least, one spot, the small Island of Delos, dedicated to the gods, and kept at all times sacred from war, where the citizens of hostile countries met, and united in a common worship. So let us dedicate our broad country! The Temple of Honor shall be surrounded by the Temple of Concord, so that the former can be entered only through the portals of the latter; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its gates; the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant: while, within, JusTICE, returned to the earth, from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and majestic front. And the future chiefs of the republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by human blood, shall be “the first in PEACE, and the first in the hearts of their countrymen."

But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let us strive to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the whole world, forever! Let the selfish boast of the Spartan women become the grand chorus of mankind, that they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's camp. Let the iron belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth be exchanged for a golden cestus of Peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent homage that was bestowed by massacring soldiers on the spot occupied by the Sepulcher of the Lord. Vain man! to restrain his regard to a few feet of sacred mould! The whole earth is the Sepulcher of the Lord; nor can any righteous man profane any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth; and now, on this Sabbath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand Temple of Universal Peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament of heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.

SUMNER.

X. - CATHOLIC DISQUALIFICATIONS. You complain of the violence of the Irish Catholic. wonder he is violent? It is the consequence of tion:

Can you

your own inflic

"The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear,
The blood will follow where the knife is driven."

Your friendship has been to him worse than hostility; he feels its embrace but by the pressure of his fetters. I am only amazed he is not more violent. He fills your exchequer; he fights your battles; he feeds your clergy from whom he derives no benefit; he shares your burdens; he shares your perils; he shares every

THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY.

37

thing except your privileges; - can you wonder he is violent? No matter what his merit; no matter what his claims; no matter what his services; he sees himself a nominal subject and a real slave, and his children, the heirs, perhaps of his toils, perhaps of his talents, certainly of his disqualifications; - can you wonder he is violent?

He sees every pretended obstacle to his emancipation vanished; Catholic Europe your ally', the Bourbon on the throne, the Emperor a captive, the Pope a friend - the aspersions on his faith disproved by his allegiance to you against, alternately, every Catholic potentate in Christendom, and he feels himself branded with hereditary degradation; - can you wonder, then, that he is violent?

He petitioned humbly; his tameness was construed into a proof of apathy. He petitioned boldly; his remonstrance was considered as an impudent audacity. He petitioned in peace; he was told it was not the time. He petitioned in war; he was told it was not the time. A strange interval, a prodigy in politics, a pause between peace and war, which appeared to be just made for him, arose; I allude to the period between the retreat of Louis and the restoration of Bonaparte: he petitioned then, and he was told it was not the time. O! shame! shame! shame!

I hope he will petition no more to a parliament so equivocating. However, I am not sorry they did so equivocate, because I think they have suggested one common remedy for the griev ances of both countries, and that remedy is, a REFORM OF THAT

PARLIAMENT,

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

XI. THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY.

GENTLEMEN, a most auspicious omen salutes and cheers us, this day. This day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. Washington's birthday is celebrated from one end of this land to the other. The whole atmosphere of the country is this day redolent of his principles, the hills, the rocks, the groves, the vales, and the rivers, shout their praises, and resound with his fame. All the good, whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel this day that there is one treasure common to them all; and that is the fame of Washington. They all recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future.

To the old and the young, to all born in this land, and to all whose preferences have led them to make it the home of their

adoption, Washington is an exhilarating theme. Americans are proud of his character; all exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, every where, all over the world, more an object of regard than on any former day since his birth.

Gentlemen, by his example, and under the guidance of his precepts, will we and our children uphold the constitution. Under his military leadership, our fathers conquered their ancient enemies; and, under the outspread banner of his political and constitutional principles, will we conquer now. To that standard we

shall adhere, and uphold it, through evil report and good report. We will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come; we will ever encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in darkness, thick darkness,

if it

come,

till

"Danger's troubled night is o'er,
And the star of peace return."

WEBSTER.

XII. - UNITY OF OUR COUNTRY.

-

OUR country, with all its sectional diversity of views and feelings, is one. It is one in the rich, manly, vigorous, expressive language we speak, which is become the vernacular tongue, as it were, of parliamentary eloquence, the very oldest of constitutional freedom. It is one in the fame of our fathers, and in the historical reminiscences which belong to us as a nation. It is one in the political principles of republicanism; one in the substantial basis of our manners; one in the ties of friendship, affinity, and blood, binding us together, throughout the whole extent of the land, in the associations of trade, of emigration, and of marriage; one in that glorious constitution, the best inheritance transmitted to us by our fathers, the monument of their wisdom and their virtue, under whose shelter we live and flourish as a people.

To this great republic, union is peace, union is grandeur, union is power, union is honor, union is every thing which a free-spirited and mighty nation should glory to possess. To us all, next to independence, next to liberty, next to honor, be we persuaded that a cordial and abiding confederacy of the American people is the greatest of earthly goods.

Here, in the eyes of our countrymen and of the world, with the Muse of History before us to record our deeds and our words, let us, like Hannibal, at the altar of his gods, swear eternal faithfulness to our country, eternal hatred to its foes! Show we, that

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89

we are wedded to the Union, for weal or for woe, as the fondest lover would hug to his heart the bride bound to him in the first bright ardor of young possession. We have not purposed to embark in this venture only to sail on the smooth surface of a summer sea, with hope and pleasure to waft us joyously along; but with resolved spirits, ready to meet, like true men, whatever of danger may descend upon our voyage, and to stand up gallantly for the treasure of honor and faith intrusted to our charge. Rally we, then, to the stripes and stars, as the symbol of glory to us, and the harbinger of liberty to all the nations of the world! So long as a shred of that sacred standard remains to us, let us eling to it, with such undying devotion as the Christian pilgrims of the Middle Age cherished for the last fragment of the Cross. Let us fly to its rescue when periled, whether by foreign or domestic assault, as they did to snatch the Holy Sepulcher from the desecration of the Infidel!

CALEB CUSHING.

IF I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it, of course, only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious principles but as a taste, an instrument and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history - with the wisest, the wittiest with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters that have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations a cotemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.

-

It is hardly possible but the character should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity. It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes the way in which the best bred and the best informed men have talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse with one another. There is a gentle but per

fectly irresistible coërcion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in the words of the Latin poet :

"Emollit mo'rès, nec si'nit es'se fe'rōs."

It civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarous.

SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL.

XIV. NECESSITY OF AMERICAN FREEDOM.

It is my belief, my hearers, that Providence has a great design for this continent, and for our generation. As the Jews of old, as the Apostles, as the Reformers, as our Fathers of 1776, so are we, as a race and as a nation, a peculiar people, and called to a high and glorious destiny. We can not falter. We can not go back. We are shut up to the necessity of attempting great things. We must pluck up courage-put our trust in God, and go forward. Disciplined for centuries on the shores of the German ocean, and on the rock-bound coasts of Great Britain, our race struck some of its shoots in this land; and here a people has grown up, having the wisdom of an old and the vigor of a newborn nation, to fulfill this great design.

We speak not thus from vanity. The only reason why it is so is to be found in the inscrutable ways and sovereign will of Heaven. It is our destiny. Our responsibilities are fearful; but there is no escape. Our age, our race, our institutions, and the characteristics of our country, physical, intellectual, moral, and religious, the helplessness and the sufferings of our fellowmen, groaning in chains and under grievous wrongs,-call us to glorious destiny.

We are hereditary freemen. We have never been in bondage to any man. The blood of the Celts, the Normans, the unconquered Saxons, before whom Cæsar and Charlemagne alike recoiled, mingle their heroic currents alike in our own veins, along with that great barbaric stream, which Rome herself could not withstand. These were our pri-me'val sires. And after them, in our line of succession, came the Puritans, the Covenanters, the Non-Conformists, and the Huguenots; the founders of English' liberty, and the men of the continental Reformation from Popery, and the men of '76: - heritage, descent, and destiny, alike glorious!

A necessity is laid upon us to live as freemen, or not to live