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the suggestions of humanity, she rushed blindly and madly upon her ruin, exhibiting a striking example of the truth of that familiar but beautiful Latin proverb,

"Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat."

On the other hand, we find the colonists forbearing in their complaints, moderate in their demands, but firm and unwavering in their resistance to wrong. In their love of liberty and their attachment to free government, they never faltered. Neither the corruptions of avarice, the whisperings of ambition, nor the gorgeous pageantry of monarchy or power, could ever for a moment seduce them from the one, or draw them from the other. As the perception of their rights was always clear, so was their assertion of them ever fearless. A people more timid than the colonists, viewing the great disparity of force between the parties to the contest, might often have been led to adopt the expedient, while the colonists thought only of the right. They had imbibed too much of the spirit of their Pilgrim fathers, either to submit quietly to any wrong, or make any compromise with duty. Once satisfied of the right, they

embraced it without hesitation, and left the event to Him who controls and governs all events. Although comparatively few in numbers, and feeble in resources, their strength was in their consciousness of right, and in Him who had ordained it.

Having, therefore, endured unredressed wrong to the last point of human forbearance; and their last attempt at reconciliation having been met only with contumely and insult, a single alternative only remained to them. That alternative was adopted. The representatives of the people, then in congress assembled, animated by a patriotism as pure as it was ardent, and sustained by a spirit as bold and fearless as it was just, and "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of their intentions," did, on the 4th of July, 1776, put forth to the world the solemn declaration, "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."

LUTHER BRADISH.

128. THE NOBLE DEEDS OF THE REVOLUTION.

THE united colonies, which were lately dependencies of Great Britain, are now free and independent states. They have the among of the earth the separate and

"assumed

powers

equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled them." They have declared their independence. Their right to that independence is henceforth to be determined by their power to maintain it. It is no longer a question of a redress of grievances, but one of power. And this young republic of the New World is about to enter the lists, and measure arms with one of the proudest and most powerful monarchies of the Old. Upon the issue of this contest hangs not only her own destiny, but the hopes of the friends of free government throughout the world.

With the events and the results of the war that ensued, you are all familiar. They have already passed on to the pages of history, and their record is garnered up amongst our dearest and proudest recollections. Time would fail me, to enter into a minute detail of those events. Suffice it, therefore, to say, that the whole period of this memorable contest, from the firing of the first gun at Lexington to the last at Yorktown-from the first insolence of Gage to the last humiliation of Cornwallis,— was, on the part of the Americans, fruitful in great men and noble deeds. 'Tis said that "adversity is the school in which great virtues are acquired, and great characters formed." And it is certain that the great and trying exigences of the revolution never failed to produce both men and deeds equal to the occasion. If, at any time, the country seemed to want the ordinary and necessary means of success, that want was abundantly supplied by her many virtues; for the military and civic virtues, of the highest order, which characterized this whole period, would have illustrated any age of any country. A pure and ardent patriotism; a patient endurance of hardships; a sustaining courage, that no danger or difficulties could appall; and a devotion to the public good that scarce knew bounds, were the virtues that eminently distinguished this period, and which led the country in triumph through its arduous struggle, to the final establishment and recognition of its independence.

LUTHER BRADISH.

129. THE DISINTERESTEDNESS OF WASHINGTON.

To the pen of the historian must be resigned the more arduous and elaborate tribute of justice to those efforts of heroic and political virtue, which conducted the American people to peace and liberty. The vanquished foe retired from our

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shores, and left to the controlling genius who repelled them the gratitude of his own country, and the admiration of the world. The time had now arrived which was to apply the touchstone to his integrity—which was to assay the affinity of his principles to the standard of immutable right. On the one hand, a realm, to which he was endeared by his services, almost invited him to empire; on the other, the liberty to whose protection his life had been devoted, was the ornament and boon of human nature. Washington could not depart from his own great self. His country was free-he was no longer a general. Sublime spectacle! more elevating to the pride of virtue than the sovereignty of the globe united to the sceptre of ages! Enthroned in the hearts of his countrymen, the gorgeous pageantry of prerogative was unworthy the majesty of his dominion. That effulgence of military character which in ancient states has blasted the rights of the people whose renown it had brightened, was not here permitted, by the hero from whom it emanated, to shine with so destructive a lustre. Its beams, though intensely resplendent, did not wither the young blossoms of our independence; and liberty, like the burning bush, flourished unconsumed by the glory which surrounded it.

To the illustrious founder of our republic was it reserved to exhibit the example of a magnanimity that commanded victory -of a moderation that retired from triumph. Unlike the erratic meteors of ambition, whose flaming path sheds a disastrous light on the pages of history, his bright orb, eclipsing the luminaries among which it rolled, never portended "fearful change" to religion, nor from its " golden tresses" shook pestilence on empire. What to other heroes has been glory, would to him have been disgrace. To his intrepidity it would have added no honorary trophy, to have waded, like the conqueror of Peru, through the blood of credulous millions, to plant the standard of triumph at the burning mouth of a volcano. To his fame it would have erected no auxiliary monument, to have invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barbarous nation, to inscribe his name on the pillar of Pompey.

ROBERT TREAT PAINE

130. CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

THE classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circumstance that they have been the models, I might almost say the masters, of composition and thought in all ages. In the contemplation of these august teachers of mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished still, than all the intermediate words that have been uttered,—as the lessons of childhood still haunt us when the impressions of later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the frigid philosophy of the porch and the academy that we are to seek these; not in the marvellous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No; these must not be our masters; in none of these are we to seek the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon on the Mount, and those two sublime commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets. The strife is still pending. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of such siren forms, is not yet exorcised. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the meditations of age.

Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immeasurably superior in the truth, delicacy, and elevation of their sentiments-above all, in the benign recognition of that great Christian revelation, the brotherhood of man. How vain are eloquence and poetry, compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the other the lore of antiquity, with its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the last will be light and trivial in the balance. Greek poetry has been

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likened to the song of the nightingale as she sits in the rich, sym. metrical crown of the palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes; but even this is less sweet and tender than the music of the human heart. CHARLES SUMNER.

131. AMERICAN LITERATURE.

WE cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal, too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? 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 harvest-home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forestsea 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?

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 desolation 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-the elements, to an incredible extent, of the literature of the old world-should be the elements of our literature, then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the

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