of the South—and if, moved by local prejudice, or
gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe
of a hair, from his just character and just fame, may my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth!

I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts—she needs none.
There she is—behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her
history—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is
secure. There is Boston and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker’s
Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons,
fallen in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled
with the soil of every State, from New England to Georgia; and
there they will lie forever.

EULOGIUM ON SOUTH CAROLINA.

BY ROBERT T. HAYNE.

This distinguished American orator was born in the parish of Saint Paul, South Carolina. His eminent ability soon secured for him a seat in the United States Senate. The following is from one of his orations delivered in the celebrated controversy between himself and Daniel Webster. It is a glowing defense of his native state, and is memorable in the annals of forensic eloquence.

If there be one State in the Union, and I say it not in a
boastful spirit, that may challenge comparison with any other for
a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the
Union, that State is South Carolina. From the very commencement
of the Revolution, up to this hour, there is no sacrifice,
however great, she has not cheerfully made, no service she
has ever hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your
prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung to you with more
than filial affection.

No matter what was the condition of her domestic affairs, though
deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded by
difficulties, the call of the country has been to her as the
voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man
became reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were
all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to
the altar of their common country.

What was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? I honor
New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But, great
as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal
honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of their
brethren with a generous zeal which did not suffer them to stop
to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the
mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a
commercial rivalship, they might have found, in their situation,
a guarantee that their trade would be forever fostered and
protected by Great Britain. But trampling on all considerations,
either of interest or safety, they rushed into the conflict,
and, fighting for principle, perilled all in the sacred cause of
freedom.

Never was there exhibited in the history of the world higher
examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic
endurance than by the Whigs of Carolina during the Revolution!
The whole State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an
overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished
on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe.

The “plains of Carolina” drank up the most precious blood of her
citizens. Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had
been the habitations of her children. Driven from their homes
into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the
spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sustained by the
example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved, by her conduct,
that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people
was invincible.

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

BY WENDELL PHILLIPS.

It has been said of Mr. Phillips that in his public addresses he was “a gentleman talking,” so easy and graceful was his manner. “The golden-mouthed Phillips” was also an appropriate title. Considered simply as an orator, perhaps our country has never produced his superior.

It matters very little what spot may have been the birthplace 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, and the earth
rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the climate
that it cleared; how bright, in the brow of the firmament, was
the planet which it revealed to us!

In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if
Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the
virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory
to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there
were, splendid exemplifications of some singular qualification;
Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient;
but it was reserved for Washington to bind 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
perfection of every master.

As a general, he marshalled the peasant 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 counsels, that to
the soldier, and the statesman he 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
the 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 hemisphere,
resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic
life to the adoration of a land he might almost be said to have
created?

“How shall we rank thee upon Glory’s page,
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,
Far less, than all thou hast forborne to be!”

Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of
partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud America! The
lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations
of earth could not seduce your patriotism.

NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON.

BY ROBERT C. WINTHROP.

One of “Boston’s hundred orators” is the author of this eloquent oration, which was delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of Washington’s monument, that imposing shaft which is one of the greatest objects of interest at our national capital. Scarcely any finer tribute was ever paid to the Father of his Country. It should be delivered with full volume of voice and sustained energy.

Fellow-citizens, let us seize this occasion to renew to each
other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American Union,
and let us recognize in our common title to the name and the
fame of Washington, and in our common veneration for his example
and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal power, which
shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in one
glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about
to construct be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union!

Let the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up
and cemented, let each stone be raised and riveted in a spirit
of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the rising
sun—till that sun shall set to rise no more—draw forth from
it daily, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of
national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every
heart throughout the republic!

Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you
have assembled. Lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall
adequately bespeak the gratitude of the whole American people to
the illustrious father of his country! Build it to the skies; you
can not outreach the loftiness of his principles! Found it upon
the massive and eternal rock; you can not make it more enduring
than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble; you
cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and
principles of ancient and of modern art; you cannot make it more
proportionate than his character.

But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to
transfer to a tablet or a column the tribute which is due from
yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only be rendered by
observing his precepts and imitating his example. He has built
his own monument. We, and those who come after us, in successive
generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians.

The wide-spread republic is the future monument to Washington.
Maintain its independence. Uphold its constitution. Preserve
its union. Defend its liberty. Let it stand before the world in
all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order,
equality, and freedom, to all within its boundaries, and shedding
light and hope and joy upon the pathway of human liberty
throughout the world—and Washington needs no other monument.
Other structures may testify our veneration for him; this, alone
can adequately illustrate his service to mankind.

Nor does he need even this. The republic may perish; the wide
arch of our ranged Union may fall; star by star its glories
may expire; stone by stone its columns and its capitol may
moulder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals
may be forgotten; but as long as human hearts shall anywhere
pant, or human tongues anywhere plead, for a true, rational,
constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the memory,
and those tongues prolong the fame, of George Washington.

THE NEW WOMAN.

BY FRANCES E. WILLARD.

Although it is not customary to include women among orators, an exception must be made in the case of Miss Willard. Few men have ever possessed her command over popular audiences. Her eloquence drew multitudes to listen to her burning appeals in behalf of the reforms of the day, among whom were always many who protested that they “never liked to hear a woman talk in public.”

Miss Willard’s remarkable gifts, her zeal and earnestness, and her devotion to her cause, gave her a world-wide reputation. This extract from one of her eloquent public addresses is bright in thought, wholesome in sentiment, and is a model of effective speech.

Let us be grateful that our horizon is widening. We women have
learned to reason from effect to cause. It is considered a fine
sign of a thinker to be able to reason from cause to effect.
But we, in fourteen years’ march, have learned to go from the
drunkard in the gutter, who was the object lesson we first saw,
back to the children, as you will hear to-night; back to the idea
of preventive, educational, evangelistic, social, and legal work
for temperance; back to the basis of the saloon itself.

We have found that the liquor traffic is joined hand in hand with
the very sources of the National Government. And we have come to
the place where we want prohibition, first, last, and all the
time. While the brewer talks about his “vested interests,” I lend
my voice to the motherhood of the nation that has gone down into
the valley of unutterable pain and in the shadow of death, with
the dews of eternity upon the mother’s brow, given birth and
being to the sons who are the “vested interests” of America’s
homes.

We offset the demand of the brewer and distiller, that you shall
protect their ill-gotten gains, with the thought of these most
sacred treasures, dear to the hearts that you, our brothers,
honor—dear to the hearts that you love best. I bring to you this
thought, to-night, that you shall vote to represent us, and
hasten the time when we can represent ourselves.

I believe that we are going out into this work, being schooled
and inspired for greater things than we have dreamed, and
that the army of women will prove the grandest sisterhood the
world has ever known. As I have seen the love and kindness and
good-will of women who differed so widely from us politically and
religiously, and yet have found away down in the depths of their
hearts the utmost love and affection, I have said, what kind of a
world will this be when all women are as fond of each other as we
strong-minded women are?

Home is the citadel of everything that is good and pure on earth;
nothing must enter there to defile, neither anything which
loveth or maketh a lie. And it shall be found that all society
needed to make it altogether homelike was the home-folks; that
all government needed to make it altogether pure from the fumes
of tobacco and the debasing effects of strong drink, was the
home-folks; that wherever you put a woman who has the atmosphere
or home about her, she brings in the good time of pleasant and
friendly relationship, and points with the finger of hope and
the eye of faith always to something better—always it is better
farther on.

As I look around and see the heavy cloud of apathy under which
so many still are stifled, who take no interest in these things,
I just think they do not half mean the hard words that they
sometimes speak to us, or they wouldn’t if they knew; and, after
awhile, they will have the same views I have, spell them with a
capital V, and all be harmonious, like Barnum’s happy family, a
splendid menagerie of the whole human race—clear-eyed, kind and
victorious!

AN APPEAL FOR LIBERTY.

BY JOSEPH STORY.

I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors—by the
dear ashes which repose in this precious soil—by all you are, and
all you hope to be—resist every object of disunion, resist every
encroachment upon your liberties, resist every attempt to fetter
your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish
your system of public instruction.

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the
love of your offspring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or
lean on your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the
altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country,
and never to forget or forsake her.

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose
inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which
brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too
soon, if necessary in defence of the liberties of your country.

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers,
and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow
to the grave, with the recollection that you have lived in vain.
May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of slaves.

No; I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far
brighter visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be
gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our
departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the
theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs. May he who, at
the distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate
this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous
people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all
the enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here
is still his country.

THE TRUE SOURCE OF REFORM.

BY EDWIN H. CHAPIN.

As a pulpit orator and lecturer Mr. Chapin was widely known and popular. His style was ornate and finished, and when to this was added his grand voice and magnetic delivery, his audiences could not resist the charm of his eloquence. His opinions placed him in the front ranks of reformers.

The great element of reform is not born of human wisdom, it does
not draw its life from human organizations. I find it only in
Christianity. “Thy kingdom come!” There is a sublime and pregnant
burden in this prayer. It is the aspiration of every soul that
goes forth in the spirit of Reform. For what is the significance
of this prayer? It is a petition that all holy influences would
penetrate and subdue and dwell in the heart of man, until he
shall think, and speak, and do good, from the very necessity of
his being.

So would the institutions of error and wrong crumble and pass
away. So would sin die out from the earth; and the human soul
living in harmony with the Divine will, this earth would become
like heaven. It is too late for the reformers to sneer at
Christianity—it is foolishness for them to reject it. In it are
enshrined our faith in human progress—our confidence in reform.
It is indissolubly connected with all that is hopeful, spiritual,
capable, in man.

That men have misunderstood it, and perverted it, is true. But it
is also true that the noblest efforts for human melioration have
come out of it—have been based upon it. Is it not so? Come, ye
remembered ones, who sleep the sleep of the just—who took your
conduct from the line of Christian philosophy—come from your
tombs, and answer!

Come, Howard, from the gloom of the prison and the taint of the
lazar-house, and show us what philanthropy can do when imbued
with the spirit of Jesus. Come, Eliot, from the thick forest
where the red man listens to the Word of Life;—Come, Penn,
from thy sweet counsel and weaponless victory—and show us what
Christian zeal and Christian love can accomplish with the rudest
barbarians or the fiercest hearts. Come, Raikes, from thy labors
with the ignorant and the poor, and show us with what an eye
this faith regards the lowest and least of our race; and how
diligently it labors, not for the body, not for the rank, but for
the plastic soul that is to course the ages of immortality.

And ye, who are a great number—ye nameless ones—who have done
good in your narrow spheres, content to forego renown on earth,
and seeking your reward in the record on high—come and tell
us how kindly a spirit, how lofty a purpose, or how strong a
courage the religion ye professed can breathe into the poor, the
humble, and the weak. Go forth, then, Spirit of Christianity, to
thy great work of Reform. The past bears witness to thee in the
blood of thy martyrs, and the ashes of thy saints and heroes; the
present is hopeful because of thee; the future shall acknowledge
thy omnipotence.

APPEAL TO YOUNG MEN.

BY LYMAN BEECHER.

A rather small wiry man with strong face, compact fibre, quick motions, great earnestness and pulpit ability of the highest order—this was Lyman Beecher. He made himself especially prominent in the early days of the temperance reformation. The selection here given is one of many similar utterances and is full of force and fire.

Could I call around me in one vast assembly the temperate young
men of our land, I would say,—Hopes of the nation, blessed be ye
of the Lord now in the dew of your youth. But look well to your
footsteps; for vipers, and scorpions, and adders surround your
way.

Look at the generation who have just preceded you: the morning of
their life was cloudless, and it dawned as brightly as your own;
but behold them bitten, swollen, enfeebled, inflamed, debauched,
idle, poor, irreligious, and vicious, with halting step dragging
onward to meet an early grave! Their bright prospects are
clouded, and their sun is set never to rise. No house of their
own receives them, while from poorer to poorer tenements they
descend, and to harder and harder fare, as improvidence dries up
their resources.

And now, who are those that wait on their footsteps with
muffled faces and sable garments? That is a father—and that is
a mother—whose gray hairs are coming with sorrow to the grave.
That is a sister, weeping over evils which she cannot arrest; and
there is the broken-hearted wife; and there are the children,
hapless innocents, for whom their father has provided the
inheritance only of dishonor, and nakedness and woe.

And is this, beloved young men, the history of your course? In
this scene of desolation, do you behold the image of your future
selves? Is this the poverty and disease which, as an armed man,
shall take hold on you? And are your fathers, and mothers, and
sisters, and wives, and children, to succeed to those who now
move on in this mournful procession, weeping as they go? Yes:
bright as your morning now opens, and high as your hopes beat,
this is your noon, and your night, unless you shun those habits
of intemperance which have thus early made theirs a day of
clouds, and of thick darkness. If you frequent places of evening
resort for social drinking; if you set out with drinking, daily,
a little, temperately, prudently, it is yourselves which, as in a
glass, you behold.

THE PILGRIMS.

BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.

Mr. Depew is considered one of the foremost of our American orators, and it is enough to say he has risen to this distinction in a land noted for the eloquence of its public men. He is an excellent extemporaneous speaker, is graceful and easy in manner, fluent in utterance, and has a touch of humor that renders him popular. His tribute to the Pilgrims is worthy of a theme so inspiring.

They were practical statesmen, these Pilgrims. They wasted no
time theorizing upon methods, but went straight at the mark. They
solved the Indian problem with shot-guns, and it was not General
Sherman, but Miles Standish, who originated the axiom that the
only good Indians are the dead ones. They were bound by neither
customs nor traditions, nor committals to this or that policy.
The only question with them was, Does it work? The success of
their Indian experiment led them to try similar methods with
witches, Quakers and Baptists.

Their failure taught them the difference between mind and
matter. A dead savage was another wolf under ground, but one
of themselves persecuted or killed for conscience sake sowed
the seed of discontent and disbelief. The effort to wall in a
creed and wall out liberty was at once abandoned, and to-day
New England has more religions and not less religion, but less
bigotry, than any other community in the world.

In an age when dynamite was unknown, the Pilgrim invented in
the cabin of the Mayflower the most powerful of explosives. The
declaration of the equality of all men before the law has rocked
thrones and consolidated classes. It separated the colonies from
Great Britain and created the United States. It pulverized the
chains of the slaves and gave manhood suffrage. It devolved upon
the individual the functions of government and made the people
the sole source of power. It substituted the cap of liberty for
the royal crown in France, and by a bloodless revolution has
added to the constellation of American republics, the star of
Brazil.

But with the ever-varying conditions incident to free government,
the Puritan’s talent as a political mathematician will never
rust. Problems of the utmost importance press upon him for
solution. When, in the effort to regulate the liquor traffic, he
has advanced beyond the temper of the times and the sentiment of
the people in the attempt to enact or enforce prohibition, and
either been disastrously defeated or the flagrant evasions of the
statutes have brought the law into contempt, he does not despair,
but tries to find the error in his calculation.

If gubernatorial objections block the way of high license he will
bombard the executive judgment and conscience by a proposition
to tax. The destruction of homes, the ruin of the young, the
increase of pauperism and crime, the added burdens upon the
taxpayers by the evils of intemperance, appeal with resistless
force to his training and traditions. As the power of the saloon
increases the difficulties of the task, he becomes more and more
certain that some time or other and in some way or other he will
do that sum too.

PATRIOTISM A REALITY.

BY THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.