canic force which shook the earth to its center, are never to pass from men's minds. Over this age the night will, indeed, gather more and more, as time rolls away. But in that night two forms will appear, Washington and Napoleon; the one a lurid meteor, the other a benign, serene, and undecaying star. Another American name will live in history, your Franklin; and the kite which brought lightning from heaven, will be seen sailing in the clouds by remote posterity, when the city where he dwelt may be known only by its ruins. There is, however, something greater in the age than its greatest men. It is the appearance of a new power in the world, the appearance of the multitude of men on the stage, where as yet the few have acted their parts alone. This influence is to endure to the end of time. What more of the present is to survive? Perhaps much, of which we now take no note. The glory of an age is often hidden from itself. Perhaps some word has been spoken in our day which we have not deigned to hear, but which is to grow clearer and louder through all ages. Perhaps some silent thinker among us is at work in his closet whose name is to fill the earth. Perhaps there sleeps in his cradle some reformer who is to move the church and the world, who is to open a new era in history, who is to fire the human soul with new hope and new daring. What else is to survive the age? That which the age has little thought of, but which is living in us all. I mean the soul, the immortal spirit. Of this all ages are the unfoldings, and it is greater than all. We must not feel, in the contemplation of the vast movements in our own and former times, as if we ourselves were nothing. I repeat it, we are greater than all. We are to survive our age, to comprehend it, and to pronounce its sentence. FROM CHANNING, CCXVII.-AMERICAN LIBERTY. 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 defense 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 theater 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. FROM STORY. CCXVIII.-AMERICAN LITERATURE. WE can not honor our country with too deep a reverence. We can not love her with an affection, too pure and fervent. We can not serve her with an energy of purpose or faithfulness of zeal, too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country y? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages, and her harvesthome, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-sea and her inland-isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio, and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, our country? I come not here to speak the dialect, or to give the counsels of the patriot statesman. But I come, a patriotscholar, to vindicate the rights, and to plead for the interests of American Literature. And be assured, that we can not, as patriot-scholars, think too highly of that country, or sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget, let us rather remember with a religious awe, that the union of these states is indispensable to our Literature, as it is to our national independence and civil liberties, to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement. If, indeed, we desire to behold a Literature like that, which has sculptured, with such energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe; if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the glittering march of armies, and the revelry of the camp; the shrieks and blasphemies, and all the horrors of the battle-field; the desola tion of the harvest, and the burning cottage; the storm, the sack, and the ruin of cities: If we desire to unchain the furious passions of jealousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge, and ambition, those lions, that now sleep harmless in their den if we desire, that the lake, the river, the ocean, should blush with the blood of brothers; that the winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the sea to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle; that the very mountain tops should become altars for the sacrifice of brothers: if we desire that these, and such as these, should be the elements of our Literature, then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the majestic statue of our union, and scatter its fragments over all our land. But, if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, loveliest Literature, the world has ever seen, such a Literature as shall honor God, and bless mankind; a Literature, whose smiles might play upon an angel's face, whose tears "would not stain an angel's cheek;" then let us cling to the union of these states, with a patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a Christian's hope. In her heavenly character, as a holocaust self-sacrifice to God; at the hight of her glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peaceful, Christian people, American Literature will find that the intellectual spirit is her very tree of life, and that union, her garden of paradise. FROM GRIMKE. CCXIX. THE RIVER.-A NIGHT SCENE.-No. I. THIS and the two succeeding extracts from an exquisite poem by Bryant, just published, may be spoken separately or together. OH River, gentle River, gliding on, For a time, The meddler, man, hath left the elements In peace; the plowman breaks the clods no more; The miner labors not, with steel and fire, Thou pausest not in thine allotted task, A silvery train from many a mountain brook The dweller by thy side, Who moored his little boat upon thy beach, All night Thou givest moisture to the thirsty roots To steep the hills with dew, or darken heaven CCXX. THE RIVER.-A NIGHT SCENE.-No II. OH River, darkling River! what a voice Is that thou utterest while all else is still! The ancient voice that, centuries ago, Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream! How many, at this hour, along thy course, That mingle with the utterance of their dreams. |