M t IM 1U-.'f i-i wismm aass_Z_iii_j:SiO_i Book l^\) ^ GoplglitN*' COPWIGHT DEPOSIT. THE LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The Lawrence Reader and Speaker A COMPILATION OF MASTERPIECES IN POETRY AND PROSE INCLUDING MANY OF THE GREATEST ORATIONS OF ALL AGES WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS, POETS, AND ORATORS, AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON THEIR PRODUCTIONS AND STYLES. DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES, SCHOOLS, SEMINARIES, LITERARY SOCIETIES, AND ALL PERSONS WISHING TO EXCEL AS READERS AND PUBLIC SPEAKERS BY EDWIN GORDON LAWRENCE TEACHER OP ORATORY AND DRAMATIC ART, AND AUTHOR OF "the POWER OF SPEECH," ETC. CHICAGO A. C, McCLURG & CO. 1911 Copyright A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911 Published, March, 1911 PS£SS OF THE VAIL COMPANY COSHOCTON, V. S. A. ©CI.A2837G5 INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OP PROFESSOR PHILIP LAWRENCE WHO FOR FIFTY YEARS DEVOTED HIS LIFE TO TEACHING THE ART OF SPEECH A NOBLE MAN, AN UNSELFISH TEACHER, A DEVOTED PARENT, AND A LOVER OF MAN AND GOD "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well" PREFACE THE arts of Reading and Speaking have, of late years, been greatly neglected, and it is the aim of the editor of this compilation to en- deavor to arouse new interest by presenting, in convenient form and attractive guise, many master- pieces of Hterature, and specimens of oratory, Hkely to awaken, in the minds of students in schools and colleges, a desire to know more of these use- ful and dehghtful arts. Nothing has a greater tendency to improve the diction, and enlarge the vocabulary of a speaker, than a study of the works of great writers and orators, as man mentally grows by what he feeds on just as he does phys- ically ; and by a careful perusal of well-constructed sentences, polished and expressive language, he will learn to use instinctively the proper form and expression of words when communicating his thoughts. The matter may be that of Shake- speare, Milton, Demosthenes, Cicero, Webster, or Longfellow, but a careful student who reads to learn and, while reading, bears in mind the saying [yii] PREFACE of Confucius, " Learning without thought is labor lost, and thought without learning is death to the mind," will incorporate the wisdom of others into his own being, and give it out again in his own manner as though it had never existed in any other form. It is the opinion of the editor that only by in- telligent and painstaking efforts are persons made good readers and speakers, and he therefore ad- vises all who are desirous of excelHng in these arts to disabuse themselves of the idea that oratory is a God-given gift, that all they have to do is to sit idly by and await its coming, because in all cases of real greatness — not appsirent greatness — success as orators has only come to those who went in search of it. Those who achieved success without much labor, men like Patrick Henry and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, would have accom- plished far greater results had they stored up knowledge in their youth instead of idhng away their time lolling by brooks or wasting their strength in dissipation. This book is intended to be purely a Reader and Speaker, presenting to the student the finished matter of expression and not the means of gain- ing the art of vocal delivery, but to all who desire to take up the technical part of vocal work, the [ viii ] PREFACE editor recommends his text-book on the speaking voice, " The Power of Speech," which contains ex- plicit instructions for the cultivation of the voice, and for gaining the power of interpreting thought by means of vocal expression. In this collection of masterpieces the editor is bold enough to insert a few articles of his own, not that they are entitled by merit to associate with such company, but rather suffered to remain, by the kindness of the shepherd, as stray sheep that have wandered in from another fold. E. G. L. New York, January^ 1911* [ix] CONTENTS PAGE Introductory: Reading and the Art of Speech — Oratory 3 Examples of the Five Classes of Oratory: First Class — Philosophic: "Communion with God." Cardinal Newman 27 Second Class — Demonstrative : " On Capital Pun- ishment." Victor Hugo 31 Third Class — Forensic: "No Right under the Constitution to Hold Subject States." George F. Hoar 36 Fourth Class — Ijegislative : " Cuba must be Free." John M. Thurston 41 Fifth Class — Social: "The Medical Profession." Oliver Wendell Holmes 45 A Child's Dream of a Star. Charles Dickens ... 49 The Genius of Charles Dickens. William Make- peace Thackeray 55 Digging for the Thought. John Buskin .... 59 The Perfect Orator. B. B. Sheridan 62 Public Opinion and the Sword. T. B. Macaulay . . 64 On the American War. William Pitt, Lord Chatham 67 Panegyric on William of Orange. William C. Plunket 71 Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Edmund Burke 73 Intellectual Superiority of Christian Believers. Thomas Erskine 77 On the Irish Disturbance Bill. Daniel O'Connell , 81 Public Spirit of the Athenians. Demosthenes . . 83 Great Orators and Their Training, from the Dia- logue on Oratory. Marcus Tullius Cicero ... 86 CONTENTS PAGE Farewell Address to the Senate. Henry Clay . . 93 South American Ikdependence as Related to the United States. Henry Clay 98 On the Greek Struggle for Independence. Henry Clay 100 " Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death." Patrick Henry 101 Consequences which would have Resulted had England Conquered America. Patrick Henry . 108 The Strenuous Life. Theodore Roosevelt .... Ill Books. Ralph Waldo Emerson 116 Industry Necessary to the Attainment of Eloquence. Henry Ware 130 Idols. Wendell Phillips 123 Oration on the Centennial of the Birth of O'Con- NELL. Wendell Phillips 127 The Permanency of Empire. Wendell Phillips . . 133 The Present Age. William Ellery Channing . . . 134 Education in a Republic. Judah Philip Benjamin . 137 Massachusetts and South Carolina. George F. Hoar 141 Genius. Orville Dewey 146 The Future of the South. Henry W. Grady . . . 150 The Confederate Soldier's Return from Appomat- tox. .Henry W. Grady 154 The Second Inaugural Address. Abraham Lincoln . 157 Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Horace Greeley . .160 Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby .... 162 Valuable Hints for Students. John Todd . . . 163 The Spectacle of the Heavens. Edward Everett . 167 Peace and War. Henry Ward Beecher 169 Raising the Flag. Henry Ward Beecher .... 172 England against War. Henry Ward Beecher . . . 173 Poverty and the Gospel. Henry Ward Beecher . . 175 The Immensity of Creation. O. M. Mitchell . . . 179 The March of the Flag. Albert J. Beveridge . . . 181 The Blind Preacher. William Wirt ...... 184 [xii] CONTENTS PAGE The Natural Rights of Man. Jeremiah 8, Black . 188 Constructive Treason. William Pinkney .... 193 The Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jeffer- son 202 The Execution of a Madman is Murder. William H. Seward 209 Plea for the Union. William H. Setoard .... 215 American Independence. Samuel Adams .... 219 Self-Preservation the First Law of Nature. David Paul Brown 222 Pharisaism of Reform. George W. Curtis .... 227 The Call of Freedom. George W. Curtis .... 230 The Duties of an Advocate Require the Highest Moral Courage. James T. Brady 233 Eulogy of President Garfield. James G. Blaine . . 237 The Law of Self-Defence. Seargent 8. Prentiss . . 240 Education. Horace Mann 246 Sanctity of the Union. Alexander H. Stephens . . 249 The Restoration of the Union. Alexander H. Stephens 253 New England. Caleb Cushing 256 The Bunker Hill Monument. Daniel Webster . . 259 The Greek Revolution. Daniel Webster .... 266 Religious Character of the Pilgrims. Daniel Web- ster 273 Crime Its Own Detector. Daniel Webster .... 276 South Carolina and Massachusetts. Daniel Webster 280 The Constitution the Safeguard of Liberty. Daniel Webster 284 Shakespeare. Edwin Gordon Lawrence 287 Destiny. Edwin Gordon Lawrence 293 Eve's Account of Her First Day. John Milton •. . 298 The Ocean. Lord Byron 300 Abraham Lincoln. James Russell Lowell .... 303 The Lost Leader. Robert Browning 305 Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant 307 [ xiii ] CONTENTS PAGE Daffodils. Williom Wordsworth 310 The Chambered Nautilus. Oliver Wendell Holmes . 311 The Making of Man. Algernon Charles Swinburne , 313 My Heart's in the Highlands. Robert Burns . . 315 Flowers. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 316 The Individuality of Woman. Alfred Tennyson . . 319 Burns. John Greenleaf Whittier . 321 Ode to the Bards. John Keats 326 To THE Skylark. Percy Bysshe Shelley 328 The Chase. Sir Walter Scott 332 The Raven. Edgar Allan Poe 338 Marc Antony's Oration. Shakespeare 345 Speech of Brutus. Shakespeare 349 [xiv] ^1 THE LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER INTRODUCTORY READING AND THE ART OF SPEECH TN order to read well we must look upon words -■■ as mere symbols, things that represent ideas and thoughts but are not, in themselves, the living beings they become when properly joined together and impregnated with life by the expressive power of the voice. They are symbols representing ideas, and signs that direct us on the way to the delivery of the vocal message, and should be looked upon merely as means to an end and not as an end in themselves. Aim to speak thoughts, not words. Look beyond the words, see the idea they repre- sent and then express it by the voice. This is much easier said than done, and before we can hope to be good readers, hope to express by the tones of the voice the meaning of the words, hope to so govern the voice as to interpret the thought [3] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER by means of inflection, emphasis, pitch, force, and time, we must thoroughly understand the vocal mechanism and have it absolutely under control. Reading is, in some respects, more difficult than speaking. In reading, the eye must first carry the idea to the brain, the brain then conveys it to the vocal organs and it is then transferred into words; whereas in speech, the brain at once sets the vocal mechanism into action and the thought is given immediate utterance. Reading requires two mental actions, speaking but one. We must gain the faculty of seeing individual words and yet grasping them collectively, because the individual word often indicates how the thought should be expressed, but we cannot tell what the thought is until we have read the phrase and, sometimes, the sentence. For instance: The word " if " in the following, " If it were so, it was a grievous fault," shows the reader that the opening clause is conditional, but he cannot tell what the completed thought is until he finishes the concluding clause, therefore he must see the word " if " in order to note the conditional, but he must also quickly sweep his eye along the entire thought in order to know how to inflect and emphasize the voice. In the following, " I said an elder soldier, not a better," it is essential that we grasp the en- [4] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tire phrase in order to distinguish the contrast between the words " elder " and " better." Unless we are able to do this, we will see nothing but in- dividual words and speak individual words, just as the child in days now happily gone by saw nothing but three letters, d-o-g, whereas he is now taught to see a word — dog. The reader must carry out the same principle by seeing and speak- ing the thought instead of the individual words that make it up. All this requires practice, and no one ever became a good reader except by practice. The words of the Bard of Avon — " Mend your speech a little Lest it may mar your fortunes/' written over three hundred years ago, are applica- ble to-day in as great a measure as then. While they were not used in the sense in which they are applied in this instance, still, if a new setting is given to them, they will assist in the worthy cause of calling attention to the necessity of mending the speech of to-day. It is unfortunate that the modern speaking voice fails so utterly in conveying thought. Through a failure to employ the breathing muscles in con- trolling voice there follows a misuse of the larynx, [5] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER which produces harsh, faulty, and disagreeable tones that injure the speaker, distress the listener, and fail to convey the meaning of the spoken words. Little attention is paid to modulation, the tones being allowed to come into the air without regard to pitch, few persons caring to take the trouble to suit the quality of the voice to the thought which is conveyed by the words, the majority using a high, shrill voice that pierces the ear and carries with it little else but noise. So, also, is articula- tion much neglected, some words coming into be- ing without a head, such as the word " her " in sentences like, " I told her what you said," many persons running the words " told " and " her " to- gether and saying, " I told 'er what you said," other words being produced with mutilated bodies, such as " independence," " constitution," and " Virginia," and others without a tail — especially is the appendage missing from words ending in " g," such as " going," " coming," " running," and " jumping." These faults are not committed by the uneducated alone, but by the educated as well, clergymen, lawyers, teachers, and actors be- ing among the offenders. From this it appears that reading and speaking are not the mere seeing and reproducing of words, [6] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER either from the printed page or from the tablet of the mind, but they are the conveying of thought which is analyzed and explained by the tones of the reader's or speaker's voice, which has been trained by careful practice to interpret by its pitch, time, force, direction, and quality the mean- ing of the spoken word. William Ellery Channing beautifully and for- cibly sums up the matter in the following extract from his magnificent lecture, " Self-Culture " : " The power of utterance should be included by all in their plans of self-culture. , . . No commentary throws such a light on a great poem or any impassioned work of literature as the voice of a reader or speaker, who brings to the task a deep feeling of its author and rich and various powers of expression. A crowd electrified by a sublime thought, or softened into a harmonizing sorrow under such a voice, partakes a pleasure at once exquisite and refined." ORATOEY It has been the custom of late years for persons to sneer at the idea of oratorical preparation, and for the majority of newspapers to belittle the influence of the orator, but now it looks as though oratory was coming into its own, and that it would [7] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER soon again occupy the proud position in the eyes of the world that for ages it occupied. The power of the press is great, but it has not taken, and it never will take, the place of the spoken word. It has caused a great change in the form of ora- tory through educating and informing the masses, thus leaving to the orator the vitalizing of the matter the substance of which is already in the minds of the listeners; but the advocate, trained, educated, skilled in the use of vocal and physical expression, was, is, and always will be the moulder of thought and the leader of action. Had it not been for the burning spoken words of Patrick Henry, dehvered in the House of Bur- gesses of Virginia on the question of arming the militia to oppose the oppressions of the mother country, it is not likely that the members of the legislative assembly of Virginia could have been swayed from their fixed purpose to do nothing that would estrange them from the king to whom they gladly gave allegiance, and whose kingly rights their ancestors had fought to uphold on the fields of Naseby and Marston Moor, and who fol- lowed the royal banner of Prince Rupert at Bris- tol. No printed words could have swayed them from their fixed convictions, but the towering form of the young plebeian, alive in every limb with [8] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER emotion, the flashing eye, the beaming face, the expressive gestures, the volcanic flow of words, all expressive of the spirit of Hberty which was per- sonified in his person, carried the message that he held in his heart straight to the minds of his listeners and changed that hostile majority into a minority. All this was but the forerunner of the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Yorktown, the confederation of the colonies, and the birth of the greatest repubhc upon which the sun ever shone. When the time came for the welding of thirteen States into a nation the pen of Hamilton was mighty, but mightier still was his voice when, in the New York State convention, held for the rati- fication of the Constitution, he overcame the large majority originally opposed to its adoption, and, with the aid of a handful of Federalists, convinced the upholders of the rights of the States that liberty would be strengthened and not weakened by forming a centrahzed government whose power would be wisely checked by the safeguards with which the Constitution protected the rights of the people through their State governments, and which also curbed the power of the young States then distrustful and envious of one another. The able articles which came from the pen of Hamilton and [9] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER his fellow Federalists failed to accomplish their purpose, which was the election of a majority of the delegates to the convention pledged to the support of the Constitution, for when the con- vention convened, Hamilton found a large ma- jority, under the leadership of Clinton, utterly opposed to its ratification. In face of this ap- parently insurmountable obstacle Hamilton strug- gled bravely on, explaining, arguing, entreating, and demanding, until, finally, after many days of incessant labor, his efforts were crowned with suc- cess and the Constitution was ratified. Hamilton the orator accomplished the work which Hamilton the writer had failed to achieve. The Emancipation Proclamation struck the shackles from the slaves, but it was the matchless logic of Lincoln displayed in the debates with Douglas that made the proclamation possible, and his Cooper Union speech that convinced the people of the North that the fathers of our country in- tended to include the black man as well as the white in the Declaration of Independence, and that the framers of the Constitution meant to give the federal government the power to resist the terri- torial extension of slavery. Did oratory strike the shackles from the slave? Yes. Slavery perished at the mandate of men [10] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER like William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Abraham Lincoln, who devoted their lives to a cause that had few followers at the time they relinquished all that most men hold dear, and, buckling on the armor of truth as they saw it, they went forward on their mission until slavery had vanished from the soil of the United States. Thomas Paine did much for American liberty, but Paine 'failed in his efforts to incorporate in the Declaration of Independence his views regard- ing universal liberty, but had he been as great an orator as he was a writer, he might have in- fluenced the committee to accept his views, and the slavery question might have been forever settled. But, no, he failed in his efforts with the pen just as Hamilton, at a later period, failed in his use of the same weapon, but not being the orator Hamilton was, he never succeeded in retrieving his fortunes and died a disappointed man. Jefferson, the great apostle of Democracy, al- though a slave holder, believed in the right of every man, black as well as white, to the right of " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and in his draft of the Declaration were the strictures on the king's repeated veto of colonial laws re- pealing the law which permitted the slave trade, but, these views being disapproved by many dele- [11] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER gates, they were stricken from the draft. Thus again did an able writer, but a poor speaker, fail in impressing his ideas upon others. Jefferson, while an expert with the pen, and a splendidly educated man, was a poor speaker. In fact, it is doubtful if he ever delivered a speech, and conse- quently was compelled to rely on others to express his views in the many legislative assembhes of which he was a member. Oratory and public speaking are commonly looked upon as being one and the same thing, but this supposition is erroneous. True, they are of the same nature, as the primary object of both is to convey thought, but in reality they are al- most as separate and distinct as speaking and writing. Oratory must have truth as its basic principle, whereas public speaking does not concern itself with the truth or falsity of a question or propo- sition. The orator must be sincere, the pubhc speaker need not be, provided he is actor enough to hide his insincerity. Oratory, in its true sense, is spontaneous and governs the orator. Public speaking is artificial and is ever under the speak- er's control. Oratory spoke in the person of Demosthenes demanding that the Athenians arouse themselves from their lethargy; in Cicero hurling [12] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER denunciation against Cataline ; in Chatham espous- ing the cause of the colonists ; in Patrick Henry demanding Hberty or death ; in Robert Emmet ex- posing the injustice of his trial; in Henry Ward Beecher addressing the hostile audiences in Eng- land during the dark days of our Civil War, and in all cases where the cause or principle governed the speaker and he gave expression to his senti- ments irrespective of the consequences to himself or to others. Public speaking is well illustrated by the lawyer who is defending a cKent whom he knows to be guilty of the crime charged, and yet whose duty to his profession compels him to act as the de- fender of the rights of the criminal as though positive of the defendant's innocence. The law- yer pleads at the bar of the court for his client merely as an instrument through which the client speaks, and strives by every means in his power to enable the one charged with crime to escape from its consequences. This being the case, the lawyer could just as skilfully prosecute the de- fendant as defend him. He could argue equally well on either side of the question, consequently as both sides of a proposition cannot be true the lawyer cannot, in such a case, be sincere, but is forced to hide his knowledge of the prisoner's [13] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER guilt, control his feelings of detestation of the crime, and speak only from his desire to achieve the acquittal of his client. Spellbinders are public speakers, but not ora- tors, although at times true oratory falls from the lips of some of these humble party workers. Clergymen, lawyers, lecturers, politicians, and other public men are, generally speaking, public speakers, and only in exceptional cases are they orators. Truth, absolute sincerity, is the founda- tion of oratory, and where this exists, the means of expression, under the inspiration of the moment, will, in many cases, spring forward to convey the message. The ignorant murderer on the scaffold, standing on the brink of eternity, has been known to speak with the eloquence of perfect oratory, whereas the public speaker must fit himself by training and practice to use his powers of expres- sion without being in any manner moved by its spirit or depending on the coming of the in- spiration. Most renowned orators have prepared them- selves for the work before them by intelligent study of the means by which alone they could achieve success, such as cultivating the voice, bringing out the thought by proper emphasis and inflection, gesticulation that would strengthen the spoken [14] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER word, and easy flow of language, but they have always relied on the justice of their cause to bring them success, and not on the witchery of their eloquence. The pubhc speaker, on the other hand, just as thoroughly prepared as the orator, is gov- erned by some motive other than truth, and relies solely on his vocal and intellectual attainments to win the victory that could not be his if justice alone prevailed. From the time of Demosthenes down to the present day, orators have been made and not bom. In making this assertion I am, I know, flying in the face of general belief, but general belief is often founded upon ignorance, and in the case of oratory, ignorance is the only foundation for the existence of the belief that orators are bom with their oratorical powers full-fledged. Demosthenes in his youth was ungainly, weak physically, and defective vocally, but possessed of indomitable courage. He became a pupil of Isaeus, who was a great teacher, as well as a great orator, and from him he learned how to use his voice, arrange his thoughts and clothe them with appropriate speech. Henry Ward Beecher was handicapped in his early manhood in much the same manner as De- mosthenes, and became an orator only by incessant [15] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER labor. On entering college, Beecher imagined he had an enlarged tongue, deformed palate, and other vocal defects that would forever prevent the realization of his hope of becoming an effective speaker, but it was his good fortune to fall into the hands of an excellent teacher of elocution who soon convinced him that his ailments were mainly imaginary, and that all he required was to know how to use his voice in order to become a good speaker. In his own language Beecher tells us how the teacher would stand him at one end of the room while he stood at the other and have him go over whispering exercises in order to bring the sounds on the lips, and practise on the vowels in the three registers, so as to increase the compass and flexi- bility of the voice. Yes, Beecher possessed a glorious voice, but he gained it only after the most laborious practice. Let me quote his own words : " The cultivated voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high, inter- mediate or low, unconsciously to him who uses it, and men listen, unaware that they have been be- witched out of their weariness by the charms of a voice not artificial, but made by assiduous train- ing to be his second nature." The eloquent advocate, John P. Curran, when [16] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER at school, was called " Stuttering Jack," on ac- count of an impediment in his speech, and yet he not only overcame this great vocal obstacle, but became a free and brilliant speaker. Lord Mans- field devoted years of his life to the study of elo- quence. The younger Pitt was carefully trained in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero by his renowned father. Webster, Everett, and Sumner all labored to perfect themselves in the art of speech. Henry Ward Beecher and Roscoe Conk- ling studied elocution from their youth to the end of their days. Clergymen, like the Rev. Dr. Ernest M. Stires and the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Slicer, availed themselves of the aid of systematic training, and are excellent examples of what can be accomplished by those who seek to become elo- quent speakers, but few ministers of churches de- vote any attention to the art of vocal expression, and most of the public men of our day ally them- selves with the trusts or private interests and by forming a cabal control the government of our land and follow the behests of special individuals and corporations instead of coming out boldly and speaking for the rights of the masses. The public speaker should be informed con- cerning all sides of the question upon which he speaks. He should keep in mind his facts alone, [17] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER and not bother about the words that are to clothe them, but his vocabulary must be enriched by previous study and practice to such an extent that he will have always at command the words neces- sary to convey his ideas; he must possess perfect mastery over a voice made pliable, melodious, strong, and expressive by assiduous practice, and a knowledge of the art of expression, thus allow- ing the concentration of thought entirely on the facts. Keep the facts in mind and there will be words enough spontaneously flow to express them, provided the speaker has had the training neces- sary to fit him for his task. He must inform him- self on all that can be said against the stand he takes on the question, as well as all that can be said in its favor. This applies to oratory no mat- ter what type of man it speaks through. Webster arguing in defence of the Constitution, Clay in favor of protecting American seamen and shipping from the encroachments of England, Beecher in behalf of free labor, all exemplify this fact. Even the unschooled murderer on the scafi^old, imploring his listeners to avoid the causes that brought him to his ignoble end, emphasizes and illustrates this rule. I care not how the orator gains his knowledge, but knowledge he must have. He may gain it, as [18]. LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER did men like Webster, Everett, and Sumner, by a thorough collegiate education, or he may gain it, as did Patrick Henry, Henry Clay, and Abraham Lincoln, by the study of men and nature, or he may gain it even as the criminal who was un- learned in all things except those imparted to him by bitter experience. The criminal knew full well that evil surroundings, evil associations, and evil acts brought him to his ignominious end, and this knowledge made him more competent to speak on the subject of eternity, warning his hearers against a life that could only mean its early cutting off and the possible loss of a soul through its per- versity in following sin, than the educated church- man schooled in the study of printed books, but ignorant of the great book of experience. Such a case as I refer to occurred in one of our Southern States, and was told to me by one of her able lawyers, who was a witness of the scene. A human being was about to be suspended from a gibbet. The gallows was erected in the open before the jail, the criminal stood upon the plat- form, while over him dangled the noose that was soon to strangle out his life. Around the scaffold was a company of the National Guard, and beyond the soldiers were massed hundreds who had come to see the poor wretch die. He was an unlettered, [19] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER unschooled, uncared-for negro who had committed murder in endeavoring to escape from a farmer, whose house he had robbed. How he escaped lynching my friend did not inform me, but he had been tried, found guilty, and now stood to dehver up his life at the mandate of the law. He looked out upon that sea of faces with eyes that were kindled by an unusual light, and he seemed to be gazing into the unknown future, permitted by the nearness of its approach to see beyond the portals of the new existence. Inwrapped, as he was, with awful dread of the leap into eternity, his heart bursting with strange emotion, his eyes glowing with a weird light, he looked out upon the faces before him, and implored his listeners to profit by his terrible example — to turn from animal wicked- ness, and embrace spiritual uprightness. His lan- guage was ungrammatical, his diction was far from scholarly, but sincerity was in every tone, word, and look, and a deep impression was made upon the gathered throng. This was such a burst of eloquence as described by Webster : " It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. .... It is action, noble, sublime, godlike ac- tion." This poor negro's life was not unproduc- [20] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tive of good, even though he broke what is considered by man the greatest of the command- ments, for he was at last used as the humble in- strument of God to carry one of His lessons to the erring children of men. It must not be supposed that I use this illustra- tion in order to belittle the need of preparation — vocal, physical, and mental — of the orator for his work, for, on the contrary, the points I wish to emphasize are that nothing but knowledge can furnish the material out of which the structure of oratory is erected, and that truth, absolute sin- cerity, is the foundation stone upon which the oration must rest. A union of truth and knowl- edge is necessary to the production of oratory. The orator should know his subject, know his art, know himself, and believe in all three. " Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh." Speaking is an art. The production and man- agement of speech should not be left to chance, or entirely to nature, but should be cultivated and perfected by means of the adoption of tried principles, for only in this manner can its best effects be produced. No doubt many will inwardly smile at this, and think : " Gracious ! is he going to turn speaking [21] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER into an art, will he attempt to make public speak- ing more common than it is ? " Some, perhaps, will recall the words of Carlyle : " Silence is the eternal duty of man," and also his remark that " England and America are going to nothing but wind and tongue." But before accepting the dictum of the learned Doctor, we must bear in mind that he was not an impartial critic, that he was a pessimist of pessimists, a lover of truth, as he saw it, but inclined to think that the truth an- other saw was either a falsehood or a dream. He was, however, always consistent, and ended his life's work as he began it — by pounding his ideas and views into the heads (if not the hearts) of his listeners. This I say with all due respect, be- cause I admire the great Scotchman for his satir- ical humor, his steadfastness of purpose, and his genius. Horace states that one Novius, an office-holder at Bome, — a tribune, — was elevated to the sta- tion he held chiefly by the force of his lungs. " Has he not a voice," demanded his supporters, " loud enough to drown the noise of two hundred wagons and three funerals meeting in the forum? It is this that pleases us, and we have therefore made him tribune." ^ Possibly Dr. Carlyle took * ' ' Oratory and Orators, '•' by William Matthews. [22] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER this specimen as his idea of speech, and if so, he was justified in crying out against the extension of such pubHc speaking. But should we not be permitted to see the question from its other side — from the side men hke Gladstone, Ruskin, Lincoln, Clay, Beecher, and their kind saw it? For these men agreed with Cicero in believing that it is most glorious to excel men in that in which men excel all other animals. Shakespeare says: " It is not enough to speak, but to speak true." He does not advise us to keep silent and thus lose the power of speech, for, in the words of Cardinal Newman, " He who does not use a gift, loses it ; the man who does not use his voice, loses power over it," but he tells us to speak true, true not only in the statement but in the manner. Delivery possesses many forms befitting the dif- ferent occasions and many matters on which public speakers are called upon to speak, and does not consist of mere loudness of voice and exaggerated use of gesture. The delivery characteristic of the political speaker would not be appropriate to the clergyman, the fitting delivery of the clergyman would not suit the lawyer, but each of the many forms of delivery must be given its proper attri- butes. Daniel Webster splendidly sums up the matter in three phrases : " It must exist in the [23] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER man, in the subject, and in the occasion." Let us say by way of paraphrase : The dehvery must befit the man, the subject, and the occasion. Oratory may be divided into five distinct classes. First. — Philosophic oratory, whose province it is to instruct. Second. — Demonstrative oratory, to arouse feehng. Third. — Forensic oratory, ar- ^mentative in nature. Fourth. — Deliberative oratory, pertaining to assembhes of a legislative character. Fifth. — Social oratory, to entertain or amuse. The first class. Philosophic, and the third class. Forensic, appeal only to the intellect. They are the classes where one mentality speaks to the many, aiming to persuade and move by reason, and not by any kind of passion. These classes stand on the foundation of justice, and aim to convince by demonstrating that they are right, and for that reason alone demand to. prevail. The second class. Demonstrative, appeals to the heart, and not to the mind. It aims to move by making its appeal to the passions, and to sway an audience instantly, without any consideration as to the righteousness of the appeal that moves the listener. Its sole aim is to move, and it is not always particular as to the means it uses, so long as the means accomplish the purpose for [24] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER which they are employed. It is sometimes used in furthering a good cause, but often abused in ad- vancing a bad one. The fourth class, Deliberative, possesses the at- tributes of the second class, the Demonstrative, and the third class, the Forensic, and aims to per- suade by argument, and to move by passion. The fifth class, Social, appeals only to the emo- tions, and its sole object is to entertain and amuse. Each of these five forms of oratory may em- brace the four divisions of English composition — Exposition, Argumentation, Description and Nar- ration — but they must be delivered in a manner suitable to the class in which they are used. The Philosophic discourse may be expositive, argumentative, descriptive and narrative in the one address, but never must it be allowed to wan- der from making its appeal to the reason. Such a discourse must always rest on the righteousness of its cause, and justice must be the one motive that governs it. It may instruct, argue, describe, narrate, and appeal, but only through the intel- lect. All the other classes of oratory — Demon- strative, Forensic, Deliberative, and Social — may do the like things, but only in a manner befitting each particular class. Even in Demonstrative oratory it is necessary to explain, argue, describe, [25] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER and narrate, as well as to arouse, but it is always done with the idea of swaying the listeners through the passions, and not by the force of reason. All speeches, no matter what their class, must possess an opening, a body, and a conclusion, but each class should be governed by the particular quality or qualities that go to make it up. Thus, reason governs the Philosophic and Forensic ; pas- sion the Demonstrative; both reason and passion the Deliberative, and emotion the Social. All of them, however, in their own particular way, seek to convince, persuade, and move, by appealing to either the reason or the passion, and all use the four divisions of English composition without in any manner losing the distinctive style of com- position and delivery befitting the individual class to which the speech belongs. [26] EXAMPLES OF THE FIVE CLASSES OF ORATORY FIRST CLASS — THE PHILOSOPHIC COMMUNION WITH GOD CARDINAL NEWMAN John Henry Newman, Roman Catholic cardinal, distin- guished English theologian, and one of the greatest preachers of his day, was born in London, England, February 31, 1801, and died in Edgbaston, near Birmingham, August 11, 1890. His literary productions are considered models of English style. " One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require: even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple," — Psalm xxvii, 4. WHAT the Psalmist desired, we Christians en- j oy to the full, — the liberty of holding com- munion with Grod in His temple all through our life. Under the law the presence of God was but in one place; and therefore could be approached and en- joyed only at set times. For far the greater part of their lives the chosen people were in one sense [27] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER " cast out of the sight of His eyes " ; and the periodical return to it which they were allowed was a privilege highly coveted and earnestly ex- pected. Much more precious was the privilege of continually dwelling in His sight which is spoken of in the text. " One thing," says the Psalmist, " have I desired of the Lord .... that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit His temple." He desired to have continually that communion with God in prayer, praise, and meditation, to which His presence admits the soul; and this, I say, is the portion of Christians. Faith opens upon us Christians the temple of God wherever we are; for that temple is a spiritual one, and so is everywhere present. " We have access," says the apostle, — that is, we have ad- mission or introduction, " by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." And hence, he says elsewhere, " Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice." " Re j oice evermore, pray without ceasing ; in everything give thanks." And St. James, " Is any afflicted? let him pray: is any merry? let him sing psalms." Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, con- templation, are the peculiar privilege and duty of a Christian, and that for their own sakes, from [28] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the exceeding comfort and satisfaction thej afford him, and without reference to any definite results to which prayer attends, without reference to the an- swers which are promised to it, from a general sense of the blessedness of being under the shadow of God's throne. I propose, then, in what follows to make some remarks on communion with God, or prayer in a large sense of the word; not as regards its ex- ternal consequences, but as it may be considered to affect our own minds and hearts. What, then, is prayer? It is (if it may be said reverently) conversing with God. We con- verse with our fellow men, and then we use fa- miliar language, because they are our fellows. We converse with God, and then we use the low- liest, awfullest, calmest, concisest language we can, because he is God. Prayer, then, is divine con- verse, differing from human as God differs from man. Thus St. Paul says, " Our conversation is in heaven," — not indeed thereby meaning converse of words only, but intercourse and manner of living generally; yet still in an especial way con- verse of words or prayer, because language is the special means of all intercourse. Our intercourse with our fellow men goes on, not by sight but by sound, not by eyes, but by ears. Hearing is [29] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the social sense and language is the social bond. In like manner, as the Christian's conversation is in heaven, as it is his duty, with Enoch and other saints, to walk with God, so his voice is in heaven, his heart " inditing of a good matter," of prayers and praises. Prayers and praises are the mode of his intercourse with the next world, as the con- verse of business or recreation is the mode in which this world is carried on in all its separate courses. He who does not pray, does not claim his citizen- ship with heaven, but lives, though an heir of the kingdom, as if he were a child of earth. Now, it is not surprising if that duty or privi- lege, which is the characteristic token of our heavenly inheritance, should also have an especial influence upon our fitness for claiming it. He who does not use a gift, loses it ; the man who does not use his voice or hmbs, loses power over them, and becomes disquahfied for the state of life to which he is called. In like manner, he who neglects to pray not only suspends the enjoyment, but is in a way to lose the possession of his divine citizenship. We are members of another world; we have been severed from the companionship of devils and brought Into that invisible kingdom of Christ which faith alone discerns, — that mysteri- ous presence of God which encompasses us, which [30] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER is in us, and around us, which is in our heart, which enfolds us as though with a robe of hght, hiding our scarred and discolored souls from the sight of divine purity, and making them shining as the angels ; and which flows in upon us too by means of all forms of beauty and grace which this visible world contains, in a starry host or (if I may so say) a milky way of divine companions, the inhabitants of Mount Zion, where we dwell. Faith, I say, alone apprehends all this; but yet there is something which is not left to faith, — our own tastes, likings, motives, and habits. Of these we are conscious in our degree, and we can make ourselves more and more conscious; and as con- sciousness tells us what they are, reason tells us whether they are such as become, as correspond with, that heavenly world into which we have been translated. SECOND CLASS — THE DEMONSTRATIVE ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT VICTOR HUGO Victor Marie Hugo, a great French poet, dramatist, novelist, man of letters, and senator, was born in Besan9on, France, February 26, 1802, and died at Paris, May 22, 1885. This extract is taken from a speech delivered by Victor Hugo on June 11, 1851, in defence of his son, Charles Hugo, who was indicted before the Court of Assizes under the [31] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER charge of having failed in respect due the law, by publish- ing in his paper a full and vivid account of a recent execu- tion. GENTLEMEN of the jury, this right to criti- cise the law, to criticise it even with severity, particularly penal law, that can so easily take on the impress of barbarism, this right of criticism that stands side by side with the duty of ameliora- tion, as a torch to guide a workman, this right of author not less sacred than the right of legislator, this imperative right, this inalienable right, you will recognize in your verdict, — you will acquit the accused. But the counsel for the prosecution, and this is his second argument, asserts that the criticism of the " Evenement " went too far, was too scathing. Ah, gentlemen of the jury, let us bring near the event which was the cause of the pretended crime with which one has had the hardi- hood to charge the editor of the " Evenement," let us regard it at short range. Here is a man, condemned, wretched, who is dragged on a certain morning into one of our squares — there he finds a scaffold. He rebels, he pleads, he will not die; he is still young, hardly twenty-nine years old — great heavens ! I know what you will say — " He is an assassin ! " but listen 1 Two executioners seize him; his hands are bound, his feet fettered, [32] LAWRENCE READER' AND SPEAKER still he pushes them back. A horrible struggle ensues. He twists his feet in the ladder, and uses the scaffold against the scaffold. The struggle is prolonged, horror takes possession of the crowd. The executioners, the sweat of shame on their brows, pale, breathless, terrified, desperate with I know not what terrible despair — borne down by the weight of public reprobation that must confine itself to condemnation of the death penalty, but that would do wrong in harming its passive in- strument — the headsman — the executioners make savage efforts. Force must remain with the law, that is the maxim! The man clings to the scaf- fold and demands mercy ; his clothing is torn away, his bare shoulders are bloody, he resists all the while. At last, after three-quarters of an hour of this awful contest, of this spectacle without a name, of this agony, agony for every one, — do you realize it ? — agony for those present as well as for the condemned; after this age of anguish, gentlemen of the jury, the poor wretch is carried back to prison. The people breathe again; the people who have the humane feelings of earlier times, and who are merciful, knowing themselves to be sovereign — the people believe him to be saved. Not at all. The guillotine is vanquished, but still rears itself; it remains standing through- 3 [33] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER out the day in the midst of a population filled with consternation. At night the executioners, rein- forced in number, bind the man in such fashion that he is no longer anything save an inert mass, and again transport him to the square, weeping, screaming, haggard, bleeding, begging for life, calhng upon God, calling upon his father and his mother, because in the face of death this man is again a child. He is hoisted upon the scaffold — and his head falls ! And then a murmur of abhorrence is heard from the crowd; never has legal murder appeared more presumptuous or more accursed; every one feels, so to speak, jointly re- sponsible for the tragic deed just done; everyone feels in his inmost soul as if he had seen in the very midst of France, in broad day, civilization insulted by barbarism! Then it is that a cry breaks forth from the breast of a young man, from his heart, from his soul, from the very depths of his being, a cry of pity, a cry of anguish, a cry of horror; and for this cry you will punish him! And, in presence of these frightful facts that I have brought under your notice, you will say to the guillotine, " Thou art right ! " and will say to compassion, to holy compassion, " Thou art wrong ! " Monsieur the Attorney-General, I tell you with- [84] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER out bitterness that you are not defending a right- eous cause. It is in vain ! You are engaged in an unequal contest with the spirit of civiHzation, with milder manners, with progress. You have against you the resistance of the inmost heart of man; you have against you all the principles in the light of which for sixty years France has walked and also caused the world to walk — the inviolability of human life, the brotherhood of the ignorant classes, and the doctrine of ameliora- tion in place of the doctrine of retaliation. You have against you all that illuminates reason, all that vibrates in the soul, philosophy as well as religion; on the one side Voltaire, on the other Jesus Christ. Your labor is in vain, this fright- ful service that the scaffold has the pretension to render society, society abhors and rejects. Your labor is in vain, the upholders of capital punish- ment labor in vain, and you see we do not con- found them with society, it is useless for them, they will never take away the guilt of the old law of retahation. They will never wash away those hideous words upon which for so many centuries has trickled down the blood from heads severed by the executioner's knife. Gentlemen, I have done ! [35] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THIRD CLASS — FORENSIC NO RIGHT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION TO HOLD SUBJECT STATES GEORGE F. HOAR George Frisbie Hoar was born at Concord, Mass., August 29, 1826, and died at Worcester, Mass., September 30, 1904. He studied in early youth at Concord Academy; was gradu- ated at Harvard College in 1846; studied law and was graduated at the Dane Law School in I860; was elected rep- resentative to the Forty-first, Forty-second, Forty-third, and Forty-fourth Congresses, after having served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1852 and of the State Senate in 1857. He received the degree of Doctor of Laws from William and Mary, Amherst, Yale, and Harvard Colleges, and was a member of many historical so- cieties. He was a United States Senator from Massachu- setts from March 5, 1877, to the day of his death. Senator Hoar was at his best in argumentative oratory, as his reason- ing was profound, his logic clear, and his style dignified and convincing. He was considered one of the best forensic ora- tors of his day. The following is an extract from a speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 17, 1900. THE constitutional question is: Has Congress the power, under our Constitution, to hold in subjection unwilling vassal States.? The question of international law is: Can any nation rightfully convey to another, sovereignty over an unwilling people who have thrown off its dominion, asserted their independence, established a government of their own; over whom it has at [36] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the time no practical control, from whose territory it has been disseized, and which it is beyond its power to deliver? The question of justice and righteousness is: Have we the right to crush and hold under our feet an unwilling and subject people whom we had treated as allies, whose independence we are bound in good faith to respect, who had established their own free government, and who had trusted us ? The question of public expediency is : Is it for our advantage to promote our trade at the cannon's mouth and at the point of the bayonet? All these questions can be put in a way of prac- tical illustration by inquiring whether we ought to do what we have done, are doing, and mean to do in the case of Cuba; or what we have done, are doing, and some of you mean to do in the case of the Philippine Islands. It does not seem to me to be worth while to state again at length the constitutional argument which I have addressed to the Senate heretofore. It has been encountered with eloquence, with clearness, and beauty of statement, and, I have no doubt, with absolute sincerity by Senators who have spoken on the other side. But the issue between them and me can be summed up in a sentence or two, and if, so stated, it cannot be made clear to any man's [37] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER apprehension, I despair of making it clear by any elaboration or amplification. I admit that the United States may acquire and hold property, and may make rules and regula- tions for its disposition. I admit that, like other property, the United States may acquire and hold land. It may acquire it by purchase. It may acquire it by treaty. It may acquire it by conquest. And it may make rules and regulations for its disposition and gov- ernment, however it be acquired. When there are inhabitants upon the land so ac- quired it may make laws for their government. But the question between me and the gentlemen on the other side is this: Is this acquisition of terri- tory, of land or other property, whether gained by purchase, conquest, or treaty, a constitutional end or only a means to a constitutional end? May you acquire, hold, and govern territory, or other property, as an end for which our Constitution was framed, or is it only a means towards some other and further end.? May you acquire, hold, and govern property by conquest, treaty, or pur- chase for the sole ob j ect of so holding and govern- ing it, without the consideration of any further constitutional purpose ; or must you hold it for a constitutional purpose only, such as the making [38] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of new States, the national defence and security, the establishment of a seat of government, or the construction of forts, harbors, and like works, which, of course, are themselves for the national defence and security? I hold that this acquisition, holding, and govern- ing can only be a means for a constitutional end — the creation of new States or some other of the constitutional purposes to which I have adverted. And I maintain that you can no more hold and govern territory than you can hold and manage cannon or fleets for any other than a constitutional end; and I maintain that the holding in subjection an alien people, governing them against their will for any fancied advantage to them, is not only not an end provided for by the Constitution, but is an end prohibited therein. Now, with due respect to the gentlemen who have discussed this matter, I do not find that they have answered this proposition or undertaken to answer it. I do not find that they have under- stood it. You have, in my judgment, under your admitted power to acquire, own, and govern terri- tory, which is just like your admitted power to govern, own, and control ships or guns, no more right under the Constitution to hold that territory for the sake of keeping in subjection an alien peo- [39] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER pie than you have a right to acquire, hold, and manage cannon or fleets or to raise armies for the sake of keeping in subjection and under your control an alien people. All these things are means : and means to constitutional and not to unconstitutional ends. The Constitution of the United States sets forth certain specific objects and confers certain specific powers upon the Government it creates. All pow- ers necessary or reasonably convenient to accom- plishing these specific objects and exercising these specific powers are granted by implication. In my judgment the Constitution should be liberally construed in determining the extent of such powers. In that I agree with Webster and Hamilton and Lincoln and Washington and Marshall, and not with Calhoun or the Democrats of the time of the War of the Rebellion and since. But the most lib- eral statesman or jurist never went further than the rule I have stated in claiming constitutional powers for our Government. The Constitution says that Congress may make rules and regulations for the government of the territory and other property of the United States. That implies that we may acquire and regulate territory as we may acquire and use other property, such as our ships of war, our cannon or forts or arsenals. But [40] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER territory, like other property, can only be acquired for constitutional purposes, and cannot be acquired and governed for unconstitutional purposes. Now, one constitutional purpose is to admit new States to the Union. That is on^ of the objects for which the Constitution was framed. So we may acquire and hold and govern territory with that object in view. But governing subject peo- ples, and holding them for that purpose, is not a constitutional end. On the contrary, it is an end which the generation which framed the Con- stitution and the Declaration of Independence de- clared was unrighteous and abhorrent. So, in my opinion, we have no constitutional power to acquire territory for the purpose of holding it in subju- gation, in a state of vassalage or serfdom, against the will of its people. FOURTH CLASS — LEGISLATIVE CUBA MUST BE FREE JOHN M. THURSTON John Mellen Thurston was born at Montpelier, Vermont, August 21, 1847. His ancestors were Puritans, their set- tlement in this country dating back to 1636. His grand- father Mellen and great-grandfather Thurston were both soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He journeyed with his parents to the West in 1854, making his home in Madison, [41] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Wisconsin. By intelligence and hard work he rose from farm laborer to lawyer, having been admitted to the bar May 21, 1869, and in October of the same year located in Omaha, Nebraska, where he began the practice of his pro- fession. He rose by successive steps from City Councillor of Omaha in 187^, to member of the Nebraska legislature in 1875; temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention in 1888; president of the Republican League of the United States, 1889 to 1891; United States Senator from Nebraska 1895 to 1901. As an advocate, ex-Senator Thurston is eloquent and convincing, and as a political speaker he is one of the best that the Republican party has possessed. The following extract is from a speech de- livered in the United States Senate, March 24, 1898. MR. President, there are those who say that the aJfFairs of Cuba are not the affairs of the United States, who insist that we can stand idly by and see that island devastated and depopulated, its business interests destroyed, its commercial inter- course with us cut off, its people starved, degraded, and enslaved. It may be the naked legal right of the United States to stand thus idly by. I have the legal right to pass along the street and see a helpless dog stamped into the earth under the heels of a rufSan. I can pass by and say that is not my dog. I can sit in my comfortable parlor with my loved ones gathered about me, and through my plate glass window see a fiend outraging a helpless woman nearby, and I can legally say this is no affair of mine — it is not happening on my premises ; and I can turn away and take my little [42] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ones in my arms, and, with the memory of their sainted mother in my heart, look up to the motto on the wall and read, " God bless our home." But if I do, I am a coward and a cur unfit to live, and, God knows, unfit to die. And yet I can- not protect the dog nor save the woman without the exercise of force. We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war ; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, " Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who de- spoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I believe in the doctrine of peace ; but, Mr. Presi- dent, men must have liberty before there can come abiding peace. Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But it will be God's force. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force? Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta ; force put life [43] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime ; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the val- ley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox ; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made " niggers " men. The time for God's force has come again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song : " In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea^ With a glory in his bosom that transfigured you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, For God is marching on.** Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for further diplomatic negotia- [44.] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tion, which means delay, but for me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready to answer to my conscience, my country, and my God. FIFTH CLASS — SOCIAL THE MEDICAL PROFESSION OLIVER WENDELIi HOLMES Oliver "Wendell Holmes, an eminent writer in prose and verse, was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809, and died at Boston, Mass., October 7, 1894. This extract is from a speech delivered by Mr. Holmes at the dinner of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Boston, May, 1856. IT is the peculiar privilege of occasions like the present to indulge in such reasonable measure of self-congratulation as the feeling of the hour may inspire. The very theory of the banquet is that it crowns the temples with roses and warms the heart with wine, so that the lips may speak more freely and the ears may listen more lovingly, and our better natures brought into close com- munion for an hour may carry away the fragrance of friendship mingled with the odor of the blossoms that breathed sweet through the festal circle. We have suppressed the classical accompani- ments of good-fellowship, but we claim all its license. Nor are we alone in asserting a title to [45] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER this indulgence. Of all the multitudinous re- ligious associations that are meeting around us, I have jet to learn that there is one which does not assert or assume its own peculiar soundness in the faith. I have seen a black swan and a white crow in the same collection, but I never heard of a political assembly where all its own crows were not white, and all the swans of all the other politi- cal aviaries were not blacker than midnight murder or noonday ruffianism. The few words I have to speak are uttered more freely because my relations with the medical pro- fession are incidental rather than immediate and intimate. My pleasant task is all performed in the porch of the great temple where you serve daily. I need not blush then to speak the praises of the divine art, even if you should blush to hear them. I hear it said from time to time that the physi- cian is losing his hold on the public mind. I be- lieve this remark belongs to a class of sayings that repeat themselves over and over, like the Japanese machine-made prayers which our travellers tell us of, and with about as much thought in them. There are country people that are always saying there is a great want of rain — they would have said so in Noah's flood — for the first fortnight, at least; there are city folks for whom business [46] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER is always dull and money is always tight ; there are politicians that always think the country is going to ruin, and there are people enough that will never believe there are any " good old-fashioned snow storms " nowadays, until they have passed a night in the cars between a couple of those degener- ate snow banks they despise so heartily. There are many things of this sort which are said daily, which always have been said, and always will be said, with more or less of truth, but without any such portentous novelty as need frighten us from our propriety. We need not go beyond our own limits, Mr. President, to find ample reason for proclaiming boldly that the medical profession was never more truly honored or more liberally rewarded than at this very time and in this very place. There never lived in this community a practitioner held in more love and veneration by all his professional brethren and by the multitude who have profited by his kind and wise counsel than he who, having soothed the last hours of his long cherished friend and as- sociate, still walks among us bearing his burden of years so lightly that he hardly leans upon the staffs he holds ; himself a staff upon which so many have leaned through fifty faithful years of patient service. Talk about the success of the unworthy [47] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER pretender as compared with that of the true physician — why, what man could ever have built up such a fame among us, if he had not laid as its cornerstone, truth, fidelity, honor, humanity — all cemented with the courtesy that binds these virtues together in one life-long inseparable union. Do you complain of the failing revenues of the profession? I question whether from the time when Boylston took his pay in guineas, through the days when John Warren the elder counted his gains in continental currency, looking well in the ledger and telling poorly at the butcher's and the baker's, there was ever a prettier pile made daily than is built up by one of our living brethren who fought his way up stream until the tide turned and wafted him into reputation, which makes his labors too much for one man and something over two horses. The success of one such diligent and faith- ful practitioner is the truest rebuke to charlatan- ism. It is a Waterloo triumph, a Perry's victory, not over the squadrons of Lake Erie, but the piratical craft of Quack-ery. [48] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR CHARLES DICKENS Charles Dickens, the marvellous novelist of humble life, was born in Portsmouth, England, February 7, 1812, and died in London, England, June 9, 1870. He commenced his literary career, with " Sketches by Boz," when he was twenty-one years old, and it extended, with wonderful suc- cess, over a period of thirty-seven years. His childhood was passed in poverty and hardship, he had little schooling, and was what is styled a self-educated man. Not only was he a great writer, but he was gifted with talent for acting, and amassed large sums by reading from his works in Eng- land and America. He was a man of fine appearance, pos- sessed a beautifully modulated voice, and much dramatic power. r ■ 1 HERE was once a child, and he strolled about ■■- a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers ; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world. They used to say to one another, sometimes: Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be 4 [49] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water ; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars ; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more. There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, " I see the star 1 " And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good-night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, " God bless the star ! " But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so very weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, " I [50] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER see the star 1 " and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, " God bless my brother and the star ! " And so the time came, all too soon, when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed ; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears. Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them. All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people's necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy. But there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient LSI] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host. His sister's angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither: " Is my brother come? " And he said " No." She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, " O, sister, I am here ! Take me ! " and then she turned her beam- ing eyes upon him, and it was night ; and the star was shining in the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears. From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, be- cause of his sister's angel gone before. There was a baby bom to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken a word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died. Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people's faces. [52] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Said his sister's angel to the leader: " Is my brother come? " And he said, " Not that one, but another." As the child beheld his brother's angel in her arms, he cried, " O, sister, I am here ! Take me ! " And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining. He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old servant came to him and said: " Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son ! " Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister's angel to the leader : " Is my brother come? " And he said, "Thy mother 1" A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, " O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here ! Take me I I " And they answered him, " Not yet," and the star was shining. He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning gray, and he was sitting in his chair by his fire- side, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again. [53] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Said his sister's angel to the leader : " Is my brother come? " And he said, " Nay, but his maiden daughter." And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said " My daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is around my mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised ! " And the star was shining. Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children stand- ing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago : "I see the star!" They whispered one another, " He is dying." And he said, " I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me ! " And the star was shining : and it shines upon his grave. [54] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE GENIUS OF CHARLES DICKENS WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY William Makepeace Thackeray, an eminent English novel- ist, was born in Calcutta, India, July 18, 1811, and died in London, England, December 24, 1863. This extract is from" a lecture entitled " Charity and Humor," which was de- livered at New York at the time of Mr. Thackeray's visit to America in 1852. AS for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kindnesses which he has conferred upon us all ; upon our children ; upon people educated and uneducated; upon the myriads here and at home, who speak our common tongue ; have not you, have not I, all of us reason to be thankful to this kind friend, who soothed and charmed so many hours, brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many homes ; made such multitudes of children happy ; endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, hearty en- joyments? There are creations of Mr. Dickens's which seem to me to rank as personal benefits ; figures so delightful, that one feels happier and better for knowing them, as one does for being brought into the society of very good men and women. The atmosphere in which these people [55] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER live is wholesome to breathe in ; you feel that to be allowed to speak to them is a personal kindness ; you come away better for your contact with them ; your hands seem cleaner from having the privilege of shaking theirs. Was there ever a better charity sermon preached in the world than Dickens's " Christmas Carol " ? I believe it occasioned im- mense hospitality throughout England; was the means of lighting up hundreds of kind fires at Christmas-time ; caused a wonderful outpouring of Christmas good feeling ; of Christmas punch brew- ing ; an awful slaughter of Christmas turkeys, and roasting and basting of Christmas beef. As for this man's love of children, that amiable organ at the back of his honest head must be perfectly monstrous. All children ought to love him. I know two that do, and read his books ten times for once that they peruse the dismal preachments of their father. I know one who, when she is happy, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she is unhappy, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she is in bed, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she is tired, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; when she has nothing to do, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " ; and when she has finished the book, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " over again. This candid young critic, [56] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER at ten years of age, said, " I like Mr. Dickens's books much better than your books, Papa " ; and frequently expressed her desire that the latter author should write a book like one of Mr. Dickens's books. Who can? Every man must say his own thoughts in his own voice, in his own way ; lucky is he who has such a charming gift of nature as this, which brings all the children in the world trooping to him, and being fond of him. I remember, when that famous " Nicholas Nickleby " came out, seeing a letter from a peda- gogue in the north of England, which, dismal as it was, was immensely comical. " Mr. Dickens's ill-advised publication," wrote the poor school- master, " has passed like a whirlwind over the schools of the North." He was a proprietor of a cheap school ; Dotheboys Hall was a cheap school. There were many such establishments in the north- em counties. Parents were ashamed that never were ashamed before until the kind satirist laughed at them; relatives were frightened; scores of little scholars were taken away; poor schoolmasters had to shut their shops up ; every pedagogue was voted a Squeers, and many suffered, no doubt unjustly; but afterwards schoolboys' backs were not so much caned; schoolboys' meat was less tough and more [57] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER plentiful; and schoolboys' milk was not so sky- blue. What a kind light of benevolence it is that plays round Crummies and the Phenomenon, and all those poor theatre people in that charming book ! What a humor ! and what a good humor 1 One might go on, though the task would be end- less and needless, chronicling the names of kind folks with whom this kind genius has made us familiar. Who does not love the Marchioness and Mr. Richard Swiveller? Who does not sym- pathize, not only with Oliver Twist, but his ad- mirable young friend the Artful Dodger? Who has not the inestimable advantage of possessing a Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not bless Sairey Gamp and wonder at Mrs. Harris? Who does not venerate the chief of that illustrious family who, being stricken by misfortune, wisely and greatly turned his attention to " coals," the accomplished, the Epicurean, the dirty, the de- lightful Micawber? I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a thousand times, I delight and wonder at his genius ; I recognize in it — I speak with awe and reverence — a commission from that Divine Benef- icence whose blessed task we know it will one day be to wipe every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my share of the feast of love and kindness [58] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER which this gentle, and generous, and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a Benediction for the meal. DIGGING FOR THE THOUGHT JOHN RUSKIN John Ruskin, a distinguished English art critic and prose writer, was born in London, February 8, 1819, and died near Coniston, Lancashire, January . 20, 1900. WHEN you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, " Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would.? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim my- self — and my sleeves well up to the elbows, and my breath good, and my temper.'' " And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tire- someness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learn- ing; your smelting-fumace is your own thought- ful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning without those tools and that fire. Often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and pa- [59] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tientest fusing before jou can gather one grain of the metal. And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable — nay, letter by letter. For, though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs to sounds that the study of books is called " literature," that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters, instead of a man of books or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real fact — that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly illiterate, uneducated person ; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say, with real accuracy, you are f orevermore in some measure an educated person. The entire difference be- tween education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it) consists in this ac- curacy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many languages, may not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few books ; but what- ever language he knows, he knows precisely; what- [60] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. Above all, he is learned in the peerage of words, knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; re- members all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held among the national noblesse of words at any time and in any country. But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any — not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensi- ble seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most ports ; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate per- son. So also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively ad- mitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. [61] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE PERFECT ORATOR R. B. SHERIDAN Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was born in Dublin, Ireland, September 30, 1751, and died in London, England, July 7, 1816. He lived idly as a youth, tempestuously as a man, and died in debt and misery. He was a good dram- atist, a clever parliamentarian, and a great orator, but, through dissipation, became broken in health, fortune, and reputation, and died, a discredited man, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. TMAGINE to yourself a Demosthenes, address- -*■ ing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustri- ous of nations depended. How awful such a meet- ing! How vast the subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion .^^ Adequate! Yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of the subject, for a while superseded, by the admiration of his talents. With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart, does he assault and subjugate the whole man ; and, at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions. To effect this, must be the ut- [621 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER most effort of the most improved state of human nature. Not a faculty that he possesses, is here unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses, but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work; all his external, testify their energies. Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, are all busy. Without, every muscle, every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those energies from soul to soul. Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence they are melted into one mass ; the whole assembly, actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is, — let us move agamst Philip, — let us fight for our liberties, — let us conquer or die! [63] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER PUBLIC OPINION AND THE SWORD T. B. MACAULAY Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, was born in Rothbey Temple, Leicestershire, England, October 35, 1800, and died at Kensington, London, December 28, 1859. He won re- nown as historian, poet, parliamentarian and orator. AT the present moment I can see only one ques- tion in the State, the question of reform ; only two parties — the friends of the bill and its enemies. No observant and unprejudiced man can look for- ward, without great alarm, to the effects which the recent decision of the Lords may possibly produce. I do not predict, I do not expect, open, armed in- surrection. What I apprehend is this — that the people may engage in a silent but extensive and persevering war against the law. It is easy to say : "Be bold ; be firm ; defy intimidation ; let the law have its course; the law is strong enough to put down the seditious." Sir, we have heard this blustering before; and we know in what it ended. It is the blustering of little men, whose lot has fallen on a great crisis. Xerxes scourging the waves, Canute commanding the waves to recede from his footstool, were but types of the folly. The law has no eyes ; the law has no hands ; the law is nothing — nothing but a piece of paper printed [64] LAWRENCE HEADER AND SPEAKER by the king's printer, with the king's arms at the top — till public opinion breathes the breath of life into the dead letter. We found this in Ireland. The elections of 1826 — the Clare election, two years later — proved the folly of those who think that nations are governed by wax and parchment ; and, at length, in the close of 1828, the government had only one plain alternative before it — conces- sion or civil war. I know only two ways in which societies can permanently be governed — by public opinion, and by the sword. A government having at its com- mand the armies, the fleets, and the revenues of Great Britain, might possibly hold Ireland by the sword. So Oliver Cromwell held Ireland; so Wil- liam the Third held it ; so Mr. Pitt held it ; so the Duke of Wellington might, perhaps, have held it. But, to govern Great Britain by the sword — so wild a thought has never, I will venture to say, oc- curred to any public man of any party; and, if any man were frantic enough to make the attempt, he would find, before three days had expired, that there is no better sword than that which is fashioned out of a ploughshare ! But, if not by the sword, how are the people to be governed? I understand how the peace is kept at New York. It is by the assent and support of the people. I understand, 5 [65] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER also, how the peace is kept at Milan. It is by the bayonets of the Austrian soldiers. But how the peace is to be kept when you have neither the popu- lar assent nor the military force — how the peace is to be kept in England by a government acting on the principles of the present opposition — I do not understand. Sir, we read that, in old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by oppression — when the castles of the nobility were burned to the ground — when the warehouses of London were pillaged — when a hundred thousand insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath — when a foul murder, perpe- trated in their presence, had raised their passions to madness — when they were looking round for some captain to succeed and avenge him whom they had ost — just then, before Hob Miller, or Tom Carter, or Jack Straw, could place himself at their head, the King rode up to them, and exclaimed, " I will be your leader ! " — and, at once, the infuriated multitude laid down their arms, submitted to his guidance, dispersed at his command. Herein let us imitate him. Let us say to the people, " We are your leaders — we, your own House of Commons.'^ This tone it is our interest and our duty to take. The circumstances admit of no delay. Even while I speak, the moments are passing away — the ir- [66] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER revocable momentSj pregnant with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger ; it may be saved : we can save it. This is the way — this is the time. In our hands are the issues of great good and great evil — the issues of the life and death of the State ! ON THE AMERICAN WAR WILLIAM PITT, LORD CHATHAM William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, and Prime Minister of England, was born at Westminster on November 15, 1708, and died at his seat at Hayes, May 11, 1788. He was an extensively read classical scholar, and made a deep and ex- haustive study of the works of the ancient orators, of whom Demosthenes was his favorite. His style is inclined to be turgid, even theatric, but there Is a sincerity in his language that glosses over, and almost conceals, its artificiality. His fervor beats into a white heat the expressive words of his utterances, and causes them to burn their way to the very heart of the listener. What matter of Pitt's has come down to us still appears to contain in its soul the ring of his magic voice, and it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to carry the reader back to the Halls of Parlia- ment, when the great Commoner, and later the noble Earl, stood in his might and grandeur and swept away all op- position by the force of his eloquence and the magic strength of his will. Pitt, in his political battles, was many times overcome, but in his oratorical contests found none who could withstand the blows of his tremendous battle- axe of demonstrative oratory, or the sharp point of his satirical spear. T CANNOT, my Lords, I will not, join in con- ■*• gratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my Lords, is a perilous and tremendous [67] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER moment. It is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect sup- port in their infatuation .f* Can parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give its support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon it? Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt 1 " But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world ; now, none so poor to do her reverence ! " — The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interests consulted, and their am- bassadors entertained, by our inveterate enemy; and ministers do not — and dare not — interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the British troops than I do ; I know their virtues and their valor ; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an [68] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER impossibility. You cannot, my Lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that, in three campaigns, we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traf- fic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be forever vain and impotent — doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to over- run them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never, never, never 1 But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate, to our arms, the toma- hawk and scalping-knif e of the savage ? — to call, into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabi- tants of the woods ? — to delegate, to the merci- less Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my Lords, this led] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also those of morality ; " for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, " to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House; or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to encroach upon so much of your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself im- pelled to speak. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christians to protest against such horrible barbarity ! — " That God and Nature have put into our hands 1 " What ideas of God and nature that noble Lord may en- tertain, I know not; but I know that such detest- able principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knif e ! — to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indigna- tion! [70] LAWR]£NCE READER AND SPEAKEII PANEGYRIC ON WILLIAM OF ORANGE WILLIAM C. PLUNKET Baron William Conyngham Plunket was born in Ireland in 1764. As a lawyer, he was considered the leader of the Dublin bar at its golden age; as an advocate, he was com- parable with Erskine; as a statesman, he ranked among the foremost of his age; as an orator, he has not been sur- passed by any of his contemporaries. " His oratory," says a writer in the " Ecinbufgh Review," " was of a very high kind; in perfect mastery of the topics he touched; in ful- ness and accuracy of information; in reasoning, not rapid and vehement, but earnest, vigorous, and sustained; in the dignity and propriety of its diction, and in the occasional beauty of its illustrations — it has not been excelled in the British Senate." He died in 1854. T) ERHAPS, my Lords, there is not to be found -*• in the annals of history a character more truly great than that of William the Third. Per- haps no person has ever appeared on the theatre of the world, who has conferred more essential or more lasting benefits on mankind; on these countries certainly none. When I look at the ab- stract merits of his character, I contemplate him with admiration and reverence. Lord of a petty principality ; destitute of all resources but those with which nature had endowed him ; regarded with jealousy and envy by those whose battles he fought ; thwarted in all his counsels ; embarrassed in all his movements ; deserted in his most critical enter- [71] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER prise; he continued to mould all those discordant materials, to govern all those warring interests, and merely by the force of his genius, the as- cendancy of his integrity, and the unmovable firm- ness and constancy of his nature, to combine them into an indissoluble alliance against the schemes of despotism and universal domination of the most powerful monarch in Europe, seconded by the ablest generals, at the head of the bravest and best disciplined armies in the world, and wielding, with- out check or control, the unlimited resources of his empire. He was not a consummate general: mili- tary men will point out his errors ; in that respect fortune did not favor him, save by throwing the lustre of adversity over all his virtues. He sus- tained defeat after defeat, but always rose adversa verum immersahilis unda. Looking merely at his shining qualities and achievements, I admire him as I do a Scipio, a Regulus, a Fabius; a model of tranquil courage, undeviating probity, and armed with a resoluteness and constancy in the cause of truth and freedom, which rendered him superior to the accidents that control the fate of ordinary men. [72] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS EDMUND BUEKE Edmund Burke, one of the greatest masters of composi- tion of modern times, was born in Dublin, Ireland, January 12, 1729, and died in Bath, England, July 8, 1797. His re- nown as an orator rests on his written and not his spoken words, as his delivery was faulty and his voice not of a pleasing quality. His compositions, however, are master- pieces, and although at times his sentences are long and somewhat involved, his reasoning is plain, his language chaste and expressive, and his argument convincing. He in- fluenced not only bis time, but the generations following him. MY LORDS, you have now heard the princi- ples on which Mr. Hastings governs the part of Asia subjected to the British Empire. Here he has declared his opinion, that he is a des- potic prince; that he is to use arbitrary power; and, of course, all his acts are covered with that shield. " I know," says he, '' the Constitution of Asia only from its practice." Will your Lord- ships submit to hear the corrupt practices of man- kind made the principles of government.? He have arbitrary power ! My Lords, the East India Company have not arbitrary power to give him ; the King has no arbitrary power to give him ; your Lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole Legislature, We have no arbitrary [73] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. No man can lawfully govern himself ac- cording to his own will, much less can one person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in subjection, all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in sub j ection to one great, immutable pre-existent law, prior to all our de- vices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot stir. This great law does not arise from our conven- tions or compacts ; on the contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and sanc- tion they can have ; — it does not arise from our vain institutions. Every good gift is of God; all power is of God ; — and He, who has given the power, and from whom alone it originates, will never suffer the exercise of it to be practiced upon any less solid foundation than the power itself. If then all dominion of man over man, is the effect of the divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it, with which no human authority can dispense; neither he that exercises it, nor even those who are sub j ect to it : and if they [74] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER were mad enough to make an express compact that should release their magistrate from his duty, and should declare their lives, liberties, and properties dependent upon, not rules and laws, but his mere capricious will, that covenant would be void. This arbitrary power is not to be had by con- quest. Nor can any sovereign have it by succes- sion ; for no man can succeed to fraud, rapine, and violence. Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face to the world. Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property ; name me power and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms ; it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magis- trate exist? To suppose for power, is an ab- surdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will; but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is bom to be governed by law; and he that will substitute will in place of it, is an enemy to God. [75] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your Lordships of this, — that Mr. Hast- ings' government was one whole system of oppres- sion, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and of supersession of the whole system of the English Government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could pos- sibly exist in any government ; in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the Commons of England I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you. Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose par- liamentary trust he has abused. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has sub- verted. I impeach him in the name of the people of [76] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name of human nature it- self, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in the world. INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS THOMAS ERSKINE Thomas Erskine, Lord Erskine, was the youngest son of Henry David, tenth earl of Buchan; and was born in Edin- burgh, Scotland, Jan. 10, 1750. His early education was had at the high school of Edinburgh, and later he attended the grammar school of St. Andrews, to which place the family had moved. He was a midshipman in the navy for a short time and later purchased a commission in the army, but tired of this life and took up the study of law. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, April 26, 1775, and on Jan. 13, 1776, he entered his name on the books of Trinity College, Cambridge. His rise as an advocate was wonderfully rapid, and after his first speech, it is said that the attorneys flocked round him with their retainers, and placed in his hands sixty-five before he quitted Westmin- ster Hall. Four years and a half after he was called to the bar, he had cleared from eight to nine thousand pounds, be- sides paying his debts. His first speech in Parliament was a dismal failure caused by his nervousness, or, as Sheridan put it, his fear of Pitt. He died November 17, 1833. Erskine is considered, by the best authorities, the greatest forensic [77] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER orator that Great Britain has produced, and although a member of Parliament for a number of years, he never met with any marked success as a parliamentarian speaker, but as an advocate pleading his client's cause before a jury, it is doubtful if his equal has existed in modern times. His first great success was achieved when he appeared for Captain Baillie. His second, and perhaps greatest suc- cess, was gained when he defended Lord George Gordon against a charge of treason, and it was this victory that annihilated the doctrine of constructive treason in England. NEWTON was a Christian! Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our finite conceptions ; Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy. Not those vision- ary and arrogant assumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie. Newton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the princi- ples by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, per- haps, the errors which a minuter investigation of the created things on this earth might have taught him of the essence of his creator. What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all mat- ter, even to the brute inanimate substances which the foot treads on. Such a man may be supposed [78] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine, to " look through nature up to nature's God.'' Yet the result of all this contemplation was the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt as despicable and drivelling superstition. But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the foundation of human judgment, and the structure of that under- standing which God has given us for the investiga- tion of truth. Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who was to the highest pitch of devo- tion and adoration a Christian. Mr. Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking by going up to the fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the perceptions of sense to the last conclu- sions of ratiocination ; putting a rein, besides, upon false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of human judgment. But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind. Gentlemen, in the place where you now sit to administer the justice of this great country, above a century ago the never-to-be-for- gotten Sir Matthew Hale presided, whose faith in [79] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious ex- ample of its fruits in man; administering human justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, which has been and will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by Mr. Paine, that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient supersti- tions of the world, and may be easily detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of the heathens. Did Milton understand those mytholo- gies? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world? No; they were the subject of his immortal song; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the il- lustration of that real and exalted faith, the un- questionable source of that fervid genius, which cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of man. He pass'd the bounds of flaming space, Where angels tremble while they gaze; He saw, till, blasted with excess of lights He clos'd his eyes in endless night ! [80] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ON THE IRISH DISTURBANCE BILL Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish orator and statesman, was born at Carhen House, Cahirciveen, County Kerry, Ire- land, Aug. 6, 1775, and died in Genoa, Italy, May 15, 1847. He stood in the front rank as an advocate, and hardly had an equal in the power of winning juries to his way of think- ing; as an orator he ranked with Plunket, and, while his style at times was faulty, he possessed a manly power, and a subtle skill, which enabled him to achieve surprising re- sults. T DO not rise to fawn or cringe to this House; -■■ I do not rise to supplicate you to be merci- ful toward the Nation to which I belong, — toward a Nation which, though subject to England, yet is distinct from it. It is a distinct Nation; it has been treated as such by this country, as may be proved by history, and by seven hundred years of tyranny. I call upon this House, as you value the liberty of England, not to allow the present nefarious bill to pass. In it are involved the liberties of England, the liberty of the Press, and of every other institution dear to Englishmen. Against the bill I protest, in the name of the Irish people, and in the face of Heaven. I treat with scorn the puny and pitiful assertions, that griev- ances are not to be complained of, — and our re- dress is not to be agitated; for, in such cases, 6 [81] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER remonstrances cannot be too strong, agitation cannot be too violent, to show to the world with what injustice our fair claims are met, and under what tyranny the people suffer. The clause which does away with trial by jury, — what, in the name of Heaven, is it, if it is not the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal? It drives the judge from his bench; it does away with that which is more sacred than the Throne itself, — that for which your King reigns, your lords de- liberate, your commons assemble. If I ever doubted, before, of the success of our agitation for repeal, this bill, — this infamous bill — the way in which it has been received by the House ; the manner in which its opponents have been treated; the personalities to which they have been subj ected ; the yells with which one of them has this night been greeted, — all these things dissipate my doubts, and tell me of its complete and early triumph. Do you think those yells will be for- gotten.? Do you suppose their echo will not reach the plains of my injured and insulted country; that they will not be whispered in her green val- leys, and heard from her lofty hills.? Oh, they will be heard there ! — yes ; and they will not be forgotten. The youth of Ireland will bound with indignation, — they will say, " We are eight mil- [82] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER lions ; and you treat us thus, as though we were no more to your country than the isle of Guernsey or of Jersey ! " I have done my duty. I stand acquitted to my conscience and my country. I have opposed this measure throughout ; and I now protest against it, as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust; as es- tablishing an infamous precedent, by retaliating crime against crime, as tyrannous, — cruelly and vindictively tyrannous ! PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE ATHENIANS DEMOSTHENES Demosthenes, the greatest of Grecian orators, was born about 383 B. C, and died at Calaureia, 323 B. C. As a youth he showed no indication of that great ability for pub- lic speaking which he afterwards displayed, being nervous, timid, and weak, and grew up with a tendency to effeminacy; he was awkward in motion, defective in speech, and pos- sessed none of the qualities commonly ascribed to the orator. All these natural disadvantages he overcame by incessant labor, and finally became the greatest orator of Athens, and of all Greece. YOU, Athenians, were never known to live con- tented in a slavish though secure obedience to unjust and arbitrary power. No. Our whole history is a series of gallant contests for pre- eminence : the whole period of our natural existence hath been spent in braving dangers, for the sake [83] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of glory and renown. And so highly do you es- teem such conduct, as characteristic of the Athen- ian spirit, that those of your ancestors who were most eminent for it, are ever the most favorite ob- jects of your praise. And with reason: for, who can reflect, without astonishment, on the magnanim- ity of those men who resigned their lands, gave up their city, and embarked in their ships, rather than live at the bidding of a stranger? The Athenians of that day looked out for no speaker, no general, to procure them a state of easy slavery. They had the spirit to reject even life, unless they were allowed to enjoy that life in freedom. For it was a principle fixed deeply in every breast, that man was not born to his parents only, but to his country. And mark the distinction. He who re- gards himself as bom only to his parents waits in passive submission for the hour of his natural dis- solution. He who considers that he is the child of his country also, volunteers to meet death rather than behold that country reduced to vassalage; and thinks those insults and disgraces which he must endure, in a state enslaved, much more ter- rible than death. Should I attempt to assert that it was I who inspired you with sentiments worthy of your an- cestors, I should meet the just resentment of every [84] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER hearer. No : it is my point to show that such senti- ments are properly your own; that they were the sentiments of my country long before my days. I claim but my share of merit in having acted on such principles in every part of my administra- tion. He, then, who condemns every part of my administration — he who directs you to treat me with severity, as one who hath involved the State in terrors and dangers — while he labors to deprive me of present honors, robs you of the applause of all posterity. For, if you now pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath not been right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned, it must be thought that you yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of fortune. But it cannot be ! No, my countrymen, it cannot be that you have acted wrong in encountering danger bravely for the liberty and safety of all Greece. No ! I swear it by the spirits of our sires, who rushed upon destruction at Marathon ! — by those who stood arrayed at Plataeal — by those who fought the sea-fight at Salamis! — by the men of Artemisium! — by the others, so many and so brave, who now rest in our public sepulchres! — - all of whom their country judged worthy of the same honor; all, I say, JEschines; not those only who prevailed, not those only who were victorious. [85] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER — And with reason. What was the part of gal- lant men, they all performed. Their success was such as the Supreme Ruler of the world dispensed to each. GREAT ORATORS AND THEIR TRAINING FROM THE DIALOGUE ON ORATORY MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO Marcus TuUius Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, was born at Arpinum, 106 B. C, and died at his Formian villa, at the close of the year 43 B. C. He studied under Greek and Roman teachers, and commenced in early life to pre- pare himself as an advocate. He studied declamation under the best masters, and travelled much in order to store his mind with information. He was qualified both by nature and by training for the high position he attained as an orator, a statesman, and a man of letters. FOR who can suppose that amid the great multi- tude of students, the utmost abundance of masters, the most eminent geniuses among men, the infinite variety of causes, the most ample rewards offered to eloquence, there is any other reason to be found for the small number of orators than the in- credible magnitude and difficulty of the art.? A knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous ; speech itself is to be formed, not merely [86] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER by choice, but by careful construction of words ; and all the emotions of the mind which nature has given to man, must be intimately known ; for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attack- ing, accompanied with refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be neglected. And why need I add any remarks of delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in itself, the com- paratively trivial art of actors and the stage proves ; on which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience.'' What can I say of that repository for all things, the mem- ory ; which, unless it be made the keeper of the matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of excellence, [87] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER will be of no avail? Let us then cease to wonder what is the cause of the scarcity of good speak- ers, since eloquence results from all those qualifi- cations, in each of which singly it is a great merit to labor successfully ; and let us rather exhort our children, and others whose glory and honor is dear to us, to contemplate in their minds the full mag- nitude of the object, and not to trust that they can reach the height at which they aim by the aid of the precepts, masters, and exercises that they are all now following, but to understand that they must adopt others of a different character. In my opinion, indeed, no man can be an ora- tor possessed of every praiseworthy accomplish- ment unless he has attained the knowledge of everything important, and of all liberal arts; for his language must be ornate and copious from knowledge, since unless there be beneath the sur- face matter understood and felt by the speaker, oratory becomes an empty and almost puerile flow of words. . . . " I am then of opinion," said Crassus, " that nature and genius in the first place contribute most aid to speaking; and that to those writers on the art to whom Antonius just now alluded, it was not skill and method in speaking, but natural talent that was wanting; for there ought to be [88] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER certain lively powers in the mind and understand- ing, which may be acute to invent, fertile to ex- plain and adorn, and strong and retentive to remember; and if any one imagines that these powers may be acquired by art (which is false, for it is very well if they can be animated and excited by art; but they certainly cannot by art be ingrafted or instilled, since they are all the gifts of nature), what will he say of those quah- ties which are certainly born with the man himself — volubility of tongue, tone of voice, strength of lungs, and a peculiar conformation and aspect of the whole countenance and body? I do not say that art cannot improve in these particulars (for I am not ignorant that what is good may be made better by education, and what is not very good may be in some degree polished and amended) ; but there are some persons so hesitating in their speech, so inharmonious in their tone of voice, or so unwieldy and rude in the air and movements of their bodies, that whatever power they pos- sess either from genius or art, they can never be reckoned in the number of accomplished speakers ; while there are others so happily qualified in these respects, so eminently adorned with the gifts of nature, that they seem not to have been born hke other men, but moulded by some divinity. It is [89] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER indeed a great task and enterprise for a person to undertake and profess that while every one else is silent, he alone must be heard on the most impor- tant subjects, and in a large assembly of men; for there is scarcely any one present who is not sharper and quicker to discover defects in the speaker than merits ; and thus whatever offends the hearer effaces the recollection of what is worthy of praise. I do not make these observations for the purpose of altogether deterring young men from the study of oratory, even if they be deficient in some natural endowments. For who does not perceive that to C. Caelius, my contemporary, a new man, the mere mediocrity in speaking which he was enabled to attain was a great honor? Who does not know that Q. Varius, your equal in age, a clumsy uncouth man, has obtained his great pop- ularity by the cultivation of such faculties as he has? But as our inquiry regards the complete orator, we must imagine in our discussion an orator from whom every kind of fault is abstracted, and who is adorned with every kind of merit. But if the multitude of suits, if the variety of causes, if the rabble and barbarism of the forum, afford room for even the most wretched speakers, we must not for that reason take our eyes from the object of [90] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER our inquiry. In those arts in which it is not indis- pensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we judge? For there are no suits or controversies which can force men, though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to endure also bad actors upon the stage. The ora- tor, therefore, must take the most studious precau- tion not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily must satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to judge disinterestedly. If you would know what I myself think, I will ex- press to you, my intimate friends, what I have hith- erto never mentioned, and thought that I never should mention. To me, those who speak best and with the utmost ease and grace, appear, if they do not commence their speeches with some timidity, and show some confusion in the exordium, to have almost lost the sense of shame; though it is im- possible that such should not be the case: for the hetter qualified a man is to speak, the more he fears the difficulties of speaking, the uncertain success of a speech, and the expectation of the audi- ence. But he who can produce and deliver noth- ing worthy of his subject, nothing worthy of the name of an orator, nothing worthy the attention of his audience, seems to me, though he be ever so [91] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER confused while he is speaking, to be downright shameless ; for we ought to avoid a character for shamelessness, not by testifying shame, but by not doing that which does not become us. But the speaker who has no shame (as I see to be the case with many) I regard as deserving not only of re- buke but of personal castigation. Indeed, what I often observe in you I very frequently experience in myself; that I turn pale in the outset of my speech, and feel a tremor through my whole thoughts, as it were, and limbs. When I was a young man, I was on one occasion so timid in com- mencing an accusation, that I owed to Q. Maximus the greatest of obligations for immediately dis- missing the assembly as soon as he saw me abso- lutely disheartened and incapacitated through fear." Here they all signified assent, looked sig- nificantly at one another, and began to talk to- gether; for there was a wonderful modesty in Crassus, which however was not only no disadvan- tage to his oratory, but even an assistance to it, by giving it the recommendation of probity. [92] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE SENATE HENRY CLAY Henry Clay, "the great American," was born in Ashland, Hanover County, Va., April 12, 1777, and died in "Washing- ton, D. C, July 29 f 1852. He was a convincing orator, a wonderful parliamentarian, a commanding presiding officer, and a great statesman. Henry Clay was the son of a poor Baptist clergyman, and in his youth possessed only scant advantages, but was blessed witii a determination that en- abled him to overcome the many obstacles that stood be- tween him and renown. His speeches should not be judged from the brief fragments handed down to us by inadequate reports, but from their influence in shaping the destiny of his country. We know that his oratory was convincing and powerful, and by its means he exerted a tremendous influ- ence over his party, holding its leadership for many years, which even a man of Webster's genius was unable to shake. Henry Clay was broad-minded and liberal, a firm believer in liberty, but in favor of its spread by constitutional means only, and a genuine American at all times and in all sta- tions and positions of life. FROM 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theatre, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the services ren- dered during that long and arduous period of my life, it does not become me to speak ; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollec- tions of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, the most impar- [93] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detraction of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and, though not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it, in general, with composure, and without disturbance, waiting, as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confi- dence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be, and that, what- ever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of men, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensa- tions of His providence, rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done. But I have not, meanwhile, been unsustained. Everywhere throughout the extent of this great continent, I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faith- ful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledgments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disin- [94] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER terested, and persevering fidelit}^ and devoted at- tachment, the feehngs and sentiments of a heart overflowing with never-ceasing gratitude. If, how- ever, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the State whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber? I emigrated from Virginia to the State of Ken- tucky, now, nearly forty-five years ago ; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of maj ority ; who had never recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm caresses ; poor, penniless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life ; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil, when I was embraced with parental fondness, ca- ressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. From that period the highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; and when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detrac- tion, I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her broad and impenetrable [95] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that State; and when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons. In the course of a long and arduous public serv- ice, especially during the last eleven years in which I have held a seat in the Senate, from the same ardor and enthusiasm of character, I have no doubt, in the heat of debate, and in an honest endeavor to maintain my opinions against adverse opinions alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to be adopted for the public welfare, I may often have inadvertently and unintentionally, in moments of excited debate, made use of language that has been offensive, and susceptible of injurious interpreta- tion, toward my brother Senators. If there be any here who retain wounded feelings of injury or dis- satisfaction, produced on such occasions, I beg to assure them that I now offer the most ample apol- ogy for any departure on my part from the ev«- tablished rules of parliamentary decorum and LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER courtesy. On the other hand, I assure Senators, one and all, without exception and without reserve, that I retire from this chamber without carrying with me a single feeling of resentment or dissatis- faction to the Senate or any of its members. I go from this place under the hope that we shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion what- ever personal collisions may, at any time, unfort- unately have occurred between us ; and that our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual strug- gles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and contended for what he deemed the best mode of ac- complishing one common object, the interest and best happiness of our own beloved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes, it will be my pleasure and my pride to look back, on my retire- ment, with unmeasured satisfaction. [97] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE AS RELATED TO THE UNITED STATES From a Speech before the House of Representatives in 1818. HENRY CLAY IT is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignorant to govern himself. Their partisans assert his incapacity, in reference to all nations ; if they cannot command universal assent to the prop- osition, it is then demanded as to particular nations ; and our pride and our presumption too often make converts of us. I contend that it is to arraign the dispositions of Providence himself, to suppose that he has created beings incapable of governing them- selves, and to be trampled on by kings. Self-gov- ernment is the natural government of man, and for proof I refer to the aborigines of our own land. Were I to speculate in hypotheses unfavorable to human liberty, my speculation should be founded rather upon the vices, refinements, or density of population. Crowded together in compact masses, even if they were philosophers, the contagion of the passions is communicated and caught, and the effect too often, I admit, is the overthrow of liberty. [98] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER With regard to their superstition, they worship the same God with us. Their prayers are offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer whose intercession we expect to save us. Nor is there anything in the Cathohc rehgion unfavorable to freedom. All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty. If the people of Spanish America have not already gone as far in religious toleration as we have, the difference in their condition from ours should not be forgotten. Everything is progressive ; and in time I hope to see them imitating in this respect our example. But grant that the people of Spanish America are ignorant, and. incompetent for free government; to whom is that ignorance to be ascribed? Is it not to the execrable system of Spain, which she seeks again to establish and perpetuate? So far from chilling our hearts, it ought to increase our solicitude for our unfortu- nate brethren. It ought to animate us to desire the redemption of the minds and bodies of unborn millions from the brutifying effects of a system whose tendency is to stifle the faculties of the soul, and to degrade them to the level of beasts. I would invoke the spirits of our departed fathers. Was it for yourselves only that you nobly fought? [99] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER No, no i It was the chains that were forging for your posterity that made you fly to arms; and scattering the elements of these chains to the winds, you transmitted to us the rich inheritance of Hberty. ON THE GREEK STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE From a speech in 1824. HENRY CLAY ARE we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atro- cious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ? If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly while all this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own immediate vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensi- [100] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER bility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sym- pathy for Christian sufferings ; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the op- pression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie. Sir, attempts have been made to alarm the committee by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediter- ranean ; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibiH- ties and to eradicate our humanity. Ah, sir! " What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? " or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade and lose its liberties? " GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH " PATRICK HENEY Patrick Henry, American patriot, statesman, and orator, was born in the County of Hanover, Colony of Virginia, May 29, 1736, and died in Charlotte County, Va., June 6, 1799. He held many public oflSces, the enumeration of which is unnecessary here. No American has had a greater influence on the oratory of his country than Patrick Henry. His great fault was indolence, and through his entire life he paid little attention to detail. He knew little of science and of literature, but was a lover of nature, and a student [101] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of men. His delivery was natural, deliberate, and dignified, although at times intensely passionate, and his gestures, al- ways appropriate and expressive, corresponded in every re- spect with his voice. His manner was certainly superior to his matter; his chief power consisted in his delivery, and above all else he was an orator. After his admission to the bar he devoted more time to study, particularly to history, but he never became what could be considered a student, and his matter lacks both variety and fulness. Patrick Henry has been held up as an example of what can be done by a man who permits himself to be developed by nature and not by work, and this argument has injuriously affected the lives of many youths, who have refrained from effort, and glided down the years of time, waiting for nature to turn them into geniuses. Patrick Henry, great as he was, would, no doubt, have been greater as an orator, a statesman, and a scholar, had he developed, by study, the wonderful talent God intrusted to him. The secret of success, in all fields of usefulness, is labor. The speech which follows was de- livered in the Virginia Convention, on a resolution to put the Commonwealth into a state of defence, March 2S, 1775. NO man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same sub- ject in different lights ; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful of those gentle- men, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a charac- ter very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in [102] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibihty which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation.? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I - am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to [103] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER know what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not your- selves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition com- ports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconcilia- tion.'^ Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir. What means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumula- tion of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And what have we [104] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to oppose to them ? Shall we try argument ? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication.? What terms shall we find, which have not already been exhausted .? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional vio- lence and insult; our supplications have been dis- regarded; and we have been spurned, with con- tempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contend- ing — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, [ 105 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us ! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be sta- tioned in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying su- pinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Be- sides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the desti- nies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the act- [106] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ive, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no re- treat, but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come ! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gen- tlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish.? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! [107] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER CONSEQUENCES WHICH WOULD HAVE RESULTED HAD ENGLAND CONQUERED AMERICA PATRICK HENRY WHAT would have been the consequences, sir, if we had been conquered? Were we not fighting against that majesty? Would the jus- tice of our opposition have been considered? The most horrid forfeitures, confiscations, and attain- ders, would have been pronounced against us. Consider their history, from the time of William the First till this day. Were not his Normans gratified with the confiscation of the richest es- tates in England? Read the excessive cruelties, attainders and confiscations of that reign. Eng- land depopulated, its inhabitants stripped of the dearest privileges of humanity, degraded with the most ignominious badges of bondage, and to- tally deprived of the power of resistance to usur- pation and tyranny. This inability continued to the time of Henry the Eighth. In his reign, the business of confiscation and attainder made con- siderable havoc. After his reign, some stop was put to the effusion of blood which preceded and happened under it. Recollect the sad and lam- [108] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER entable effects of the York and Lancastrian wars. Remember the rancorous hatred and inveterate det- estations of contending factions, the distinction of white and red roses. To come a little lower: what happened in that island in the rebellions of 1715 and 1745? If we had been conquered, would not our men have shared the fate of the people of Ireland? A great part of that island was confiscated, though the Irish people thought themselves engaged in a laudable cause. What confiscation and punishments were inflicted in Scotland? The plains of CuUoden, and the neigh- boring gibbets would show you. I thank heaven that the spirit of liberty, under the protection of the Almighty, saved us from experiencing so hard a destiny. But had we been subdued, would not every right have been wrested from us? What right would have been saved? Would debts have been saved? Would it not be absurd to save debts while they should bum, hang and destroy? Before we can decide with precision, we are to consider the dangers we should have been exposed to had we been subdued. After presenting to your view this true picture of what would have been our situation, had we been subjugated, surely a correspondent right will be found, grow- ing out of the law of nations, in our favor. Had [109] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER our subjugation been effected, and we pleaded for pardon — represented that we defended the most valuable rights of human nature, and thought they were wrong — would our petition have availed? I feel myself impelled, from what has passed, to ask this question. I would not wished to have lived to see the sad scenes we should have experienced. Needy avarice and savage cru- elty would have had full scope. Hungry Germans, blood-thirsty Indians, and nations of another color would have been let loose upon us. The sad effects of such warfare have had their full in- fluence on a number of our fellow-citizens. Sir, if you had seen the sad scenes which I have known ; if you had seen the simple but tranquil felicity of helpless and unoffending women and children, in little log huts on the frontiers, disturbed and destroyed by the sad effects of British warfare and Indian butchery, your soul would have been struck with horror [ Even those helpless women and children were the objects of the most shock- ing barbarity. If it be allowed to the British nation to put to death, to forfeit and confiscate debts and every thing else, may we not (having an equal right) confiscate — not life, for we never desire it — but that which is the common object of confiscation: [110] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER property, goods, and debts, which strengthen ourselves and weaken our enemies? I trust that this short recapitulation of events shows that, if there ever was in the history of man a case re- quiring the full use of all human means, it was our case in the last contest; and we were, there- fore, warranted to confiscate the British debts. THE STRENUOUS LIFE THEODORE ROOSEVELT Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States, was born in New York City, October 27, 1858. His literary style is excellent, being clear, simple, and forceful, and his delivery, while lacking in oratorical grace, is strong and convincing. He has the faculty of getting to the root of the matter under discussion, making his meaning clear, and impressing his convictions on his listeners. His person- ality is reflected in his speeches, which possess to a marked degree the main requisite of an oration — action. The fol- lowing extract is from a speech delivered at Chicago, April 10, 1899. IN speaking to you,' men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form [111] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ulti- mate triumph. A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace is to be the first consideration in their eyes — to be the ultimate goal after which they strive ? You men of Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois have done your share, and more than your share, in making America great, because you neither preach nor practise such a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons to work. If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure it is not to be spent in idle- ness ; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more [112] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research — work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation. We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious efforts, the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stem strife of ac- tual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the pres- ent merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a differ- ent kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period not of prepara- tion, but of mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is [113] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER simply a cumberer on the earth's surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his own with his fel- lows, if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfac- tory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world. As it is with the individual, so it is with the na- tion. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. If, in 1861, the men who loved the Union had be- lieved that peace was at the end of all things, and war and strife the worst of all things, and had acted up to their belief, we would have saved hun- dreds of thousands of lives; we would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, be- sides saving all the blood and treasure we then lavished we would have prevented the heartbreak of many women, the dissolution of many homes, and we would have spared the country those months of [114] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER gloom and shame, when it seemed as if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have shown that we were weak- lings, and that we were unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank God, for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who up- held the wisdom of Lincoln and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant. Let us, the children of the men who proved them- selves equal to the mighty days — let us, the chil- dren of the men who carried the great civil war to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected; that the suff^ering and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured, for in the end the slave was free, the Union restored, and the mighty American Republic placed once more as a hel- meted queen among nations. [115] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER BOOKS ' RALPH WALDO EMERSON Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous essayist, poet, and lecturer, was born in Boston, Mass., May 25, 1803, and died in Con- cord, Mass., April 27, 1882. The following extract is from " The American Scholar," an oration delivered at Cam- bridge, Mass., August 31, 1837. THE theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around ; brooded thereon ; gave it the new arrange- ment of his own mind and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing. Or, I might say, it depends on how far the process had gone, of transmuting life into truth. In proportion to the completeness of the distilla- tion, so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be. But none is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, [116] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER so neither can any artist entirely exclude the con- ventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacred- ness which attaches to the act of creation, — the act of thought, — is transferred to the record. The poet chanting, was felt to be a divine man ; hence- forth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit: henceforward it is settled, the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes noxious : the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking; by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which ["7] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence, the book-learned class who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with the world and the soul. Hence, the restorers of readings, the emendators, the bibliomaniacs of all degrees. Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use.^^ What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit and made a satellite in- stead of a system. The one thing in the world of value is the active soul. This every man is en- titled to ; this every man contains within him, al- though, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius ; not the privilege of here and there a favor- ite, but the sound estate of every man. In its es- sence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, [118] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER say they, — let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead; man hopes, genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his ; cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are created manners, there are cre- ated actions, and created words ; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair. On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of light, without periods of sol- itude, inquest, and self -recovery, and a fatal dis- service is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. The literature of every nation bears me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years. Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But [119] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, — when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining, — we repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we may speak. The Arabian proverb says, " A fig-tree, looking on a fig-tree, becomes fruitful." INDUSTRY NECESSARY TO THE AT- TAINMENT OF ELOQUENCE HENEY WARE Henry Ware, Unitarian clergyman, and professor of pul- pit eloquence in the Divinity School of Harvard University, was born in Hingham, Mass., April 21, 1794, and died in Framingham, Mass., September 22, 1843. THE history of the world is full of testimony to prove how much depends upon industry ; not an eminent orator has lived but is an example of it. Yet, in contradiction to all this, the almost universal feeling appears to be, that industry can effect nothing, that eminence is the result of acci- dent, and that every one must be content to remain just what he may happen to be. Thus multitudes, who come forward as teachers and guides, suffer themselves to be satisfied with the most indifferent attainments, and a miserable mediocrity, without so much as inquiring how they may rise higher, much less making any attempt to rise. [120] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER For any other art they would have served an apprenticeship, and would be ashamed to prac- tise it in public before they had learned it. If any one would sing, he attends a master, and is drilled in the very elementary principles ; and only after the most laborious process, dares to exercise his voice in public. This he does, though he has scarcely anything to learn but the mechanical exe- cution of what lies in sensible forms before the eye. But the extempore speaker, who is to invent as well as to utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as well as to produce sound, enters upon the work without preparatory discipline, and then wonders that he fails ! If he were learning to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days would he spend in giving facility to his fingers, and attaining the power of the sweetest and most expressive execu- tion! If he were devoting himself to the organ, what months and years would he labor, that he might know its compass, and be master of its keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various com- binations of harmonious sounds, and its full rich- ness and delicacy of expression! And yet he will fancy that the grandest, the most varied and most expressive of all instruments, which the infinite crea- tor has fashioned by the union of an intellectual [121] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice; he comes to it a mere uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power! He finds himself a bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, and settles it in his mind forever, that the attempt is vain. Success in every art, whatever may be the natural talent, is always the reward of industry and pains. But the instances are many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and made no efforts to improve. That there have never been other men of equal endowments with Demos- thenes and Cicero, none would venture to suppose ; but who have so devoted themselves to their art, or become equal in excellence .f* If those great men had been content, like others, to continue as they be- gan, and had never made their persevering efforts for improvement, what would their countries have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of their fame? They would have been lost in the undistinguished crowd that sunk to oblivion around them. [122] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER IDOLS WENDELL PHILLIPS Wendell Phillips, lawyer, orator, and abolitionist, was born in Boston, Mass., November 29, 1811, and died in the same city February 2, 1884. He was a strong and beautiful writer and a powerful speaker, but very set and uncom- promising in his opinions. He deemed his views right and had no patience with those who disagreed with him, and was willing to lose all rather than recede from the ground he had taken and meet his opponents on a common basis of mutual forbearance and compromise. He considered the United States Constitution the safeguard of slavery, and, before the breaking out of the Civil War, advised a division of the States in order to permit the free States to repudiate slavery in every manner, shape, and form. He loved his conception of liberty more than he did his united country and was willing to destroy the latter in order to carry out the former. He was of that party in the North which would destroy the Union rather than that slavery should exist, just as Robert Toombs was of that other party in the South which would destroy the Union rather than see slavery perish. These two extremists dragged their sections with them and precipitated the titanic struggle between the States of the Union. When, however, it became apparent that the success of the Federal arms meant the death of slavery, Phillips ceased his efforts towards a dissolution of the Union and gave the cause of the North his undivided support. As a lecturer he was highly successful, and his beautiful discourse, " The Lost Arts," is a living monument to his fame. He was earnest and sincere in all his under- takings, and stands to-day as one of the strong figures of the stirring times leading up to the Civil War. He possessed a wonderfully sweet, clear, ringing voice of great power, his modulation was beautiful and his general delivery excellent. In fact, he was one of the greatest orators of modern times, and a man who exerted tremendous power over the men and questions of his age. [123] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER TT is a grave thing when a State puts a man -*■ among her jewels, the glitter of whose fame makes doubtful acts look heroic. The honors we grant mark how high we stand, and they educate the future. The men we honor and the maxims we lay down in measuring our favorites, show the level and morals of the time. A name has been in every one's mouth of late, and men have ex- hausted language in trying to express their ad- miration and respect. The courts have covered the grave of Mr. Choate with eulogy. Let us see what is their idea of a great lawyer. We are told that " he worked hard," " he never neglected his client," " he flung over the discussions of the forum the grace of a rare scholarship," " No pressure or emergency ever stirred him to an un- kind word." A ripe scholar, a profound lawyer, a faithful servant of his client, a gentleman. This is a good record surely. May he sleep in peace. What he earned, God grant he may have. But the bar that seeks to claim for such a one a place among great jurists must itself be weak indeed. Not one high moral trait specified; not one pa- triotic act mentioned; not one patriotic service even claimed. Look at Mr. Webster's idea of [124] I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER what a lawyer should be in order to be called great, in the sketch he drew of Jeremiah Mason, and no- tice what stress he lays upon the religious and moral elevation, and the glorious and high pur- poses which crown his hf e. Nothing of this now ; nothing but incessant eulogy. But not a word of one effort to lift the yoke of cruel or unequal legis- lation from the neck of its victim ; not one attempt to make the code of his country wiser, purer, better ; not one effort to bless his times or breathe a higher moral purpose into the community. Not one blow struck for right or for liberty, while the battle of the giants was going on about him ; not one pa- triotic act to stir the hearts of his idolaters; not one public act of any kind whatever about whose merit friend or foe could even quarrel, unless when he scouted our great charter as a ghttering gener- ahty, or jeered at the philanthropy which tried to practise the Sermon on the Mount. When Cordus, the Roman Senator, whom Tibe- rius murdered, was addressing his fellows he began, " Fathers, they accuse me of illegal words ; plain proof that there are no illegal deeds with which to charge me." So with those eulogies. Words, nothing but words ; plain proof that there were no deeds to praise. Yet this is the model which [125] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Massachusetts offers to the Pantheon of the great jurists of the world! Suppose we stood in that lofty temple of juris- prudence, — on either side of us the statues of the great lawyers of every age and clime, — and let us see what part New England — Puritan, educated, free New England — would bear in the pageant. Rome points to a colossal figure and says, " That is Papinian, who, when the Emperor Cara- cella murdered liis own brother, and ordered the lawyer to defend the deed, went cheerfully to death, rather than sully his lips with the atrocious plea; and that Ulpian, who, aiding his prince to put the army below the law, was massacred at the foot of a weak but virtuous throne." And France stretches forth her grateful hands, crying " That is D'Aguesseau, worthy, when he went to face an enraged King, of the farewell his wife addressed him : * Go, forget that you have a wife and children, to ruin, and remember only that you have France to save.' " England says, " That is Coke, who flung the laurels of eighty years in the face of the first Stu- art, in defence of the people. This is Selden on every book of whose library you saw written the motto of which he lived worthy, ' Before every- thing liberty ! ' That is Mansfield, silver-tongued, [126] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER who proclaimed, ' Slaves cannot breathe in Eng- land; if their lungs receive our air, that moment the J are free.' " This is Romily, who spent life trying to make law synonymous with justice, and succeeded in making life and property safer in every city of the empire. And that is Erskine, whose eloquence, spite of Lord Eldon and George the Third, made it safe to speak and print." Then New England shouts, " This is Choate, who made it safe to murder, and of whose health thieves asked before they began to steal ! " ^ ORATION ON THE CENTENNIAL OF THE BIRTH OF O'CONNELL WENDELL PHILLIPS I DO not think I exaggerate when I say that never, since God made Demosthenes, has He made a man better fitted for a great work than He did O'Connell. ^ Judge Benjamin R. Curtis said in his address at the meeting of the Boston har held just after the death of Rufus Choate : "I desire, therefore, on this occasion and in this presence, to declare our appreciation of the injustice which would be done to this great and eloquent advocate by attributing to him any want of loyalty to truth, or any deference to wrong, because he employed all his great powers and attainments, and used to the utmost his consummate skill and eloquence, in exhibiting and enforcing the comparative merits of one side of the cases in which he acted. In doing so he but did his duty. If other people did theirs, the administration, of justice was secured." [ 127 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER You may say that I am partial to my hero; but John Randolph of Roanoke, who hated an Irishman almost as much as he did a Yankee, when he got to London and heard O'Connell, the old slaveholder threw up his hands and exclaimed, " This is the man, those are the lips, the most elo- quent that speak English in my day," and I think he was right. Webster could address a bench of judges ; Everett could charm a college; Choate could de- lude a jury; Clay could magnetize a senate, and Tom Corwin could hold the mob in his right hand, but no one of these men could do more than this one thing. The wonder about O'Connell was that he could out-talk Corwin, he could charm a col- lege better than Everett, and leave Henry Clay himself far behind in magnetizing a senate. It has been my privilege to have heard all the great orators of America who have become singu- larly famed about the world's circumference. I know what was the majesty of Webster; I know what it was to melt under the magnetism of Henry Clay; I have seen eloquence in the iron logic of Calhoun, but all three of these men never sur- passed and no one of them ever equalled the great Irishman. I have hitherto been speaking of his [128] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ability and success, I will now consider his char- acter. To show you that he never took a leaf from our American gospel of compromise, that he never filed his tongue to silence on one truth fancying so to help another, let me compare him to Kossuth, whose only merits were his eloquence and his pa- triotism. When Kossuth was in Faneuil Hall he exclaimed, " Here is a flag without a stain, a na- tion without a crime." We Abolitionists appealed to him, " O eloquent son of the Magyar, come to break chains, have you no word, no pulse-beat for four millions of negroes bending under a yoke ten times heavier than that of Hungary .f^" He ex- claimed, " I would forget anybody, I would praise anything, to help Hungary." O'Connell never said anything like that. When I was in Naples I asked Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, "Is Daniel O'Connell an honest man.?" " As honest a man as ever breathed," said he, and then he told me the following story : " When, in 1830, O'Connell first entered Parliament, the anti- slavery cause was so weak that it had only Lush- ington and myself to speak for it, and we agreed that when he spoke I should cheer him up, and when I spoke he should cheer me, and these were « [129] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the only cheers we ever got. O'Connell came with one Irish member to support him. A large party of members [I think Buxton said twenty-seven] whom we called the West India interest, the Bristol party, the slave party, went to him, saying, ' O'Connell, at last you are in the House with one helper — if you will never go down to Freemason's Hall with Buxton and Brougham, here are twenty- seven votes for you on every Irish question. If you work with those Abolitionists, count us always against you.' " It was a terrible temptation. How many a so- called statesman would have yielded! O'Connell said, " Gentlemen, God knows I speak for the sad- dest people the sun sees ; but may my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if to help Ireland — even Ireland — I forget the negro one single hour." " From that day," said Buxton, " Lushington and I never went into the lobby that O'Connell did not follow us." And then besides his irreproachable character, he had what is half the power of a popular orator, he had a majestic presence. In youth he had the brow of a Jupiter or Jove, and the stature of ApoUo. A little O'Connell would have been no [130] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER O'Connell at all. Sidney Smith says of Lord John Russell's five feet, when he went down to Yorkshire after the Reform Bill had passed, the stalwart hunters of Yorkshire exclaimed, " What, that little shrimp, he carry the Reform Bill 1 " " No, no," said Smith, " He was a large man, but the labors of the bill shrunk him." You remem- ber the story that Russell Lowell tells of Webster when we in Massachusetts were about to break up the Whig party. Webster came home to Faneuil Hall to protest, and four thousand Whigs came out to meet him. He lifted up his majestic pres- ence before that sea of human faces, his brow charged with thunder and said, " Gentlemen, I am a Whig; a Massachusetts Whig; a Revolutionary Whig; a Constitutional Whig; a Faneuil Hall Whig ; and if you break up the Whig party, where am / to go ? " And, says Lowell, " we all held our breath, thinking where he could go." " But," says Lowell, " if he had been five feet three, we should have said, confound you, who do you sup- pose cares where you go? " Well, O'Connell had all that, and then he had what Webster never had, and what Clay had, the magnetism and grace that melts a million souls into his. When I saw him he was sixty-five, lithe as a boy. [131] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER His every attitude was beauty, his every gesture grace. Why, Macready or Booth never equalled him. It would have been a pleasure to look at him if he had not spoken at all, and all you thought of was a greyhound. And then he had, what so few American speakers have, a voice that sounded the gamut. I heard him once in Exeter Hall say, " Americans, I send my voice careering like the thunder storm across the Atlantic, to tell South Carolina that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the negro that the dawn of his redemp- tion is drawing near," and I seemed to hear his voice reverberating and re-echoing back to London from the Rocky Mountains. And then, with the slightest possible flavor of an Irish brogue, he would tell a story that would make all Exeter Hall laugh, and the next moment there were tears in his voice, like an old song, and five thousand men would be in tears. And all the while no effort — he seemed only breathing. " As effortless as woodland nooks Send violets up and paint them blue.'* [132] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE PERMANENCY OF EMPIRE WENDELIi PHILLIPS I APPEAL to history ! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroisms, or all the estabhshments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the per- manency of its possessions ? Alas ! Troy thought so once ; yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate. So thought Palmyra — where is she ? So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan ; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ot- toman. In his hurried march, time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps. The days of their glory are as if they had never been ; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiq- uity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of [133] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER their Senate, and the inspiration of their bards. Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not, one day, be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was ! Who shall say that, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism ob- scured its very ruins, that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant ! THE PRESENT AGE WILUAM ELLERY CHANNING William Ellery Channing, an eminent theologian, and one of the founders of American Unitarianism, was born in Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780, and died in Bennington, Ver- mont, October 2, 1842. THE grand idea of humanity, of the impor- tance of man as man, is spreading silently, but surely. Even the most abject portions of so- ciety are visited by some dreams of a better con- dition for which they were designed. The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man, this [134] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all; that no human being shall perish but through his own fault; that the great end of government is to spread a shield over the rights of all, — these prop- ositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit of them is coming forth in all the departments of hfe. The Present Age! In these brief words what a world of thought is comprehended! What in- finite movements, what joys and sorrows, what hope and despair, what faith and doubts, what silent grief and loud lament, what fierce conflicts and subtile schemes of policy, what private and public revolutions ! In the period through which many of us have passed what thrones have been shaken, what hearts have bled, what millions have been butchered by their fellow-creatures, what hopes of philanthropy have been blighted! And at the same time what magnificent enterprises have been achieved, what new provinces won to science and art, what rights and liberties secured to na- tions 1 It is a privilege to have lived in an age so stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is an age never to be forgotten. Its voice of warning and encouragement is never to die. Its impression on [135] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER history is indelible. Amidst its events, the Amer- ican Revolution, the first distinct, solemn assertion of the rights of men, and the French Revolution, that volcanic force which shook the earth to its centre, 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. Napoleon and Washington, 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 in its greatest men; it is the appearance of a new power in the world, the appearance of the multitude of men on that 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 [136] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 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 of 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 pro- nounce its sentence. And yet, however, we are en- compassed with darkness. The issues of our time,, how obscure 1 The future into which it opens,, who of us can foresee? To the Father of all Ages I commit this future with humble, yet cour- ageous and unfaltering hope. EDUCATION IN A REPUBLIC JUDAH PHILIP BENJAMIN Judah Philip Benjamin, lawyer and statesman,, was born in St. Croix, West Indies, August 11, 1811, and died in Paris, France, May 8, 1884. His speeches show him to have been a learned man, and as an advocate and a public speaker he achieved pronounced success. As a lawyer, both in America and England, he stood in the front rank of his [137] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER profession. His parents, who were English Jews, emigrated to the United States when Benjamin was an infant, and he passed his boyhood at Wilmington, N. C. He served two terms in the United States Senate as a Senator from Louisi- ana, and when his State seceded, he resigned his seat in the United States Senate, and became successively Attorney- General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State of the Confederacy. At the close of the Civil War he made his home in England, was admitted to practise at the English Bar, and rose to eminence. RECREANT indeed should we prove to the duty we owe to our country, unworthy in- deed should we be of the glorious heritage of our fathers, if the counsels of Washington fell disre- garded on our ears. But if that great man had so decided a con- viction of the absolute necessity of diffusing intelligence amongst the people in his day, how unspeakably urgent has that necessity become in ours ! In the first attempts then made to organize our institutions on republican principles the most careful and guarded measures were adopted in order to confine the powers of the government to the hands of those whose virtue and intelligence best fitted them for the exercise of such exalted duties. The population of the country was sparse ; the men then living had witnessed the revo- lution that secured our independence ; its din was still ringing in our ears, they had purchased lib- erty with blood, and dearly did they cherish, and [138] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER watchfully did they guard, the costly treasure ; the noblest band of patriots that ever wielded sword or pen in freedom's holy cause, were still amongst them, shining lights, guiding by their example and instructing by their counsels, to which eminent public services gave added weight. Now, alas ! the latest survivor of that noble band has passed away. Their light has ceased to shine on our path. The population that then scarce reached three millions, now numbers twenty ; and the steady and irresistible march of public opinion constantly operating in the infusion of a greater and still greater proportion of the popular element into our institutions, has at length reached the point beyond which it can no farther go ; and from the utmost limits of the frozen North to the sunny clime of Louisiana, from the shores washed by the stormy Atlantic to the extreme verge of the flowery prairies of the far West, there scarce breathes an American citizen, who is not, in the fullest and broadest acceptation of the word, one of the rulers of his country. Imagination shrinks from the con- templation of the mighty power for weal or for woe possessed by these vast masses of men. If swayed by impulse, passion, or prejudice to do wrong, no mind can conceive, no pen portray, the scenes of misery and desolation that must ensue. [139] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER But if elevated and purified by the beneficent influ- ence of our free public education, if taught from infancy the lessons of patriotism and devotion to their country's good, if so instructed as to be able to appreciate and to spurn the counsels of those who in every age have been ready to flatter man's worst passions and to pander to his most degraded appetites for purposes of self-aggrandizement — if, in a word, trained in the school and imbued with the principles of our Washington, the most ex- travagant visions of fancy must fall short of pic- turing the vivid colors of the future that is open before us. The page of history will furnish no parallel to our grandeur; and the great republic of the Western world, extending the blessings of freedom in this hemisphere and acting by its exam- ple in the other, will reach the proudest pinnacle of power and of greatness to which human efforts can aspire. And for the attainment of this auspi- cious result, how simple, yet how mighty, the en- gine which alone is required ! — a universal diffu- sion of intelligence amongst the people by a boun- teous system of free public education. [140] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA GEORGE F. HOAR From an address delivered at the Banquet of the New England Society at Charleston^ S. C, December 22^ 1898. I NEED not assure this brilliant company how deeply I am impressed by the significance of this occasion. I am not vain enough to find in it anything of personal compliment. I like better to believe that the ties of common history, of common faith, of common citizenship, and inseparable des- tiny, are drawing our two sister States together again. If cordial friendship, if warm afi*ection (to use no stronger term), can ever exist between two communities they should exist between Massa- chusetts and South Carolina. They were both of the " Old Thirteen." They were alike in the cir- cumstances of their origin. Both were settled by those noble fugitives who brought the torch of liberty across the sea, when liberty was without other refuge on the face of the earth. The Eng- lish Pilgrims and Puritans founded Massachusetts, to be followed soon after by the Huguenot exiles who fled from the tyranny of King Louis XIV, [ 141 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Scotch Presbyterianism founded Carolina, to be followed soon after by the French exiles fleeing from the same oppression. Everywhere in New England are traces of the footsteps of this gentle, delightful, and chivalrous race. All over our six States to-day many an honored grave, many a stir- ring tradition bear witness to the kinship between our early settlers and the settlers of South Caro- lina. Faneuil Hall, Boston, which we love to call the " Cradle of Liberty," attests the munificence and bears the name of an illustrious Huguenot. These French exiles lent their grace and ro- mance to our history also. Their settlements were like clusters of magnolias in some warm valley in our bleak New England. We are, all of us, in Massachusetts, reading again the story of the voyage of the " Mayflower," written by William Bradford. As you have heard, that precious manuscript has lately been restored to us by the kindness of His Grace the Lord Bishop of London. It is in the eyes of the children of the Pilgrims the most precious manuscript on earth. If there be anything to match the pathos of that terrible voyage it is found in the story of Judith Manigault, the French Huguenot exile, of her [ 142 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER nine months' voyage from England to South Caro- lina. Her name, I am told, has been honored here in every generation since. If there be a single lesson which the people of this country have learned from their wonderful and crowded history it is that the North and South are indispensable to each other. They are the blades of mighty shears, worthless apart, but when bound by an indissoluble union, powerful, irresistible, and terrible as the shears of fate ; like the shears of Atropos, severing every thread and tangled web of evil, cutting out for humanity its beautiful gar- ments of liberty and light from the cloth her dread sisters spin and weave. I always delight to think, as I know the people of South Carolina delight to think, of these States of ours, not as mere aggregations of individuals, but as beautiful personalities, moral beings, en- dowed with moral characters, capable of faith, of hope, or memory, of pride, of sorrow, and of joy, of courage, of heroism, of honor, and of shame. Certainly this is true of them. Their power and glory, their rightful place in history, depended on these things, and not on numbers or extent of ter- ritory. It is this that justifies the arrangement of the [ 143 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Constitution of the United States for equal repre- sentation of States in the upper legislative chamber and explains its admirable success. The separate entity and the absolute freedom, except for the necessary restraints of the consti- tution of our different States, is the cause alike of the greatness and the security of our country. The words Switzerland, France, England, Rome, Athens, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Virginia, America, convey to your mind a distinct and in- dividual meaning and suggest an image of dis- tinct moral quality and moral being as clearly as do the words Washington, Wellington, or Na- poleon. I believe it is, and I thank God that I believe it is, something much higher than the aver- age of the qualities of the men who make it up. We think of Switzerland as something better than the individual Swiss, and of France as something better than the individual Frenchman, and of America as something better than the individual American. In great and heroic individual actions we often seem to feel that it is the country, of which the man is but the instrument that gives expression to its quality in doing the deed. It was Switzerland who gathered into her breast at Sempach the sheaf of fatal Austrian spears. It was the hereditary spirit of New England that [ 144] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER gave the word of command by the voice of But- trick, at Concord, and was in the bosom of Parker at Lexington. It was South CaroHna whose hghtning stroke smote the invader by the arm of Marion and whose wisdom guided the framers of the Constitution through the Hps of Rutledge and Gadsden and Pinckney. The citizen on great occasions knows and obeys the voice of his country as he knows and obeys an individual voice, whether it appeal to a base or ignoble or to a generous or noble passion. " Sons of France, awake to glory," told the French youth what was the dominant passion in the bosom of France and it awoke a corresponding sentiment in his own. Under its spell he marched through Europe and overthrew her kingdoms and empires and felt in Egypt that forty centuries were look- ing down on him from the Pyramids. But at last, one June morning in Trafalgar Bay, there was another utterance, more quiet in its tone, but speaking also with a personal and individual voice, " England expects every man to do his duty." At the sight of Nelson's immortal signal, duty- loving England and glory-loving France met as they have met on many an historic battlefield be- fore and since, and the lover of duty proved the stronger. The England that expected every man ^° [ 145 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to do his duty was as real a being to the humblest sailor in Nelson's fleet as the mother that bore him. The title of our American States to their equal- ity under this admirable arrangement depends not on area or upon numbers but upon character and upon personality. Fancy a league or a confed- eracy in which Athens or Sparta were united with Persia or Babylon or Nineveh and their political power were to be reckoned in proportion to their numbers or their size. I have sometimes fancied South Carolina and Massachusetts, those two illustrious and heroic sisters, instead of sitting apart, one under her palm trees and the other under her pines, one with the hot gales from the tropics fanning her brow and the other on the granite rocks by her ice- bound shores, meeting together and comparing notes and stories as sisters born of the same mother compare notes and stories after a long separation. How the old estrangements, bom of ignorance of each other, would have melted away. GENIUS ORVILLE DEWEY Orville Dewey, minister, lecturer, and writer, was born in Sheffield, Mass., March 28, 1794, and died there March 21, 1882. His diction is refined, rich, and ennobling, and as a speaker he was successful both in the pulpit and on the [146] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER platform. His thoughts are beautifully expressed by words that flow freely, and convey the meaning instantly and clearly. THE favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one who never studies, or who studies, no- body can tell when — at midnight, or at odd times and intervals — and now and then strikes out, at a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful produc- tion. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the persons of our Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles — " Loose fellows about town," or loungers in the country, who slept in ale-houses and wrote in bar- rooms, who took up the pen as a magician's wand to supply their wants, and when the pressure of necessity was relieved, resorted again to their carousals. Your real genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of personage, who muses in the fields or dreams by the fireside ; whose strong impulses — that is the cant of it — must needs hurry him into wild irregularities or foolish eccentricities; who abhors order, and can bear no restraint, and es- chews all labor: such a one, for instance, as New- ton ' or Milton ! What ! they must have been irregular, else they were no geniuses ! " The young man," it is often said, " has genius [147] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER enough, if he would only study." Now the truth is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, that genius will study, it is that in the mind which does study ; that is the very nature of it. I care not to say that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any more than all reading is study. Study, says Cicero, is the voluntary and vigorous application of the mind to any subject. Such study, such intense mental action, and nothing else, is genius. And so far as there is any native predisposition about this enviable char- acter of mind, it is a predisposition to that action. This is the only test of the original bias; and he who does not come to that point, though he may have shrewdness, and readiness, and parts, never had a genius. No need to waste regrets upon him, as that he never could be induced to give his attention or study to anything; he never had that which he is supposed to have lost. For attention it is — though other qualities belong to this transcendent power — attention is it, that is the very soul of genius: not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon one idea or one series of ideas, — which col- lects in one point the rays of the soul till they [148] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER search, penetrate, and fire the whole train of its thoughts. And while the fire burns within, the outward man may indeed be cold, indifferent, and negli- gent, — absent in appearance ; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without aim or intent; but still the fire bums within. And what though " it burst forth " at length, as has been said, " like volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force .f^ " It only shows the intenser action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks like lightning from the cloud.? The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament through many a silent, calm, and clear day. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril .^ That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast of a Demosthenes, was once a feeble infant's thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawn- ing. A father's care guarded its early growth. It soon trod with youthful steps the halls of learn- ing, and found other fathers to wait and to watch for it, — even as it finds them here. It went on; but silence was upon its path, and the deep strugglings of the inward soul marked its progress, and the cherishing powers of nature [149] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER silently ministered to it. The elements around breathed upon it and " touched it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to its collected treasures and energies ; till in its hour of glory, it stood forth embodied in the form of living, commanding, irre- sistible eloquence ! The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, " Strange, strange, that it should come thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared ! " But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than there is in the towering of the pre-eminent forest- tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and irresist- ible river, or in the wealth and the waving of the boundless harvest. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH HENEY W. GRADY Heniy W. Grady was born in Athens, Ga., May 24, 1850, and died in Atlanta, Ga., December 23, 1889. He was one of the foremost American journalists, and was achieving great renown as an orator when suddenly cut off in his early manhood. He did much toward bringing the two sections of his country to a better understanding of the questions dividing them, and aided materially in allaying the passions and animosities that separated the North and the South. "The Future of the South" is an extract from a speech delivered at Dallas, Texas, October 26, 187T, and " The Con- [150] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER federate Soldier's Return from Appomattox" is a portion of an address delivered before the New England Club, New York, December 21, 1886. This address was enthusiastically received, and stirred the country with brotherly feeling such as had not been felt for years. THE world is a battlefield, strewn with the wrecks of government and institutions, of theories and of faiths that have gone down in the ravage of years. On this field lies the South, sown with her problems. Upon the field swing the lanterns of God. Amid the carnage walks the Great Physician. Over the South He bends. " If ye but live until to-morrow's sundown ye shall endure, my countrymen." Let us for her sake turn our faces to the East, and watch for the coming sun. Let us stanch her wounds and hold steadfast. The sun mounts the skies. As it de- scends to us, minister to her, and stand constant at her side for the sake of our children, and of generations unborn that shall suffer if she fails. And when the sun has gone down, and the day of her probation is ended, and the stars have rallied her heart, the lanterns shall be swung over the field and the Great Physician shall lead her up, from trouble into content, from suffering into peace, from death to life. Let every man here pledge himself in this high and ardent hour, as I pledge myself, and the boy that shall follow [151] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER me; every man himself and his son, hand to hand and heart to heart, that in death and earnest loy- alty, in patient painstaking and care, he shall watch her interest, advance her fortune, defend her fame, and guard her honor as long as life shall last. Every man in the sound of my voice, under the deeper consecration he offers to the Union, will consecrate himself to the South. Have no ambition but to be first at her feet and last in her service. No hope but, after a long life of devo- tion, to sink to sleep in her bosom, and as a little child sleeps at his mother's breast and rests un- troubled in the light of her smile. With such consecrated service, what could we not accomplish; what riches we should gather for her; what glory and prosperity we should render to the Union; what blessings we should gather into the universal harvest of humanity. As I think of it, a vision of surpassing beauty unfolds to my eyes. I see a South, the home of fifty mil- lions of people, who rise up every day to call from blessed cities, vast hives of industry and of thrift ; her country-sides the treasures from which their resources are drawn; her streams vocal with whir- ring spindles ; her valleys tranquil in the white and gold of the harvest; her mountains showering down the music of bells, as her slow-moving flocks [152] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER and herds go forth from their folds; her rulers honest and her people loving, and her homes happy and their hearthstones bright, and their waters still, and their pastures green, and her conscience clear ; her wealth diffused, and poor-houses empty ; her churches earnest, and all creeds lost in the Gospel. Peace and sobriety walking hand in hand through her borders ; honor in her homes ; up- rightness in her midst; plenty in her fields; straight and simple faith in the hearts of her sons and daughters; her two races walking together in peace and contentment; sunshine everywhere and all the time, and night falling on her gently as from the wings of the unseen dove. All this, my country, and more can we do for you. As I look the vision grows, the splendor deepens, the horizon falls back, the skies open their everlasting gates, and the glory of the Al- mighty God streams through as He looks down on His people who have given themselves unto Him and leads them from one triumph to another until they have reached a glory unspeaking, and the whirling stars, as in their courses through Arcturus they run to the milky way, shall not look down on a better people or happier land. [153] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER'S RETURN FROM APPOMATTOX HENRY W. GRADY Extract from his speech on " The New South.'* MR. TALMAGE has drawn for you, with a master's hand, the picture of your return- ing armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes ! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war — an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home ! Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appo- mattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy- hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, [ 154] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find — let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full pay- ment for four years' sacrifice — what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful! He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his bams empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away ; his people without law or legal status, his com- rades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very tradi- tions are gone. Without money, credit, employ- ment, material, or training, and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence, — the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves. What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had . [155] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so over- whelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plough, and fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, how- ever humble, in this work. Never was a nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South — misguided, perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, and generous always. In the record of her social, industrial, and political illustration we await with confidence the verdict of the world. [156] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS ABRAHAM LINCOLN Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, was bom in Hardin County, Kentucky, February 12, 1809, and died in Washington, D. C, April 15, 1865. He is considered one of the greatest writers of prose of the Anglo-Saxon race, his " Speech at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg," and his "Second In- augural Address," being looked upon as almost perfect specimens of pure English, although his entire schooling ex- tended over a period of less than one year. As a speaker he appeared awkward, and at times hesitating in his de- livery, until he lost his self-consciousness through be- coming enthused in his subject, when his eyes would shine, his voice ring, and his whole body become expressive of the intense emotions which took possession of him. AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which pub- lic declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably [157] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was be- ing delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, ■ — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide ef- fects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were col- ored slaves, not distributed generally oyer the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, some- how, the cause of the war. To strengthen, per- petuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlarge- ment of it. 1 158 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Neither party expected for the war the magni- tude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of off^ences ! for it must needs be that off^ences come; but woe to that man by whom the off'ence cometh." If we shall sup- pose that American slavery is one of those off^ences which, in the Providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the off^ence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God al- ways ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope — [159] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thou- sand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, — let us strive on to finish the work we are in : to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among our- selves, and with all nations. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY August 22, 1862. I HAVE just read yours of the 19th instant, addressed to myself through The New York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions [ 160 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may beheve to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it, in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right. As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be re- stored, the nearer the Union will be, — the Union as it was. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing [161] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors where shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY November 21, 1864. Dear Madam: — I have been shown in the files of the War De- partment a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons [162] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the Altar of Freedom. VALUABLE HINTS FOR STUDENTS JOHN TODD John Todd, clergyman and educator, was born in Rutland, Vermont, October 9, 1800, and died in Pittsfield, Mass., Au- gust 24, 1873. THE himian mind is the brightest display of the power and skill of the Infinite mind with which we are acquainted. It is created and placed in this world to be educated for a higher state of existence. Here its faculties begin to unfold, and those mighty energies, which are to bear it for- ward to unending ages, begin to discover them- selves. The object of training such a mind should [163] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER be, to enable the soul to fulfil her duties well, here, and to stand on high vantage-ground when she leaves this cradle of her being, for an eternal exist- ence beyond the grave. Most students need encouragement to sustain, instruction to aid, and directions to guide them. Few, probably, ever accomplish anything like as much as they expected or ought; and it is thought one reason is, that they waste a vast amount of time in acquiring that experience which they need. The reader will please bear in mind, that the only object here contemplated is, to throw out such hints and cautions, and to give such specific directions, as will aid him to become all that the fond hopes of his friends anticipate, and all that his own heart ought to desire. Doubtless, multi- tudes are now in the process of education, who will never reach any tolerable standard of excellence. Probably some never could; but in most cases, they might. The exceptions are few. In most cases young men do feel a desire, more or less strong, of fitting themselves for respectability and useful- ness. You may converse with any man, however dis- tinguished for attainments, or habits of appHca- tion, or power of using what he knows, and he will sigh over the remembrance of the past, and [164] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tell jou, that there have been many fragments of time which he has wasted, and many opportunities which he has lost forever. If he had only seized upon the fleeting advantages, and gathered up the fragments of time, he might have pushed his re- searches out into new fields, and, like the immortal Bacon, have amassed vast stores of knowledge. The mighty minds which have gone before us, have left treasures for our inheritance; and the choicest gold is to be had for the digging. Hence, all that you ever have, must be the result of labor — hard, untiring labor. You have friends to cheer you on ; you have books and teachers to aid you, and multitudes of helps. But, after all, dis- ciplining and educating your mind, must be your own work. No one can do this but yourself ; and nothing in this world, is of any worth, which has not labor and toil as its price. The first and great object of education is, to discipline the mind. Make it the first object to be able to fix and hold your attention upon your studies. He who can do this, has mastered many and great difficulties ; and he who cannot do it, will in vain look for success in any department of study. To effect any purpose in study, the mind must be concentrated. Patience, too, is a virtue, kindred to attention; and without it, the mind can [165] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER not be said to be disciplined. Patient labor and investigation, are not only essential to success in study, but are an unfailing guarantee to success. In addition to attention and patient persever- ance, the student should learn to think and act for himself. True originality consists in doing things well, and doing them in our own way. A mind, half-educated, is generally imitating others ; and no man was ever great by imitation. Let it, there- fore, be remembered, that we can not copy greatness or goodness by any effort. We must acquire them, if ever attained, by our own patience and diligence. Students are also in danger of neglecting the memory. This is a faculty of the mind too valu- able to be neglected; for by it wonders are sometimes accomplished. He who has a memory, that can seize with an iron grasp, and retain what he reads, — the ideas, simply, without the lan- guage, and judgment to compare and balance, — will scarcely fail of being distinguished. Why has that mass of thought, observation, and experi- ence, which is embodied in books by the multitude of minds which have gone before us, been gath- ered, if not, that we may use it, and stand on high ground, and push our way still further into the boundless regions of knowledge? Memory is the [166] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER grand store-house of the mind, capable, both of vast improvement and enlarged capacity, in pro- portion as it is properly cultivated. THE SPECTACLE OF THE HEAVENS EDWAED EVERETT Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., Novem- ber 11, 1794, and died at Boston, Mass., January 15, 1865. He was a beautiful writer, an able statesman, and a great orator. MUCH as we are indebted to our observatories for elevating our conceptions of the heav- enly bodies, they present, even to the unaided sight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble to describe. I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston, and, for this purpose, rose at two o'clock in the morning. Every thing around was wrapped in darkness, and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed, at that hour, the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, mid- summer's night; the sky was without a cloud; the winds were hushed. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen; and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her pres- ence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the heraJd of [167] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the day: the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east: Lyra sparkled near the zenith: Andromeda veiled her newly dis- covered glories from the naked eye, in the south: the steady Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign. Such was the glorious spectacle, as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible. The . intense blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heav- ens: the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes ; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky ; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the blue hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and [168] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the ever- lasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for gaze of man, began his course. I do not wonder at the superstition of the an- cient Magians, who, in the morning of the world, went up to the hill-tops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of his hand. But I am filled with amazement when I am told that, in this enlightened age, and in the heart of the Christian world, there are per- sons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say, in their hearts. " There is no God." PEACE AND WAR HENRY WARD BEECHER Henry Ward Beecher, the great pulpit orator, was bom in Litchfield, Conn., June 24, 1813, and died in Brook- lyn, N. Y., March 8, 1887. He possessed wonderful con- trol over his vocal and mental powers, being never at a loss for tones or words to express his thoughts, and never losing his hold on his listeners, whom he was able to sway at will, and a voice of wonderful sweetness, compass, and power, which, together with his extensive learning, made him one of the greatest orators of modern times. He ex- celled both as a pulpit and a political speaker, winning equally high renown in both classes of oratory. His style of delivery was simple, but of the simplicity which carried [169] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER conviction, because it showed the mastery he possessed over himself and his subject without disclosing the means em- ployed, and this resulted in his mastery of his listeners. He was a great student of oratory, and in his college days practised vocal and physical expression assiduously, as told by him in the following languages " I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising from a large palate, and when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of inflections by the voice, of gesture, posture, and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my voice on a word — like * justice.' I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark chalked out on the floor. Then we would go through all the gestures. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. Now, I never know what movements I shall make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural to me. The only method of acquiring effective elocution is by practice, of not less than an hour a day, until the student has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained to right expression." He says this about the speaking voice: " The cultivated voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high, intermediate, or low, unconsciously to him who uses it, and men listen, unaware that they have been bewitched out of their weariness by the charms of a voice not artificial, but made by assiduous training, to be his second nature." THIS great nation, filling all profitable lati- tudes, cradled between two oceans, with in- exhaustible resources, with riches increasing in an unparalleled ratio, by agriculture, by manufac- tures, by commerce, with schools and churches, with books and newspapers thick as leaves in our forests, with institutions sprung from the people, and peculiarly adapted to their genius ; a nation [170] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER not sluggish, but active, used to excitement, prac- tised in political wisdom, and accustomed to self- government, and all its vast outlying parts held together by a federal government, mild in temper, gentle in administration, and beneficent in results, seemed to have been formed for peace. All at once, in this hemisphere of happiness and hope, there came trooping clouds with fiery bolts, full of death and desolation. At a cannon shot upon this fort (Sumter), all the nation, as if they had been a trained army lying on their arms, awaiting a signal, rose up and began a war which, for awfulness, rises into the front rank of bad emi- nence. The front of the battle going with the sun, was twelve hundred miles long ; and the depth, measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. In this vast area more than two million men, first and last, for four years, have, in skirmish, fight, and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts ; while a coast and river line, not less than four thousand miles in length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artillery. The very industry of the country seemed to have been touched by some in- fernal wand, and, with one wheel, changed its front from peace to war. The anvils of the land beat like drums. As out of the ooze emerge monsters, so from our mines and foundries uprose new and: LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER strange machines of war, ironclad. And thus, in a nation of peaceful habits, without external provocation, there arose such a storm of war as blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere. RAISING THE FLAG HENRY WARD BEE CHER Extract from an oration at the raising of the " Old Flag " at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865. WE raise our fathers' banner that it may bring back better blessings than those of old; that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government, and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it pro- tected before ; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope, and inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to the sword, " Return to thy sheath " ; and to the plough and sickle, " Go forth " ; that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new na- tional life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong, not for ag- gression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative [172] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of leading all nations to juster laws, to more hu- mane policies, to sincerer friendship, to rational, instituted civil liberty, and to universal Christian brotherhood. Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as of old the bow was painted on the cloud, and, with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it and make it a memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree that never again on this fair land shall ^ deluge of blood prevail. ENGLAND AGAINST WAR HENRY WARD BEECHER I HEAR a loud protest against war. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman — there is a small band in our country and in yours — I wish their number were quadrupled — who have borne a solemn and painful testimony against all wars under all circumstances ; and although I differ with them on the subject of defensive warfare, yet when men that rebuked their own land, and all lands, now rebuke us, though I cannot accept their judg- ment, I bow with profound respect to their con- sistency. But excepting them, I regard this British horror of the American war as something wonderful. Why, it is a phenomenon in itself! [173] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER On what shore has not the prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people where your banner has not led your sol- diers? And when the great resurrection reveille shall sound it will muster British soldiers from every clime and people under the whole heaven. Ah! but it is said this is a war against your own blood. How long is it since you poured soldiers into Canada, and let all your yards work night and day to avenge the taking of two men out of the Trent? Old England shocked at a war of principle! She gained her glories in such a war. Old England ashamed of a war of principle ! Her national ensign symbolizes her history — the cross in a field of blood. And will you tell us — who inherit your blood, your ideas, and your pluck — that we must not fight? The child must heed the parents until the parents get old and tell the child not to do the thing that in early life they whipped him for not doing. And then the child says fa- ther and mother are getting too old ; they had bet- ter be taken away from their present home and come to live with us. Perhaps you think that the old island will do a little longer. Perhaps you think there is coal enough. Perhaps you think the stock is not quite run out yet ; but whenever Eng- land comes to that state that she does not go to [174] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER war for principle, she had better emigrate, and we will get room for her. POVERTY AND THE GOSPEL Extract from Sermon. — ,Texts: Luke iv. 17-21, Matt, xi. 2-6. HENRY WARD BEECHER THE remarkable people of this world are use- ful in their way; but the common people, after all, represent the nation, the age, and the civilization. Go into any town or city: do not ask who lives in that splendid house; do not say. This is a fine town, here are streets of houses with gardens and yards, and everything that is beauti- ful the whole way through. Go into the lanes, go into the back streets, go where the mechanic lives ; go where the day-laborer lives. See what is the condition of the streets there. See what they do with the poor, with the helpless and the mean. If the top of society bends perpetually over the bottom with tenderness, if the rich and strong are the best friends of the poor and needy, that is a civilized and a Christian community ; but if the rich and the wise are the cream and the great bulk of the population skim-milk, that is not a prosperous community. There is a great deal of irreligion in men ; there [ 175 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER is a great deal of wickedness and depravity in men, but there are times when it is true that the church is more dissipated than the dissipated classes of the community. If there is one thing that stood out more strongly than any other in the ministry of our Lord, it is the severity with which he treated the exclusiveness of men with knowledge, position, and a certain sort of religion, a religion of par- ticularity and carefulness ; if there is one class of the community against which he hurled his thunder- bolts without mercy and predicted woes, it was the scribes, Pharisees, scholars, and priests of the temples. He told them in so many words, " The publican and the harlot will enter the kingdom of God before you." The worst dissipation in this world is the dry-rot of morality, and of the so- called piety that separates men of prosperity and of power from the poor and ignoble. They are our wards. I am not a socialist. I do not preach riot. I do not preach the destruction of property. I re- gard property as one of the sacred things. The real property established by a man's own intelli- gence and labor is the crystallized man himself. It is the fruit of what his life-work has done ; and not in vain, society makes crime against it amongst the most punishable. But nevertheless, I warn these [176] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER men in a country like ours, where every man votes, whether he came from Hungary, or from Russia, or from Germany, or from France or Italy, or Spain or Portugal, or from the Orient, — from Japan and China, because they too are going to vote ! On the Niagara River, logs come floating down and strike an island, and there they lodge and accumulate for a little while, and won't go over. But the rains come, the snow melts, the river rises, and the logs are lifted up and down, and they go swinging over the falls. The stream of suffrage of free men, having all the privileges of the State, is this great stream. The figure is defective in this, that the log goes over the Niagara Falls, but that is not the way the country is going or will go. . , . There is a certain river of political life, and everything has to go into it first or last ; and if, in days to come, a man separates himself from his fellows without sympathy, if his wealth and power make poverty feel itself more poor and men's misery more miserable, and set against him the whole stream of popular feeling, that man is in danger. He may not know who dynamites him, but there is danger; and let him take heed who is in peril. There is nothing easier in the world than for rich men to ingratiate themselves with the whole community in which they live, and so secure them- [ 177 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER selves. It is not selfishness that will do it; it is not by increasing the load of misfortune; it is not by wasting substance in riotous living upon appe- tites and passions. It is by recognizing that every man is a brother. It is by recognizing the essen- tial spirit of the gospel, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." It is by using some of their vast power and riches so as to diffuse joy in every section of the community. Here then I close this discourse. How much it enrolls ! How very simple it is ! It is the whole gospel. When you make an application of it to all the phases of organization and classification of human interests and developments, it seems as though it were as big as the universe. Yet when you condense it, it all comes back to the one simple creed : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Who is my neighbor.? A certain man went down to Jericho, and so on. That tells you who your neighbor is. Whosoever has been attacked by rob- bers, has been beaten, has been thrown down — by liquor, by gambling, or by any form of wickedness ; whosoever has been cast into distress, and you are called on to raise him up — that is your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. That is the gospel. [ 178 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE IMMENSITY OF CREATION O. M. MITCHELIi Ormsby McKnight Mitchell, was born in Morganfield, Ky., July 28, 1809, and died in Beaufort, S. C, October 30, 1862. LIGHT traverses space at the rate of a million miles a minute, jet the light from the near- est star requires ten years to reach the earth, and Herschel's telescope revealed stars two thousand three hundred times further distant. The great telescope of Lord Ross pursued these creations of God still deeper into space, and, having resolved the nebulse of the Milky Way into stars, discovered other systems of stars — beautiful diamond points, glittering through the black darkness beyond. When he beheld this amazing abyss — when he saw these systems scattered profusely throughout space — when he reflected upon their immense distance, their enormous magnitude, and the countless mil- lions of worlds that belong to them — it seemed to him as though the wild dream of the German poet was more than realized. " God called man in dreams into the vestibule of heaven, saying, ' come up higher, and I will show thee the glory of my house ' ; and to his angels who [179] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER stood about His throne, he said, ' take him, strip him of his robes of flesh; cleanse his affections; put a new breath into his nostril; but touch not his human heart — the heart that fears, and hopes, and trembles.' A moment, and it was done, and the man stood ready for his unknown voyage. Under the guidance of a mighty angel, with sounds of flying pinions, they sped away from the battle- ments of heaven. Some time, on the mighty angel's wings, they fled through Saharas of darkness, wildernesses of death. At length, from a distance not counted, save in the arithmetic of heaven, light beamed upon them — a sleepy flame, as seen through a hazy cloud. They sped on, in their ter- rible speed, to meet the light; the light with les- ser speed came to meet them. In a moment, the blazing of suns around them — a moment, the wheeling of planets ; then came long eternities of twilight; then again, on the right hand and the left, appeared more constellations. At last, the man sank down, crying, ' Angel, I can go no further, let me lie down in the grave, and hide my- self from the infinitude of the universe, for end there is none.' ' End is there none? ' demanded the angel. And, from the glittering stars that shone around, there came a choral shout, ' end there is none ! ' ' End is there none ? ' demanded the angel [180] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER again, ' and is it this that awes thy soul? ' I an- swer, ' end there is none to the universe of God ! Lo, also, there is no beginning ! ' " THE MARCH OF THE FLAG ALBERT jr. BEVERIDGE Albert J. Beveridge was born on a farm in Highland County, Ohio, October 6, 1862; was admitted to the bar in 1886, and has achieved success in his profession, especially as a fervid and able advocate. He excels in demonstrative eloquence, and is one of the most successful and powerful political speakers of the day. He was elected to the United States Senate from Indiana, January 17, 1899, and has spoken there several times on impending questions in a manner to impress that assembly and the country. One of his best addresses was delivered on January 19, 1900, in reference to the Philippine question. The following extract is from one of his political speeches, delivered at Indian- apolis, Ind., September 16, 1898. WLL you remember that we do but what our fathers did — we but pitch the tent of liberty — farther westward, farther southward — we only continue the march of the flag. The march of the flag! In 1789, the flag of the republic waved over four million souls in thirteen States, and their savage territory, which stretched to the Mississippi, to Canada, to the Floridas. The timid minds of that day said that no new territory was needed, and, for [181] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the hour, thej were right. But Jefferson, who dreamed of Cuba as a state of the Union; Jeffer- son, the first imperiahst of the repubhc — Jeffer- son acquired that imperial territory which swept from the Mississippi to the mountains, from Texas to the British possessions, and the march of the flag began ! The infidels to the gospel of liberty raved, but the flag swept on ! The title to that noble land out of which Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Mon- tana have been carved, was uncertain; Jefferson, strict constructionist of constitutional power though he was, obeyed the Anglo-Saxon impulse within him, whose watchword then, and whose watch- word throughout the world to-day is, " Forward," another empire was added to the republic, and the march of the flag went on ! Those who deny the power of free institutions to expand, urged every argument, and more, that we hear to-day; but the people's judgment approved the command of their blood, and the march of the flag went on ! A screen of land from New Orleans to Florida shut us from the gulf, and over this and the Ever- glade Peninsula waved the saffron flag of Spain. Andrew Jackson seized both, the American people stood at his back, and, under Monroe, the Floridas [182] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER came under the dominion of the republic, and the march of the flag went on ! The Cassandras prophesied every prophecy of de- spair we hear to-day, but the march of the flag went on! Then Texas responded to the bugle-calls of liberty, and the march of the flag went on ! And, at last, we waged war with Mexico, and the flag swept over the Southwest, over fearless California, past the Gate of Gold, to Oregon on the north, and from ocean to ocean its folds of glory blazed. And now, obeying the same voice that Jeff^erson heard and obeyed, that Jackson heard and obeyed, that Monroe heard and obeyed, that Seward heard and obeyed, that Ulysses S. Grant heard and obeyed, that Benjamin Harrison heard and obeyed, Wil- liam McKinley plants the flag over the islands of the seas, outposts of commerce, citadels of national security, and the march of the flag goes on ! [183] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE BLIND PREACHER WILLIAM WIRl William Wirt, American orator, author, and lawyer, was born in Bladensburg, Md., November 8, 1773, and died in Washington, D. C, February 18, 1834. He possessed a ripe knowledge, an analytical mind, and a voice of sweetness, strength, and expression which was under splendid control. IT was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old wooden house in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before in travelling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the duties of the congregation ; but I must con- fess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural ap- pearance. He was a tall and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. The first emotions which touched my breast were [184] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah! how soon were all my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! It was a day of the administration of the sacra- ment ; and his sub j ect, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose elo- quence would give to this topic a new and more sub- lime pathos than I had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; His trial before Pilate; His ascent up Calvary ; His crucifixion, and His death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enuncia- tion was so deliberate that his voice trembled on every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that [185] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER force of description, that the original scene ap- peared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews : the star- ing, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of in- dignation; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Saviour; when he drew to the life. His blessed eyes, streaming in tears to heaven; His voice breathing to God, a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on His enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," — the voice of the preacher, which had all along falt- ered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feel- ings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The eff^ect is inconceivable. The whole house re- sounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judg- ing by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situa- tion of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from [186] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the height to which he had wound them, without im- pairing the solemnity and dignity of the subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But, no ! the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and en- thusiastic. The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau : " Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God." I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demos- thenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melan- choly grandeur of their geniuses ; you are to im- agine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody ; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the [187] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER house; the preacher removing his white handker- chief from his aged face (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears), and, slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, " Socrates died like a philosopher," then, pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls " to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his trembling voice, — " but Jesus Christ, like a God ! " If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. THE NATURAL RIGHTS OF MAN JEREMIAH S. BLACK Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born in the Glades, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, January 10, 1810; began the practice of law, 1830; became president of his judicial district in 1842; was elected judge of the supreme court of the State in 1851; and was chosen Chief Justice. In 1857, President Buchanan made him Attorney-general of the United States, and in 1860 Secretary of State. He retired from the office when Lincoln's cabinet was appointed, and engaged in his profession and in politics. He died in 1883. He was an able lawyer, eloquent speaker, conscientious judge, and hon- est governmental official. BUT how am I to prove the existence of these rights? I do not propose to do it by a long chain of legal argumentation, nor by the produc- [188] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tion of numerous books with the leaves dog-eared and the pages marked. If it depended upon judi- cial precedents, I think I could produce as many as might be necessary. If I claimed this freedom, under any kind of prescription, I could prove a good long procession in ourselves and those under whom we claim it. I might begin with Tacitus, and show how the contest arose in the forests of Germany more than two thousand years ago ; how the rough virtues and sound common sense of that people established the right of trial by jury, and thus started on a career which has made their pos- terity the foremost race that ever lived in all the tide of time. The Saxons carried it to England, and were ever ready to defend it with their blood. It was crushed out by the Danish invasion ; and all that they suffered of tyranny and oppression, dur- ing the period of their subjugation, resulted from the want of trial by jury. If that had been con- ceded to them, the reaction would not have taken place, which drove the Danes to their frozen homes in the North. But those ruffian sea-kings could not understand that, and the reaction came. Al- fred, the greatest of revolutionary heroes and the wisest monarch that ever sat on a throne, made the first use of his power, after the Saxons restored it, to re-establish their ancient laws. He had promised [189] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER them that he would, and he was true to them because they had been true to him. But it was not easily done ; the courts were opposed to it, for it limited their power — a kind of power that every- body covets — the power to punish without regard to law. He was obliged to hang forty-four judges in one year for refusing to give his subjects a trial by jury. When the historian says he hung them, it is not meant that he put them to death without a trial. He had them impeached before the grand council of the nation, the Wittenagemote, the parliament of that time. During the subse- quent period of Saxon domination, no man on English soil was powerful enough to refuse a legal trial to the meanest peasarit. If any minister or any king, in war or in peace, had dared to punish a freeman by a tribunal of his own appointment, he would have roused the wrath of the whole popu- lation ; all orders of society would have resisted it ; lord and vassal, knight and squire, priest and peni- tent, bocman and socman, master and thrall, copy- holder and villein, would have risen in one mass and burnt the offender to death in his castle, or followed him in his flight and torn him to atoms. It was again trampled down by the Norman conquerors ; but the evils resulting from the want of it united all classes in the effort which compelled King John [190] I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to restore it by the Great Charter. Everybody is familiar with the struggle which the English people, during many generations, made for their rights with the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, and which ended finally in the revolution of 1688, when the liberties of England were placed upon an impregnable basis by the Bill of Rights. Many times the attempt was made to stretch the royal authority far enough to justify military trials ; but it never had more than temporary suc- cess. Five hundred years ago Edward the Second, closed up a great rebellion by taking the life of its leader, the Earl of Lancaster, after trying him before a military court. Eight years later the same king, together with his lords and commons in parliament assembled, acknowledged with shame and sorrow that the execution of Lancaster was a mere murder, because the courts were open and he might have had a legal trial. Queen Elizabeth, for sundry reasons affecting the safety of the State, ordered that certain offenders, not of her army, should be tried according to the law martial. But she heard the storm of popular vengeance rising, and, haughty, imperious, self-willed as she was, she yielded the point; for she knew that upon that subject the English people would never consent to be trifled with. StraflPord, as Lord Lieutenant of [191] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Ireland, tried the Viscount Stormount before a military commission. When impeached for it, he pleaded in vain that Ireland was in a state of in- surrection, that Stormount was a traitor, and the army would be undone if it could not defend it- self without appealing to the civil courts. The parliament was deaf; the king himself could not save him; he was condemned to suffer death as a traitor and a murderer. Charles the First issued commissions to divers officers for the trial of his enemies according to the course of military law. If rebellion was ever a cause for such an act, he could surely have pleaded it ; for there was scarcely a spot in his kingdom, from sea to sea, where the royal authority was not disputed by somebody. Yet the parliament demanded in their petition of right, and the king was obliged to concede, that all his commissions were illegal. James the Second claimed the right to suspend the operation of the penal laws — a power which all the courts denied — but the experience of his predecessors taught him that he could not suspend any man's right to a trial. He could easily have convicted the Seven Bishops of any offence he saw fit to charge them with, if he could have selected their judges from among the mercenary creatures to whom he had given commands in his army. But this he dared [192] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER hot do. He was obliged to send the Bishops to a jury, and endure the mortification of seeing them acquitted. He, too, might have had rebeUion for an excuse. The conspiracy was already ripe, which a few months afterwards made him an exile and an outcast ; he had reason to believe that the Prince of Orange was making his preparations on the other side of the channel to invade the kingdom, where thousands burned to j oin him ; nay, he pronounced the Bishops guilty of rebellion by the very act by which he arrested them. He had raised an army to meet the rebellion, and he was on Hounslow Heath reviewing the troops organized for that purpose, when he heard the great shout of joy that went up from Westminster Hall, was echoed back from Temple Bar, spread down the city and over the Thames, and rose from every vessel on the river — the simultaneous shout of two hundred thousand men for the triumph of justice and law. CONSTRUCTIVE TREASON WIXIilAM PINKNEY William Pinkney, LL.D., was born in Maryland in 1764; admitted to the bar in 1786, and soon obtained a large practice. He was a member of the Maryland convention, called in 1788 to ratify the United States Constitution; served in the State council, house of delegates, and Senate, and in 1796 went to England as commissioner under the ^3 [ 193 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Jay treaty. He returned in 1804, and the next year was made attorney-general of Maryland. In 1806, he was again sent to England as minister extraordinary, and he remained as minister resident from 1807 to 1811. He was Attorney- general of the United States from 1811 to 1818, and served in the War of 1812 as commander of a volunteer corps, re- ceiving a dangerous wound at Bladensburg. He was elected to Congress in 1815, and appointed minister to Russia the next year. He entered the United States Senate in 1819. He died in 1822. THE opinion which the chief justice has just de- Hvered is not, and I thank God for it, the law of the land. If you have the slightest doubt on the subject, I will undertake to remove it, to show you that the cases have been misconceived, and that the conclusions drawn from them are erroneous. No man can feel for the learned judge who has just given you his instructions, a reverence and af- fection more sincere than I do. But reverence and affection for him shall not stand in the way of the great duty which I owe to a fellow citizen, who re- lies on me to shield his innocence from the charge of guilt, and his life from an attainder for treason. I had hoped that, since his motives were admitted on all hands to be entitled to praise, since the grand jury had associated with their indictment a certifi- cate of the purity of his views, and a solemn rec- ommendation that the prosecution should be abandoned, he would at least have been left by the district attorney, and the court, to obtain from [ 194 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER you, as he could, a deliverance from the danger that encompassed him. In that hope I have been disappointed. As if the salvation of the State de- pended upon the conviction of this unfortunate man, whose situation, one would think, an inquisitor might deplore, the district attorney has gone out of his way to bring down vengeance upon him ; and one of the court has told you that he is a traitor, and that you ought to find him so. In a case where justice might be expected to be softened into clemency, and even to connive at ac- quittal, where every generous sentiment must take part with the accused, and law might be thought to fear the approach of tyranny, if it should succeed in crushing him ; in such a case the established order of trial is deserted, a pernicious novelty is intro- duced, the court is called upon to mix itself in your deliberations, to mutilate the defence of the prison- er's counsel, to harden your consciences against the solicitations of an enlightened mercy, and to sacri- fice the prisoner to gloomy and exterminating principles, which would render the noble and benef- icent system of law, for which we are distinguished, a hideous spectacle of cruelty and oppression. For the sake of the country to which I belong, as well as of my client, I will not only protest before you against these principles, but will examine and [ 195 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER speak of them with freedom, restrained only by the decorum which this place requires. In my argument to the court, I showed that if it be done treacherously it is treason ; but that if the commander act from any motive not corrupt, no in- dictment can touch him. If the fort be as im- pregnable as Gibraltar, and be garrisoned by 50,000 men, and it is surrendered to a force of half that number, from motives of fear, the commander cannot be punished as a traitor. What can be more strong to show that upon an indictment for ad- herence, the law looks into the heart, and adapts its penalties accordingly.'' Has that authority been answered.? In the case af Stone, which was parallel with the point, the court said expressly, if the heart be pure it matters not how incorrect the conduct. So the counsel argued and Stone was acquitted. Has any answer been given to that authority? Has any been ever attempted.? This indictment charges Hodges with having done certain things wickedly, maliciously and traitorously. Must not the United States prove what they allege ? When the law allows even words to be given in evidence as explanatory of intention to exculpate, it admits that exculpation may be made out by proof of innocent motives ; that overt [196] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER acts alone do not furnish a criterion ; that concomi- tant facts, illustrative of the state of the heart, must not be neglected. A military force levies contributions. If you pay them for the purpose of saving the country from further mischief, although there be no fear or danger of death, the law says this is not treason. By the doctrine of the chief justice, however, it is treason, and consequently his doctrine is unsound. On this occasion the enemy were in complete power in the district where the transactions occurred which are complained of in the indictment. They were unawed by the thing which we call an army, for it had fled in every direction. They were omnipotent. The law of war prevailed and every other law was silent. The domestic code was sus- pended. They menaced pillage and conflagration ; and after they had wantonly destroyed edifices which all civilized warfare had hitherto respected, was it to be believed that they would spare a petty village which had renewed hostilities before the seal of capitulation was dry.'' There was menace — power to execute — probability — nay, certainty, that it would be executed. How, then, can you find a wicked and traitorous motive in the breast of my client .^^ There is not only the absence of my wicked motive, but there is [ m ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the visible presence of those which are laudable : an attachment to Dr. Beanes, anxiety for the defence- less people about him, or desire to preserve the county from the afflictions that hung over it. In conduct so characterized, so produced, we discover the operation of an excellent heart upon a mind which virtuous inducements could betray into error, but what way we can distort it into treason, I have not yet been able distinctly to learn. The conduct is in itself treasonable, says the chief justice. It necessarily imports the wicked inten- tion charged by the indictment. The construction makes it treason, because it aids and comforts the enemy. These are strong and comprehensive positions; but they have not been proved ; and they cannot be proved until we relapse into the gulf of construc- tive treason, from which our ancestors in another country have long since escaped. Gracious God ! In the nineteenth century to talk of constructive treason! Is it possible in this favored land — this last asylum of liberty blest with all that can render a nation happy at home and respected abroad — this should be law? No. I stand up as a man to rescue my country from this reproach. I say there is no color for this slander upon our jurisprudence. Had I thought otherwise, [198] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKISR I should have asked for mercy, not for law. I would have sent my client to the feet of the presi- dent, not have brought him, with bold defiance, to confront his accusers, and demand your verdict. He could have had a nolle prosequi. I confirmed him in his resolution not to ask it, by telling him that he was safe without it. Under these circum- stances, I may claim some respect for my opinion. My opportunities for forming a judgment upon this subject, I am compelled to say, by the strange turn which this cause has taken, are superior to those of the chief justice. I say nothing of the knowledge which long study and extensive practice enabled me to bring to the consideration of this case. I rely upon this ; my opinion has not been hastily formed since the commencement of the trial. It is a result of a deliberate examination of all the authorities, of a thorough investigation of the law of treason in all its forms, made at leisure and under a deep sense of a fearful responsibility of my client. It depended upon me whether he should submit him- self to your justice, or use, with the chief magis- trate, the intercession of the grand jury, which could not have failed to have been successful. You are charged with his life and honor, because I as- sured him that the law was a pledge for the security of both. I declared to him that I would stake my [199] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER own life upon the safety of his; and I declare to you now that you have as much power to shed the blood of the advocate as to harm the client whom he defends. If the naked fact of delivery constitute the crime of treason, why not hang the man who goes under a flag of truce to return or exchange prisoners? According to the doctrine of the chief justice, this man is equally guilty with him who stands at the bar, if you are forbidden to examine his mind, but are commanded by the law to look only to his acts. This doctrine, I pledge myself, goes through every nerve and artery of the law. If the doctrine of the chief justice be the law of the land, every man concerned in the deeds of blood that were acted during our recent war, was a murderer. Our gallant soldiers who had repulsed the hostile step whenever it trod upon our shores ; our gallant tars who unfurled our flag, acquired for us a name and rank upon the ocean which will not soon be ob- literated — these are all liable to be arraigned at this bar. These men have carried dismay and death into the ranks of the foe; blood calls for blood. You dare not inquire into the causes which produced the circumstances; which attended the motives; which prompted the deeds of carnage. The act, [200] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER you are told by the chief justice, and such is the reasoning of the attorney general, involves the in- tent. Gentlemen, this desolating doctrine would sweep us from the face of the earth. Even when we de- served to be crowned with laurels, we should be stretched on a gibbet. I tremble for my children, for my country, when I reflect upon the conse- quences of these detestable tenets which reduce in- discretions and wickedness to the same level. Which of you is there that in some unguarded moment may not, with honest motives, be im- prudent .^^ Which of you can hope to pass through life without the imputation of crime, if your motives be separated from your conduct, and guilt may be fastened upon your actions, although the heart be innocent .f* Gentlemen, so solemnly, so deeply, so religiously, do I feel impressed with this principle, that I know not how to leave the case with you, although at the present moment, it strikes my mind in so clear a light that I know not how to make it more clear. If this damnable prosecution should prevail, it would be the duty of the district attorney instantly to arraign General Bowie, one of the witnesses in this case, than whom a truer patriot never lived. [201] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Naj, half Prince George's County would come within its baleful influence. Yet such is the law the chief justice recommends to you. His associate does not concur with him. In this conflict of opinion, I should be entitled to your verdict, but I rest my case upon more exalted grounds. I call upon you as honorable men, as you are just, as you value your liberties, as you prize your Constitution, to say — and say it promptly — that my client is not guilty. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE THOMAS JEFFEESON Thomas Jefferson, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, and third President of the United States, was born at Shadwell, Va., April 2, 1743, and died at Monticello, Va., July 4, 1826. He was the author of the Declaration of American Independ- ence and of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and was called the Father of the University of Virginia. WHEN, in the course of human events, it be- comes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation. [202] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inahenable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, govern- ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes de- structive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new govern- ment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and ac- cordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer- able, than to right themselves by abohshing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to re- duce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such govern- ment, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and such is now the necessity which [ 203 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the es- tablishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most whole- some and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless sus- pended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the ac- commodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of repre- sentation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the de- pository of their public records, for the sole pur- pose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. [ 204 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER He has refused for a long time after such dis- solutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and con- vulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military inde- pendent of, and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a [205] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and un- acknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; for pro- tecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the in- habitants of these States ; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury; for trans- porting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; for abolishing the free system of Eng- lish laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same abso- lute rule into these colonies; for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws ; and altering fundamentally the forms of our govern- ments ; for suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legis- late for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. [ 206 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with cir- cumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paral- leled in the most barbarous ages and totally un- worthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, and to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished de- struction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injuries. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have [207] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER reminded them of the circumstances of our emigra- tion and settlement here : we have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have con- jured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, ene- mies in war; in peace, friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- solved; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alhances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. [ 208 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- dence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. THE EXECUTION OF A MADMAN IS MURDER WILLIAM H. SEWARD William Henry Seward, lawyer, anti-slavery agitator, and statesman, was born in the town of Florida, Orange County, New York, May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, New York, October 10, 1872. He won distinction as a lawyer, but drifted into the more congenial field of politics. He served as State senator, governor, United States sena- tor, and secretary of state in the cabinets of Lincoln and Johnson. He was a consistent and logical opponent of slavery and the first to base his opposition to its con- tinuance on the purely political and economic reason that it injured not only the race held in slavery, but also the one that enslaved. Seward's oratory is convincing because it is clear, direct, and pregnant with truth. His thoughts and words flow freely and with a continuity that never permits the listener to lose the main thought, although he interjects many secondary thoughts, but this is done in such a masterly man- ner as to strengthen instead of weaken the principal one. His speeches show clearly that they consist of spoken words, as they are impregnated with the force that reflects the living voice, and denote the orator in every line as dis- tinguished from the mere writer. His statements are clear, his arguments logical, and his conclusions convincing. 4 irpHOU shalt not kill," and "Whoso shed- -■- deth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," are laws found in the code of that people ^4 [ 209 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER who, although dispersed and distracted, trace their history to the creation ; a history that records that murder was the first of human crimes. The first of these precepts constitutes a tenth part of the jurisprudence which God saw fit to establish, at an early period, for the government of all mankind throughout all generations. The latter, of less universal obligation, is still retained in our system, although other States as intelligent and refined, as secure and peaceful, have substi- tuted for it the more benign principle that good shall be returned for evil. I yield implicit sub- mission to this law, and acknowledge the justice of its penalty, and the duty of the courts and juries to give it effect. In this case, if the prisoner be guilty of mur- der, I do not ask remission of punishment. If he be guilty, never was murderer more guilty. He has murdered, not only John G. Van Nest, but his hands are reeking with the blood of other, and numerous, and even more pitiable victims. The slaying of Van Nest, if a crime at all, was the cowardly crime of assassination. John G. Van Nest was a just, upright, virtuous man, of middle age, of grave and modest demeanor, distinguished by especial marks of the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens. On his arm leaned a confiding [210] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER wife, and they supported on the one side, chil- dren to whom they had given being, and, on the other, aged and venerable parents, from whom they had derived existence. The assassination of such a man was an atrocious crime, but the mur- derer, with more than savage refinement, immolated on the same altar, in the same hour, a venerable and virtuous matron of more than three-score years, and her daughter, wife of Van Nest, mother of an unborn infant. Nor was this all. Provi- dence, which, for its own mysterious purposes, permitted these dreadful crimes, in mercy suffered the same arm to be raised against the sleeping orphan child of the butchered parents, and re- ceived it into Heaven. A whole family, just, gentle, and pure, were thus, in their own house, in the night time, without any provocation, with- out one moment's warning, sent by the murderer to join the assembly of the just; and even the laboring man, sojourning within their gates, re- ceived the fatal blade into his breast, and survives through the mercy, not of the murderer, but of God. For William Freeman, as a murderer, I have no commission to speak. If he had silver and gold accumulated with the frugality of Croesus, and should pour it all at my feet, I would not [211] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER stand an hour between him and the avenger. But for the innocent, it is my right, my duty to speak. If this sea of blood was innocently shed, then it is my duty to stand between him until his steps lose their hold upon the scaffold. " Thou shalt not kill," is a commandment ad- dressed, not to him alone, but to me, to you, to the Court, and to the whole community. There are no exceptions from that commandment, at least in civil life, save those of self-defence, and capital punish- ment for crimes is the due and just administration of the law. There is not only a question, then, whether the prisoner has shed the blood of his fellowman, but the question whether we shall un- lawfully shed his blood. I should be guilty of murder if, in my present relation, I saw the execu- tioner waiting for an insane man and failed to say, or failed to do in his behalf, all that my ability allowed. I think it has been proved of the prisoner at the bar, that during all this long and tedious trial, he has had no sleepless nights, and that even in the daytime, when he retires from the halls to his lonely cell, he sinks to rest like a wearied child, on the stone floor and quietly slum- bers till roused by the constable with his staff, to appear again before the jury. His counsel enjoy no such repose. Their thoughts by day and their [212] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER dreams by night are filled with oppressive appre- hensions that, through their inability or neglect, he may be condemned. I am arraigned before you for undue manifesta- tions of zeal and excitement. My answer to all such charges shall be brief. When this cause shall have been committed to you, I shall be happy in- deed, if it shall appear that my only error has been that I have felt too much, thought too intensely, or acted too faithfully. If my error would thus be criminal, how great would yours be if you should render an unjust verdict? Only four months have elapsed since an outraged people, distrustful of judicial redress, doomed the prisoner to immediate death. Some of you have confessed that you approved that law- less sentence. All men now rejoice that the pris- oner was saved for this solemn trial. But this trial would be as criminal as that precipitate sen- tence, if, through any wilful fault or prejudice of yours, it should prove but a mockery of justice. If any prejudice of witnesses, or the imagination of counsel, or any ill-timed jest shall, at any time, have diverted your attention; or if any pre- judgment which you have brought into the jury box, or any cowardly fear of popular opinion shall have operated to cause you to deny to the prisoner [213] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER that dispassionate consideration of his case which the laws of God and man exact of you, and if, owing to such an error, this wretched man fall from among the living, what will be your crime? You have violated the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill." It is not the form or letter of the trial by jury that authorizes you to send your fellowman to his dread account, but it is the spirit that sanc- tifies that glorious institution; and if, through pride, passion, timidity, weakness, or any cause, you deny the prisoner one iota of all the defence to which he is entitled by the law of the land, you yourselves, whatever his guilt may be, will have broken the commandment, " Thou shalt do no murder." There is not a corrupt or prejudiced witness, there is not a thoughtless or heedless witness, who has testified what was not true in spirit, or what was not wholly true, or who has suppressed any truth, who has not offended against the same in- junction. Nor is the Court itself above the commandment. If these judges have been influenced by the ex- citement which has brought this vast assemblage here, and under such influence, or under any other influence, have committed voluntary error, and have denied to the prisoner, or shall hereafter deny [214] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to him, the benefit of any fact or principle of law, then this Court will have to answer for the deep transgression, at the bar at which we shall all meet again. When we appear there, none of us can plead that we were insane and knew not what we did ; and by just so much as our ability and knowl- edge exceed those of this wretch, whom the world regards as a fiend in human shape, will our guilt exceed his, if we be guilty. PLEA FOR THE UNION WILLIAM H. SEWARD MR. PRESIDENT, I have designedly dwelt so long on the probable effect of disunion upoii the safety of the American people as to leave me little time to consider the other evils which must follow in its train. But, practically, the loss of safety involves every other form of public calamity. When once the guardian angel has taken flight, everything is lost. Dissolution would not only arrest, but extinguish the greatness of our country. Even if separate confederacies could exist and endure, they could severally preserve no share of the common pres- tige of the Union. If the constellation is to be broken up, the stars, whether scattered widely [215] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER apart or grouped in smaller clusters, will thence- forth shed forth feeble, glimmering and lurid lights. Nor will great achievements be possible for the new confederacies. Dissolution would signalize its triumph by acts of wantonness which would shock and astound the world. It would pro- vincialize Mount Vernon, and give this Capitol over to desolation at the very moment when the dome was rising over our heads that was to be crowned with the statue of liberty. After this there would remain for disunion no act of stu- pendous infamy to be committed. No petty con- federacy that shall follow the United States can prolong, or even renew, the majestic drama of na- tional progress. Perhaps it is to be arrested be- cause its sublimity is incapable of continuance. Let it be so, if we have indeed become degenerate. After Washington, and the inflexible Adams, Henry, and the peerless Hamilton, Jefferson, and the majestic Clay, Webster and the acute Calhoun, Jackson, the modest Taylor, and Scott, who rises in greatness under the burden of years, and Frank- lin, and Fulton, and Whitney, and Morse, have all performed their parts, let the curtain fall. While listening to these debates, I have some- times forgotten myself in marking their contrasted effects upon the page who customarily stands on [216] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the dias before me, and the venerable secretary who sits behind him. The youth exhibits intense but pleased emotion in the excitement, while at every irreverent word that is uttered against the Union the eyes of the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him weep no more. Rather rejoice, for yours has been a lot of rare felicity. You have seen and been a part of all the greatness of your country, the towering national greatness of all the world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bit- terness of anguish, who are just stepping on the threshold of hfe; for that greatness perishes pre- maturely, and exists not for you, nor for me, nor for any that shall come after us. The public prosperity ! how could it survive the storm? Its elements are industry in the culture of every fruit ; mining of all the metals ; commerce at home and on every sea ; material improvement that knows no obstacle and has no end; invention that ranges throughout the domain of nature; increase of knowledge as broad as the human mind can explore; perfection of art as high as human genius can reach; and social refinement work- ing for the renovation of the world. How could our successors prosecute these noble ob- jects in the midst of brutalizing civil conflict? What guarantee will capital invested for such pur- [217] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER poses have, that will outweigh the premium offered by political and military ambition? What leisure will the citizen find for study or invention or art, under the reign of conscription ; nay, what interest in them will society feel when fear and hate shall have taken possession of the national mind? Let the miner in California take heed; for its golden wealth will become the prize of the nation that can command the most iron. Let the borderer take care; for the Indian will again lurk around his dwelling. Let the pioneer come back into our denser settlements ; for the railroad, the postroad, and the telegraph advance not one furlong fur- ther into the wilderness. With standing armies consuming the substance of our people on the land, and our navy and our postal steamers withdrawn from the ocean, who will protect or respect, or who will even know by name our petty confederacies? The American man-of-war is a noble spectacle. I have seen it enter an ancient port in the Mediterra- nean. All the world wondered at it and talked of it. Salvos of artillery, from forts and shipping in the harbor, saluted its flag. Princes and princesses and merchants paid it homage, and all people blessed it as a harbinger of hope for their own ultimate freedom. I imagine now the same noble vessel again entering the same haven. The flag of [218] 11 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER thirty-three stars and thirteen stripes has been hauled down, and in its place a signal is run up, which flaunts the device of a lone star or a palmetto tree. Men ask, " Who is the stranger that thus steals into our waters ? " The answer, contemp- tuously given, is, " She comes from one of the ob- scure republics of North America. Let her pass AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE SAMUEL ADAMS Samuel Adams, Revolutionary patriot and statesman, was born at Boston, Mass., September 27, 1722, and died there October 3, 1803. He was a member of the famous Adams family of Massachusetts, being second cousin to President John Adams. As an orator he ranks with Patrick Henry, James Otis, and Richard Henry Lee, who participated with him in the oratorical struggle which preceded, attended, and followed the Revolutionary War. Many authentic speci- mens of his writings are preserved to us, but very few of his speeches. The one delivered on " American Independ- ence" in 1776 is, however, a complete report, and brings out clearly the characteristics of his style, consisting of earnestness, intellectual, and emotional force, which over- came all physical weakness, and a splendid flow of living words, which never failed to rouse his hearers to. the highest pitch of enthusiasm. FROM the day on which an accommodation takes place between England and America, on any other terms than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. A politic [219] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER minister will study to lull us into security, by granting us the full extent of our petitions. The warm sunshine of influence would melt down the virtue which the violence of the storm rendered more firm and unyielding. In a state of tranquil- lity, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would for- get the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formid- able. When the spirit of Hberty, which now ani- mates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye aban- doned minions of an infatuated ministry, if per- adventure any should remain amongst us, remember that a Warren and a Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth ! If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask [ 220 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen! The period, countrymen, is already come. The calamities were at our door. The rod of oppres- sion was raised over us. We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed in- heritance to our posterity! This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation. This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever un- folded — millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defence and common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to man- kind? [221] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom ; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are com- posed of wretches who laugh at the rights of hu- manity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and a Montgomery, it is that these Amer- ican States may never cease to be free and inde- pendent. SELF-PRESERVATION THE FIRST LAW OF NATURE DAVID PAUL BROWN David Paul Brown, an eminent lawyer, was born in Phil- adelphia, Pa., September 28, 1795, and died in the same city, July 11, 1872. He won distinction, not only as a [222] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER lawyer, but also as an author and playwright. He was a learned man, and an earnest, forceful speaker, winning many difBcult cases by the convincing style of his oratory. ON Tuesday night, about ten o'clock, the boat filled with water from above and below; the wind having risen; the waves having increased; the ice accumulating, and the passengers shrieking with horror at the prospect of drowning; the final, fatal order was given. It is not to be supposed that these hardy sons of the sea were unnecessarily alarmed. That Holmes, particularly, was a brave, resolute, and determined seaman, as well as a most humane man, no one will venture to deny ; that he had but one supposable object, which was to save such as might be saved, is equally clear. I main- tain, therefore, that the most favorable construc- tion is to be placed upon his motives ; and it is justly to be inferred that he acted upon the im- pression that the danger was imminent, and that death was inevitable to all, except by resorting to those means which he actually adopted. We are told, however, that he is not the judge. I ask, who is the judge? There is a vast deal of difference between judging in a storm and judg- ing of the representation of a storm; and, there- fore, it was that I said, that, in order to reach a righteous determination of this case, your verdict [ 223 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER should be rendered in the midst of perils such as have been described, instead of being pronounced while surrounded by all the securities and sanctions of the law. I agree that if you can conceive of any other inducement than the desire of self- preservation, and that of the majority of the pas- sengers, inducing this act, which I defy you to do, you may then imagine that that inducement led to the act, and thereby divest the prisoner of his present defence ; but even taking all the statements of the witnesses for the prosecution, highly colored — I will not say discolored — as they are, and torture them as you may, it is impossible for you to arrive at any other conclusion than that Holmes was actuated by the kindest and most generous in- fluences ; and certainly I need not say that kind- ness and generosity are opposed to wantonness and barbarity. I repeat, then, that in these circumstances of terror, men are left to their honest determinations. They are not to resort to mere imaginary evils as a pretext, nor are they to be supposed to resort to them as a pretext. If they err in their determina- tion, according to the rules adopted by a cold system of reasoning, their error, as thus detected, is not to be visited upon them as a crime. Suppose two men, occupying perfectly friendly [224] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER relations to each other, should be cast away, and both seize the same plank (to me the favorite illus- tration) and one should thrust the other off; would it not be monstrous, upon the trial of the alleged offender, that the plank should be brought into court and submitted to some men of approved skill, and measured and examined by square, rule, and compass ; its specific gravity ascertained, and the possibility of its sufficiency to sustain two men discussed and decided ; and, upon the basis of such calculation as that, the prisoner should be deprived of his liberty or his life ; when, if you had placed the witnesses in his precise situation, and they had been called upon to act upon a sudden emergency, they would have done precisely what he did, and what every principle of natural law warrants. It is worse than idle to suppose, that in such a critical juncture as this, men are to cast lots or toss up for their lives. In such peril a man makes his own law with his own right arm. But, say the learned counsel, had the passengers been permitted to remain until morning, they might have been saved by the Crescent. I answer, had they remained a single hour, they would have never seen the morning; every man, woman, and child would have weltered in the coral caves of the ocean. The approach of the Crescent could not, even in ^5 [ 225 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER point of fact, have operated to alleviate their fears; without prescience they could have antici- pated no such relief. Men are to act upon the past and present ; the future belongs to God alone. You are told, however, that the condition of the boat was not hopeless ; that she was on " the great highroad of nations," and that there was every prospect of her being picked up. The gentleman speaks of the great highroad of nations over the pathless ocean, as it were the Chesapeake and Delaware canal, in which two vessels could scarcely pass abreast. The President, steamer, sunk prob- ably upon this great highroad, leaving no voice to tell her fate. Surrounded as the boat was by mountains of ice, no ship would probably ever have reached her, if steering in that direct course. Fate itself seemed to forbid it; nay, no vessel, says the captain, would have ventured among the ice, had the position of the boat been known; as no commander, however philanthropic, would have so far perilled his own hopes in order to redeem the lives of others. The chances of rescue were entirely too remote then — ninety-nine chances against one, say the witnesses — to enter into the calculation of the mate and crew, had their circum- stances even been such as to allow them dispas- sionately to reason upon the subj ect ; but as it was, [226] I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER terror had assumed the throne of reason, passion became judgment, and jou know the sequel. PHARISAISM OF REFORM GEORGE W. CURTIS George William Curtis was born in Providence, Rhode Island, Feb. 24, 1824, and died on Staten Island, N. Y., August 31, 1892. He won a high reputation as a man of letters, lecturer, and polished speaker among the famous men of his generation, and was one of the prime movers in re- forming the civil service. His speeches are all fine speci- mens of literary skill and were usually written out, polished, and committed to memory before being delivered, but for all that they possess the qualities of the oration more than the written composition. NO American, it seems to me, is so unworthy the name as he who attempts to extenuate or defend any national abuse, who denies or tries to hide it, or who derides as pessimists and Pharisees those who indignantly disown it and raise the cry of reform. If a man proposes the redress of any public wrong, he is asked severely whether he con- siders himself so much wiser and better than other men, that he must disturb the existing order and pose as a saint. If he denounces an evil, he is exhorted to beware of spiritual pride. If he points out a dangerous public tendency or censures the action of a party, he is advised to cultivate good-humor, to look on the bright side, to remem- [227] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ber that the world is a very good world, at least the best going, and very much better than it was a hundred years ago. Undoubtedly it is ; but would it have been better if everybody had then insisted that it was the best of all possible worlds, and that we must not de- spond if sometimes a cloud gathered in the sky, or a Benedict Arnold appeared in the patriot army, or even a Judas Iscariot among the chosen twelve? Christ, I think, did not doubt the beloved disciple nor the coming of His kingdom, although He knew and said that the betrayer sat with Him at the table. I believe we do not read that Washington either thought it wiser that Arnold's treachery should be denied or belittled, or that he or any other patriot despaired although the treason was so grave. Julius Caesar or Marlborough or Frederick would hardly be called a great general if he had rebuked the soldier who reported that the lines were begin- ning to break. When the sea is pouring into the ship through an open seam, everybody is aware of it. But then it is too late. It is the watch who reports the first starting of the seam who saves the ship. It is an ill sign when public men find in exposure and denunciation of public abuses evidence of the pharisaic disposition and a tendency in the critic [ 228 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER to think himself hoHer than other men. Was Martin Luther, cheerfully defending his faith against the princes of Christendom, a Pharisee? Were the English Puritans, iconoclasts in Church and State but saviours of liberty, pessimists? Were Patrick Henry demanding liberty or death, and Wendell Phillips in the night of slavery mur- muring the music of the morning, birds of ill omen? Was Abraham Lincoln saying of the American Union, " A house divided with itself can- not stand," assuming to be holier than other Amer- icans? To win a cheap cheer, I have known even intelligent men to sneer at the scholar in politics. But in a republic founded upon the common school, such a sneer seems to me to show a momentary loss of common-sense. It implies that the political opinions of educated men are unimportant and that ignorance is a safer counsellor of the republic. If the gentleman who, in this very hall last stooped to that sneer, had asked himself what would have been the fortune of this State and this country without its educated leadership, from Samuel Adams to Charles Sumner, — both sons of Massachusetts, both scholars in politics from Harvard College, — he might have spared his country, his party, and himself, the essential recreancy to America and to manhood which lies in a sneer at education. To [ 229 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the cant about the pharisaism of reform there is one short and final answer. The man who tells the truth is a holier man than the liar. The man who does not steal is a better man than the thief. THE CALL OF FREEDOM GEORGE W. CURTIS INTO how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill eighty years ago ; and young men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hillside, the river meadows golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, par- ents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncer- tain war. Putnam heard the call at his plough, and turned to go without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed. Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was as dear and love as beautiful to those young men as to us who stand upon their graves. But because they were so dear and beautiful, those men went out bravely to fight for them all and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who [ 230 ] m LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER never returned. They fell and were buried; but they never can die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, nor greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the mem- ory of the brave men who died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas. Gentlemen, while we read history we make his- tory. Because our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Be- cause two thousand years ago Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God! that Leonidas is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopylae, and there is always a Leoni- das and his three hundred to die in it, if they can- not conquer. And so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so long from that single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as countless as the forest leaves and mighty as the sea. Brothers ! the call has come to us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats, I summon you to [2S1] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to say with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death-dews upon national prosperity and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the wine and the ohve of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of hu- man freedom, which has been the scorn of despot- ism shall, by our failure, be also our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world. The voice of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than our fathers who bled, summons us to this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast western empire, rise up and call us blessed or cursed? Here are our Mara- thon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us. The fight is fierce — » the issue is with God. But God is good. [232] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE DUTIES OF AN ADVOCATE REQUIRE THE HIGHEST MORAL COURAGE JAMES T. BRADY James Topham Brady, born in New York, 1815, died 1869. He was a lawyer, educated by his father, who was also a lawyer and a judge. The son became eminent for eloquence, and for almost unbroken success in the cases undertaken by him. In New York he was popular, both as a lawyer and a citizen, and especially admired as an off- hand speaker. He contributed largely to newspapers and magazines, but left no collected works. THE advocate is of very little use in the days of prosperity and peace, in the periods of repose, in protecting your property or aiding you to recover your rights of a civil nature. It is only when public opinion, or the strong power of gov- ernment, the formidable array of influence, the force of a nation, or the fury of a multitude, is directed against you, that the advocate is of any use. Many years ago, while we were yet colonies of Great Britain, there occurred on this island what is known as the famous negro insurrection — the re- sult of an idle story told by a worthless person, and yet leading to such an inflammation of the public mind that all the lawyers who then practised at the bar of New York (and it is the greatest stigma [ 233 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER on our profession of which the world can furnish an example) refused to defend the accused parties. One of them was a poor priest, of, I believe, for- eign origin. The consequence was that numerous convictions took place, and a great many execu- tions. And yet all mankind is perfectly satisfied that there never was a more unfounded rumor, never a more idle tale, and that judicial murders were never perpetrated on the face of the earth more intolerable, more inexcusable, more without palliation. How different was it in Boston, at the time of what was called the massacre of Massachu- setts subjects by British forces! The soldiers on being indicted, sought for counsel, and they found two men of great eminence in the profession to act for them. One of them was Mr. Adams, and the other Mr. Quincy. The father of Mr. Quincy addressed a letter, imploring him, on his allegiance as a son, and from affection and duty toward him, not to undertake the defence of these men. The son wrote back a response, recognizing, as he truly felt, all the filial affection which he owed to that honored parent, but, at the same time, taking the high and appropriate ground that he must discharge his duty as an advocate, accord- ing to the rules of his profession and the obliga- [234] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tion of his official oath, whatever might be the result of his course. The struggles in the history of the world, to have in criminal trials an honest judiciary, a fear- less jury, and a faithful advocate, disclose a great deal of wrong and suffering inflicted on advocates silenced by force, trembling at the bar where they ought to be immovable in the discharge of their duty — on juries fined and imprisoned, and kept lying in dungeons for years, because they dared, in State prosecutions, to find verdicts against the direction of the court. The provisions of our own Constitution, which secure to men trial by jury and all the rights incident to that sacred and invaluable privilege, are the history of wrong against which those provisions are intended to guard in the future. This trial, gentlemen, fur- nishes a brilliant illustration of the beneficial re- sults of all this care. Nothing could be fairer than the trial these prisoners have had; nothing more admirable than the attention which you have given to every proceeding in this case. I know all the gentlemen on that jury well enough to be perfectly certain that whatever verdict they render will be given without fear or favor, on the law of the land, as they shall be informed it does exist,, [235] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER on a calm and patient review of the testimony, with a due sympathy for the accused, and yet with a proper respect for the government, so that the law shall be satisfied and individual rights pro- tected. But, gentlemen, I do believe most sincerely that, unless we have deceived ourselves in regard to the law of the land, I have a right to invoke your protection for these men. The bodily presence, if it could be secured, of those who have been here in spirit by their language, attending on this de- bate and hovering about these men to furnish them protection — Lee and Hamilton and Adams and Washington and Jefferson, all whose spirits enter into the principles for which we contend — would plead in their behalf. I do wish that it was within the power of men, invoking the great Ruler of the Universe, to bid these doors open and to let the revolutionary sages to whom I have referred, and a Sumter, a Moultrie, a Marion, a Greene, a Put- man, and the other distinguished men, who fought for our privileges and rights in the days of old, march in here and look at this trial. There is not a man of them who would not say to you that you should remember, in regard to each of these prisoners, as if you were his father, the his- tory of Abraham when he went to sacrifice his son [ 236 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Isaac on the mount — the spirit of American lib- erty, the principles of American jurisprudence, and the dictates of humanity, constituting them- selves another angel of the Lord, and saying to you, when the immolation was threatened, " Lay not your hand upon him." EULOGY OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD JAMES G. BliAINE James Gillespie Blaine was born in West Brownsville, Pa., January 31, 1830, and died in Washington, D. C, January 27, 1893. In 1854 he removed to Augusta, Maine, where he entered the field of journalism. Four years later he was elected to the State legislature where he remained until 1862, when he was elected a member of Congress, be- coming speaker of the House of Representatives in 1869 and continuing as such until 1875. In this capacity he won distinction for his knowledge of parliamentary law, impar- tiality in administering the duties of his ofl&ce, and skill in controlling the House. He was a member of the United States Senate from 1876 to 1881, resigning the office to be- come Secretary of State under President Garfield. In 1884 he was the Republican candidate for the Presidency, but was defeated. When Benjamin Harrison became President, in 1889, he appointed Mr. Blaine Secretary of State, which office he filled till June, 1892, when he resigned. He died a disappointed arid broken-hearted man through his inability to reach the Presidency, which was the one great ambition of his life. In this respect he was like Clay and Webster, all able statesmen, but rejected either by their party or the peo- ple when they sought the great honor either of a nomination or election to this high office. As an orator, he was one of the best of the period following the Civil War, and achieved success as a statesman through being largely instrumental in negotiating the treaty with England, which adopted the American principle of equal rights and protection for [ 237 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER naturalized as well as native citizens, and also through ne- gotiating reciprocity treaties for the extension of trade with several foreign governments. The following extract is from an oration delivered in the House of Representatives at Washington, D. C, February 27, 1882. HIS terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confi- dent in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, help- less ; doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. Great in life, Garfield was surpassing great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of Death — and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell — what bril- liant broken plans, what baffled high ambitions, what sundering of warm, strong manhood's friendships, what bitter rendering of sweet house- [238] B LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER hold ties ! Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his ; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood's days of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love and care, and in his heart the eager rejoicing power to meet all demands 1 Before him desolation and great dark- ness ! And his soul was not shaken. His country- men were thrilled with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weak- ness, he became the centre of a nation's love, en- shrined in the prayers of a world; but all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfail- ing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet, he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation, he bowed to the Divine decree. As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from [239] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale suff^erer to the longed- for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders ; on its far sails whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. THE LAW OF SELF-DEFENCE SEARGENT S. PRENTISS Seargent Smith Prentiss was born in Portland, Maine, Sept. 30, 1808; was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1826; and was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1829. He re- moved to Vicksburg in 1832, and represented it in the State legislature in 1835. Elected to Congress in 1838, he made a strong speech against the sub-treasury bill. He strenu- [ 240 ] I I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ously opposed the repudiation of the Mississippi State debt, and in part from his dislike for that measure removed to New Orleans in 1845. His death occurred in Longwood, Mississippi, July 1, 1850. Born in New England, of Puritan ancestry, he possessed all the physical and mental char- acteristics and attributes of the cavalier, and became the beau-ideal of Southern chivalry. One of his greatest speeches was delivered in defence of his friend, Judge Wil- kinson, who was charged with murder, an extract from which is here given. THE law of self-defence has always had and ought to have a more liberal construction in this country than in England. Men claim more of personal independence here ; of course they have more to defend. They claim more freedom and license in their actions toward each other, conse- quently there is greater reason for apprehending personal attack from an enemy. In this country men retain in their own hands a larger portion of their personal rights than in any other; and one will be authorized to presume an intention to ex- ercise and enforce them, upon grounds that, in other countries, would not excite the slightest sus- picion. It is the apprehension of impending harm, and not its actual existence, which consti- tutes the justification for defensive action. If my enemy point at me an unloaded pistol or a wooden gun, in a manner calculated to excite in my mind apprehensions of immediate, great bodily harm, I am justifiable in taking his life, though ^6 [ 241 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER it turn out afterward that I was in no actual danger. So, on the other hand, if I take the life of another, without being aware of any intended vio- lence on his part, it will constitute no excuse for me to prove that he intended an attack upon me. The apprehension must be reasonable, and its reasonableness may depend upon a variety of cir- cumstances — of time, place, and manner, as well as of character. The same appearance of danger would authorize greater apprehension, and of course readier defensive action, at night than in the daytime. An attack upon one in his own house would indicate greater violence, and excuse stronger opposing action, than an attack in the street. Indications of violence from an individual of known desperate and dangerous character will justify defensive and preventive action, which would be inexcusable toward a notorious coward. A stranger may reasonably indulge, from the ap- pearance or threats of a mob, apprehension that would be unpardonable in a citizen surrounded by his friends and neighbors. Bearing these observations in mind, let us look at the situation of the defendants. They were at- tacked at their hotel, which, for the time being, was their house. They were strangers, and a [ 242 ] I I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER fierce mob had gathered around them, indicating, both bj word and deed, the most violent intentions. They were three small, weak men, without friends — for even the proprietor of the house, who should have protected them, had become alarmed and left them to their fate. Their enemies were, compara- tively, giants — dangerous in appearance and des- perate in action. Was there not ample ground for the most fearful apprehensions.? But the district attorney says, they are not entitled to the benefit of the law of self-defence, because they came down to supper. According to his view of the case, they should have remained in their chamber, in a state of siege, without the right to sally forth even for provisions ; while the enemy, cutting off their supphes, would doubtless soon have starved them into a surrender. But it seems there was a private entrance to the supper table, and they should have skulked in through that. No one but a craven coward, unworthy of the privileges of a man, would have followed such a course. The ordinary entrance to supper was through the office. They had a right to pass this way; no law forbade it. Every principle of in- dependence and self-respect prompted it. And through that office I would have gone, as they did, though the floor had been fresh sown with the [243] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER fabled dragon's teeth, and bristling with its crop of armed men. I care not whether the assailing party had deadly weapons or not ; though I will, by-and-by, show they had, and used them too. But the true question is, whether the defendants had not good reason for believing them armed and every way prepared for a desperate conflict. I have shown already that Dr. Wilkinson and Murdaugh did not transcend the most technical principle laid down by the commonwealth's attorney; not even that which requires a man to run to the wall before he can be permitted to defend himself — a principle which, in practice, is exploded in England, and never did obtain in this country at all. But, says the learned attorney. Judge Wilkinson interfered and took part before he was himself attacked; he had no right to anticipate the attack upon him- self ; he had no right to defend his friend ; he had no right to protect his brother's life. Now I differ from the worthy counsel on all these points: I think he had a right to prevent, by anticipating it, violence upon his person ; he had a right to de- fend his friend, and it was his sacred duty to pro- tect his brother's life. Judge Wilkinson was the most obnoxious of the party; his friends were already overpowered; he [244] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER could not expect to escape; and in a moment the whole force of the bandit gang would have turned upon him. The principles of self-defence, which pervade all animated nature, and act towards life the same part that is performed by the external mechanism of the eye towards the delicate sense of vision — affording it, on the approach of danger, at the same time, warning and protection — do not re- quire that action shall be withheld till it can be of no avail. When the rattlesnake gives warning of his fatal purpose, the wary traveller waits not for the poisonous blow, but plants upon his head his armed heel, and crushes out at once " his venom and his strength." When the hunter hears the rustling in the jungle, and beholds the large green eyes of the spotted tiger glaring upon him, he waits not for the deadly spring, but sends at once through the brain of his crouching enemy, the swift and leaden death. If war was declared against your country by an insulting foe, would you wait till your sleep- ing cities were wakened by the terrible music of the bursting bomb, till your green fields were trampled by the hoofs of the invader, and made red with the blood of your brethren? No! you would send forth your fleets and armies ; you would [245] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER unloose upon the broad ocean your keen falcons ; and the thunder of your guns would arouse stem echoes along the hostile coast. Yet this would be but national defence, and authorized by the same great principle of self -protection, which applies no less to individuals than to nations. EDUCATION HORACE MANN Horace Mann, lawyer, statesman, and educator, was born at Franklin, Mass., May 4, 1796, and died at Yellow Springs, Ohio, August 2, 1859. His fame rests mainly on his work as an educator, and future generations will remember him as one who believed and aided in spreading the "light of the soul " throughout the world. His language is pregnant with feeling, showing clearly that his heart was in his work; the descriptive passages are flowery and rich, while the in- structive portions of his discourse are clear and convincing. FROM her earliest history, the policy of this country has been to develop the minds of all her people, and to imbue them with the principles of duty. To do this work most effectually, she has begun with the young. If she would continue to mount higher and higher toward the summit of prosperity, she must continue the means by which her present elevation has been gained. In doing this, she will not only exercise the noblest preroga- [246] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER tive of government, but will co-operate with the Almighty in one of His sublimest works. The Greek rhetorician, Longinus, quotes from the Mosaic account of the creation what he calls the sublimest passage ever uttered : " God said, * Let there be light,' and there was light." From the centre of black immensity effulgence bursts forth. Above, beneath, on every side, its radiance streamed out, silent, yet making each spot in the vast concave brighter than the line which the light- ning pencils upon the midnight cloud. Darkness fled as the swift beams spread onward and out- ward, in an unending circumfusion of splendor. Onward and outward still th^y move to this day, glorifying through wider and wider regions of space, the infinite Author from whose power and beneficence they sprang. But not only in the be- ginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, did he say, " Let there be light." When- ever a human soul is bom into the world, its Creator stands over it, and again pronounces the same sublime words, " Let there be light." Magnificent, indeed, was the material creation, when, suddenly blazing forth in mid-space, the new-bom sun dispelled the darkness of the ancient night. But infinitely more magnificent is it when [247] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all outward things, revealing the beauty of their col- ors and the exquisite symmetry of their propor- tions and forms; when the light of reason pene- trates to their invisible properties and laws, and displays all those hidden relations that make up all the sciences; when the light of conscience illu- minates the moral world, separating truth from error, and virtue from vice. The light of the newly kindled sun, indeed, was glorious. It struck upon all the planets, and waked into existence their myriad capacities of life and joy. As it re- bounded from them, and showed their vast orbs all wheeling, circle beyond circle in their stupendous courses, the sons of God shouted for joy. The light sped onward, beyond Sirius, beyond the pole- star, beyond Orion and the Pleiades, and is still spreading onward into the abysses of space. But the light of the human soul flies swifter than the light of the sun, and out-shines its meridian blaze. It can embrace not only the sun of our system, but all suns and galaxies of suns; ay! the soul is capable of knowing and enjoying Him who cre- ated the suns themselves ; and when these starry lustres that now glorify the firmament shall wax [ 248 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER dim, and fade away like a wasted taper, the light of the soul shall still remain; nor time, nor cloud, nor any power but its own perversity, shall ever quench its brightness. Again I would say, that whenever a human soul is bom into the world, God stands over it and pronounces the same sublime fiat, " Let there be light ! " and may the time soon come, when all human governments shall cooperate with the Divine government in carrying this bene- diction and baptism into fulfilment ! SANCTITY OF THE UNION ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS Alexander Hamilton Stephens, LL.D., was born near Craw fords ville, Georgia, Feb. 11, 1813, and graduated at Franklin College, Athens, Ga., in 1832, at the head of his class. He studied law and took up the practice in Craw- fords ville, in his native county. In 1836 he was elected a member of the lower house of the Georgia legislature, in which he served five years. In 1842, he was elected to the State Senate; and the following year to Congress, as a Whig, retaining his seat till 1859, when he resigned. After the Kansas struggle in Congress, he became a Democrat and supported the Lecompton constitution in 1858. On the outbreak of secession in the South, Mr. Stephens opposed it, defending the Union in a number of public speeches. He, however, changed his attitude when it was evident that op- position was unavailing, and was elected to the vice-presi- dency of the new confederacy. After the war, he repeat- edly represented his State in Congress. He was inaugurated Governor of Georgia in 1882. He died March 4, 1883. In contrast with his small and feeble frame, Stephens [249] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER possessed a voice of much power and expression, and a mind of marvellous force and action that enabled him, despite his physical defects, to become one of the famous orators of his time. THE first question that presents itself is, shall the people of the South secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lin- coln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think they ought. In my judgment the election of no man, constitutionally elected to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Con- stitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We pledged to maintain the Constitution. Many of us have sworn to sup- port it. But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the Constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the Constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, for- sooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike. . . . My countrymen, I am not of those who believe this Union has been a curse [250] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER up to this time. True men, men of integrity, entertain different views from me on this subject. I do not question their right to do so ; I would not impugn their motives in so doing. Nor will I undertake to say that this government of our fa- thers is perfect. There is nothing perfect in this world, of a human origin. Nothing connected with human nature, from man himself to any of his works. You may select the wisest and best men for your judges, and yet how many defects are there in the administration of justice.? You may select the wisest and best men for your legis- lators, and yet how many defects are apparent in your laws ? And it is so in our government. But that this government of our fathers, with all its defects, comes nearer the ob j ects of all good governments than any on the face of the earth, is my settled conviction. Contrast it now with any on the face of the earth. (" England," said Mr. Toombs.) England, my friend says. Well, that is the next best, I grant ; but I think we have improved upon England. Statesmen tried their apprentice hands on the government of England, and then ours was made. Ours sprung from that, avoiding many of its defects, taking most of the good and leaving out many of its errors, and, from the whole, constructing and building up this [251] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER model republic, the best which the history of the world gives any account of. Compare, my friends, this government with that of Spain, Mexico, the South American Republics, Germany, Ireland — are there any sons of that down-trodden nation here to-night ? — Prussia, or, if you travel farther East, to Turkey or China. Where will you go, following the sun in his circuit round our globe, to find a government that better protects the liberties of its people, and secures to them the blessings we enjoy.^ I think that one of the evils that beset us is a surfeit of liberty, an exuberance of the priceless blessings for which we are ungrateful. When I look around and see our prosperity in everything — agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral advancement, and our colleges — I think, in the face of such an exhibi- tion, if we can, without the loss of power, or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to — let us not too readily yield to this temptation — do so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of the human race, were not without a like tempta- tion when in the garden of Eden. They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered, [252] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER that their eyes would be opened, and that they would become as gods. They, in an evil hour, yielded. Instead of becoming gods, they only saw their own nakedness. I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world, the Paradise of the Universe. It may be that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in telling you that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and, without sufficient cause, shall take that step, that, instead of becoming greater and more peaceful, prosperous, and happy — in- stead of becoming gods — we will become demons, and, at no distant day, commence cutting one an- other's throats. THE RESTORATION OF THE UNION AliEXANDER H. STEPHENS GREAT disasters are upon us and upon the whole country, and without inquiry how these originated, at whose door the fault should be laid, let us now, as common sharers of common misfortunes, on all occasions consult as to the best means, under the circumstances as we find them, to secure the best ends toward future amelioration. Good government is what we want. This should' [253] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER be the leading desire and the controlhng object with all, and I need not assure you, if this can be obtained, that our desolated fields, our barns, our villages, and cities, now in ruins, will soon, like the phoenix, rise again from their ashes, and all our waste places will again, at no distant day, blossom as the rose. Wars, and civil wars especially, always menace liberty — they seldom advance it, while they usu- ally end in its entire overthrow and destruction. Ours stopped just short of such a catastrophe. Our only alternative now is either to give up all hopes of constitutional liberty, or retrace our steps and look for its vindication and maintenance in the forums of reason and justice, instead of on the arena of arms ; in the courts and halls of legis- lation, instead of on the fields of battle. I have not lost my faith in the virtue, intelh- gence, and patriotism of the American people, or in their capacity for self-government. But for these great essential qualities of human nature to be brought into active and efficient exercise for the fulfilment of their patriotic hopes it is essen- tial that the passions of the day should subside, that the causes of these passions should not now be discussed, that the late strife should not be stirred. [254] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The most hopeful prospect to this age is the restoration of the old Union, and with it the speedy return of fraternal feeling throughout its length and breadth. These results depend upon the peo- ple themselves, upon the people of the North quite as much as the South. The masses everywhere are alike equally interested in ,this great object. Let old issues, old questions, old differences, and old feuds be regarded as fossils of another epoch. The old Union was based on the assumption that it was for the best interest of the people of the United States to be united as they tvere, each State faithfully performing to the people of other States all their obligations under a common com- pact. I always said that this assumption was founded on broad, correct, and statesmanlike principles. And now, after the severe chastisement of war, if the general sense of the whole country shall come back to the acknowledgment of the original assumption, I can perceive no reason why, under such restoration, we may not enter upon a new career, exacting increased wonder in the Old World by grander achievements hereafter to be made, than any heretofore attained, by the peace- ful and harmonious workings of our American institutions of self-government. [255] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER NEW ENGLAND CAI.EB GUSHING Caleb Gushing, lawyer, diplomat, soldier, orator, and statesman, was born in Salisbury, Mass., January 17, 1800, and died in Newburyport, Mass., January 2, 1879. His speeches are full of life, denoting his sincerity and earnest- ness; and the beauty of his language, wealth of knowledge, and purity of diction show the result of his ripe scholarship. THE gentleman from South Carolina taunts us with counting the costs of that war in which the liberties and honor of the country, and the interests of the North, as he asserts, were forced to go elsewhere for their defence. Will he sit down with me and count the cost now? Will he reckon up how much of treasure the State of South Carolina expended in that war, and how much the State of Massachusetts ? — how much of the blood of either State was poured out on sea or land? I challenge the gentleman to the test of patriotism, which the army roll, the navy lists, and the treasury books afford. Sir, they who revile us for our opposition to the last war, have looked only to the surface of things. They little know the extremities of suf- fering which the people of Massachusetts bore at that period, out of attachment to the Union, — [256'\ LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER their families beggared, their fathers and sons bleeding in camps, or pining in foreign prisons. They forget that not a field was marshalled on this side of the mountains, in which the men of Massachusetts did not play their part, as became their sires, and their " blood fetched from mettle of war proof." They battled and bled, wherever battle was fought or blood drawn. Not only by land. I ask the gentleman, Who fought your naval battles in the last war.? Who led you on to victory after victory, on the ocean and the lakes .f* Whose was the triumphant prowess before which the Red Cross of England paled with unwonted shames .f* Were they not men of New England ? Were these not foremost in those maritime encounters which humbled the pride and power of Great Britain.'' I appeal to my colleague before me from our common county of brave old Essex, — I appeal to my respected colleagues from the shores of the Old Colony. Was there a village or a hamlet on Massachusetts Bay, which did not gather its hardy seamen to man the gun-decks of your ships of war.? Did they not rally to the battle, as men flock to a feast.? In conclusion, I beseech the House to pardon me, if I may have kindled, on this subject, into ^7 [257] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER something of unseemly ardor. I cannot sit tamely by, in humble, acquiescent silence, when reflections, which I know to be unjust, are cast on the faith and honor of Massachusetts. Had I suffered them to pass without admonition, I should have deemed that the disembodied spirits of her departed children, from their ashes mingled with the dust of every stricken field of the Revolu- tion, — from their bones mouldering to the conse- crated earth of Bunker's Hill, of Saratoga, of Monmouth, would start up in visible shape, before me, to cry shame on me, their recreant countryman. Sir, I have roamed through the world, to find hearts nowhere warmer than hers ; soldiers nowhere braver; patriots nowhere purer; wives and mothers nowhere truer; maidens nowhere lovelier; green valleys and bright rivers nowhere greener or brighter; and I will not be silent, when I hear her patriotism or her truth questioned with so much as a whisper of detraction. Living, I will defend her; dying, I would pause in my last expiring breath, to utter a prayer of fond remembrance for my native New England. [258] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT DANIEIi WEBSTER Daniel Webster, the greatest of modem orators, and, as far as we are able to judge at this far removed period, the equal of any of the ancient, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782, and died in Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852. Although Webster was a great lawyer, and an able stateman, his name will live to the end of time not from the renown gained at the bar or in diplomacy, but from his transcendent genius as an orator. He excelled in all forms of oratory, and his productions stand in the front ranks of their different classes. In argumentative, postprandial, deliberative, dedicative, funeral, philosophic, and demonstrative oratory, his productions are master- pieces of their kind which, in individual cases, have rarely been equalled, and, when taken collectively, form a monu- ment that towers above the oratorical production of any other man. Daniel Webster was splendidly endowed by nature, and specially fitted by training, for the career of an orator. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, a master of law, a Greek and Latin scholar, and devoted all his life to amassing knowledge and gaining the power of using it to his oratorical purpose. He practised his ora- tions before delivering them, and never trusted to their " bursting forth " with " spontaneous, original, native force." He polished and repolished his matter until it became prac- tically flawless. While Webster is looked upon as an ex- temporaneous speaker, he never permitted himself to ad- dress an assembly until he had carefully thought out and arranged his discourse. His success in life was owing to his being prepared for all his undertakings, and not to any caprice of fortune. The following extract is the opening of the address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, at Charlestown, Mass., June 17, 1825. THIS uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which the oc- casion has excited. These thousands of human [259] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude turned rever- ently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firma- ment, proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling have made a deep impression on our hearts. If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here. We are among the sepulchres of our fathers. We are on ground distinguished by their valor, their con- stancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, not to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived; if we ourselves had never been born, the seventeenth of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent ; and we know that our posterity through all time are here to suffer and enjoy the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great events ; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast ; and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved [ 260 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were bom, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth. We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, without feehng something of a personal interest in the event ; without being reminded how much it has affected our own fortunes and our own existence. It is more impossible for us, therefore, than for others, to contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most touch- ing and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer of America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope and despair tossing his own troubled thoughts ; extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing his vision with the sight of the unknown world. Nearer to our times, more closely connected with our fates, and therefore still more interesting to our feelings and affections, is the settlement of our own country by colonists from England. We [261] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER cherish every memorial of these worthy ancestors ; we celebrate their patience and fortitude; we ad- mire their daring enterprise; we teach our children to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being descended from men who have set the world an example of founding civil institutions on the great and united principles of human freedom and human knowledge. To us, their children, the story of their labors and sufferings can never be without its interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shores of Plymouth, while the sea continues to wash it; nor will our brethren in another early and ancient colony forget the place of its es- tablishment, till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where its in- fancy was cradled and defended. But the great event in the history of the conti- nent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modem times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of ex- alted character, by our gratitude for signal serv- ices and patriotic devotion. [262], LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The society whose organ I am, was formed for the purpose of rearing some honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of American independence. They have thought, that for this object no time could be more propitious than the present prosperous and p.eaceful period; that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot; and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking, than the anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The founda- tion of that monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it. We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of that [263] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad than the earth itself can carry information of the events we commemorate where it has not already gone ; and that no structure, which shall not out- live the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial. But our object is, by this edifice to show our own deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors; and, by presenting this work of grati- tude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the principles of the revolution. Human beings are composed, not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misap- plied which is appropriated to the purpose of giv- ing right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling in the heart. Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national in- dependence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeasured benefit which [264] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER has been conferred on our land, and of the happy influences which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not un- distinguished where the first great battle of the revolution was fought. We wish that this struc- ture may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish that', in those days of dis- aster, which, as they come upon all nations must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eye hitherward, and be as- sured that the foundations of our national power still stand strong. We wish that this column, ris- ing toward heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him who leaves his 1265} LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER native shore, and the first to gladden his who re- visits it, may be something which may remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. THE GREEK REVOLUTION DANIEL WEBSTER Extract from a speech delivered in the House of Rep- resentatives, January 19, 1824). IT was about this time, that is to say, at the commencement of 1821, that the revolution burst out in various parts of Greece and the isles. Circumstances, certainly, were not unfavorable, as one portion of the Turkish army was employed in the war against Ali Pacha, in Albania, and an- other part in the provinces north of the Danube. The Greeks soon possessed themselves of the open country of the Morea, and drove their enemy into the fortresses. Of these, that of Tripolitza, with the city, fell into the hands of the Greeks, in the course of the summer. Having, after these first movements, obtained time to breathe, it became, of course, an early object to establish a govern- [266] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ment. For this purpose, delegates of the people assembled, under that name which describes the assembly in which we ourselves sit, that name which " freed the Atlantic " a Congress, A writer, who undertakes to render to the civilized world that service which was once performed by Edmund Burke, I mean the compiler of the English Annual Register, asks, by what authority this assembly could call itself a congress. Simply, sir, by the same authority by which the people of the United States have given the same name to their own legis- lature. We, at least, should be naturally inclined to think, not only as far as names, but things, also, are concerned, that the Greeks could hardly have begun their revolution under better auspices ; since they have endeavored to render applicable to themselves the general principles of our form of government, as well as its name. This consti- tution went into operation at the commencement of the next year. In the meantime, the war with Ali Pacha was ended, he having surrendered, and being afterward assassinated, by an instance of treachery and perfidy, which, if it had happened elsewhere than under the government of the Turks, would have deserved notice. The negotiation with Russia, too, took a turn unfavorable to the Greeks. The great point upon which Russia in- [267] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER sisted, beside the abandonment of the measure of searching vessels bound to the Black Sea, was, that the Porte should withdraw its armies from the neighborhood of the Russian frontiers; and the immediate consequence of this, when effected, was to add so much more to the disposable force ready to be employed against the Greeks. These events seemed to have left the whole force of the Turkish Empire, at the commencement of 1822, in a condi- tion to be employed against the Greek rebellion; and, accordingly, very many anticipated the im- mediate destruction of their cause. The event, however, was ordered otherwise. Where the great- est effort was made, it was met and defeated. Entering the Morea with an army which seemed capable of bearing down all resistance, the Turks were nevertheless defeated and driven back, and pursued beyond the Isthmus within which, as far as it appears, from that time to the present, they have not been able to set their foot. It was in April of this year that the destruction of Scio took place. That island, a sort of ap- panage of the Sultana mother, enjoyed many privileges peculiar to itself. In a population of 130,000 or 140,000, it had not more than 2,000 or 3,000 Turks ; indeed, by some accounts, not near as many. The absence of these ruffian masters [ 268 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER had, in some degree, allowed opportunity for the promotion of knowledge, the accumulation of wealth, and the general cultivation of society. Here was the seat of modem Greek literature; here were libraries, printing presses, and other es- tablishments, which indicate some advancement in refinement and knowledge. Certain of the inhabi- tants of Samos, it would seem, envious of this comparative happiness of Scio, landed upon the island in an irregular multitude, for the purpose of compelling its inhabitants to make common cause with their countrymen against their op- pressors. These, being joined by the peasantry, marched to the city and drove the Turks into the castle. The Turkish fleet, lately reinforced from Egypt, happened to be in the neighboring seas, and, learning these events, landed a force on the island of fifteen thousand men. There was noth- ing to resist such an army. These troops im- mediately entered the city, and began an indis- criminate massacre. The city was fired; and in four days the fire and sword of the Turk rendered the beautiful Scio a clotted mass of blood and ashes. The details are too shocking to be recited. Forty thousand women and children, unhappily saved from the general destruction, were afterward sold in the market of Smyrna, and sent off into 1269] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER distant and hopeless servitude. Even on the wharves of our own cities, it has been said, have been sold the utensils of those hearths, which now exist no longer. Of the whole population which I have mentioned, not above nine hundred persons were left living upon the island. I will only re- peat, sir, that these tragical scenes were as fully known at the congress of Verona, as they are now known to us ; and it is not too much to call on the powers that constituted that congress, in the name of conscience and in the name of humanity, to tell us if there be nothing even in these unparalleled excesses of Turkish barbarity, to excite a senti- ment of compassion; nothing which they regard as so objectionable as even the very idea of popu- lar resistance to power. The events of the year which has just passed by, as far as they have become known to us, have been even more favorable to the Greeks than those of the year preceding. I omit all details, as be- ing as well-known to others as to myself. Suf- fice it to say, that with no other enemies to con- tend with, and no diversion of his force to other objects, the Porte has not been able to carry the war into the Morea ; and that, by the last account, its armies were acting defensively and in Thes- saly. I pass over, also, the naval engagements [270] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of the Greeks, although that is a mode of warfare in which they are calculated to excel, and in which they have already performed actions of such dis- tinguished skill and bravery, as would draw ap- plause upon the best mariners in the world. The present state of the war would seem to be, that the Greeks possess the whole of the Morea, with the exception of the three fortresses of Patras, Coron, and Modon ; all Candia, but one fortress ; and most of the other islands. They possess the citadel of Athens, Missolonghi, and several other places in Livadia. They have been able to act on the of- fensive, and to carry the war beyond the isthmus. There is no reason to believe their marine is weak- ened; probably, on the other hand, it is strength- ened. But, what is most of all important, they have obtained time and experience. They have awakened the sympathy throughout Europe and throughout America; and they have formed a government which seems suited to the emergency of their condition. Sir, they have done much. It would be great injustice to compare their achieve- ments with our own. We began our revolution already possessed of government and, compara- tively, of civil liberty. Our ancestors had for centuries been accustomed in a great measure to govern themselves. They were well acquainted [271] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER with popular elections and legislative assemblies, and the general principles and practice of free governments. They had little else to do than to throw off the paramount authority of the parent State. Enough was still left, both of law and of organization, to conduct society in its accustomed course, and to unite men together for a common object. The Greeks, of course, could act with little concert at the beginning; they were unac- customed to the exercise of power, without ex- perience, with limited knowledge, without aid, and surrounded by nations which, whatever claims the Greek might seem to have upon them, have af- forded them nothing but discouragement and re- proach. They have held out, however, for three campaigns ; and that, at least, is something. Constantinople and the northern provinces have sent forth thousands of troops ; they have been de- feated. Tripoli and Algiers and Egypt have con- tributed their marine contingents; they have not kept the ocean. Hordes of Tartars have crossed the Bosphorus ; they have died where the Persians died. The powerful monarchies in the neighbor- hood have denounced their cause, and admonished them to abandon it and submit to their fate. They have answered them, that, although two hun- dred thousand of their countrymen have offered up [272] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER their lives, there yet remain Hves to offer ; and that it is the determination of all, " yes, of All,'* to persevere until they shall have established their liberty, or until the power of their oppressors shall have relieved them from the burden of existence. RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE PILGRIMS DANIEIi WEBSTER Extract from a discourse in commemoration of the first settlement of New England, delivered at Plymouth, Mass., on Dec. 22, 1820. LET us not forget the religious cliaracter of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these senti- ments, and extend their influence still more widely in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity. The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and i8 [273]. LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER this occasion will soon be past. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty ; some proof of a sincere and ar- dent desire to promote everything which may en- large the understandings and improve the hearts [ 274 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER of men. And when, from the long distance of an hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward and warming with grati- tude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being. Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succes- sion, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are pass- ing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and re- ligious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We wel- come you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth I [ 275 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER CRIME ITS OWN DETECTOR DANIEL WEBSTER AGAINST the prisoner at the bar, as an in- dividual, I cannot have the slightest preju- dice; I would not do him the smallest injury or in- justice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much so ever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that aU who had a part in planning, or hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice. Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent any- where — certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no sud- denly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long- settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all " hire and [ 276 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. The deed was executed with a degree of self- possession and steadiness, equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene be- fore us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half -lighted by the moon — he winds up the ascent of stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admis- sion of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal [277] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the pon- iard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished! The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder — no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and is safe! Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor comer, where the guilty can bestow it, and say that it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds every thing, as in the splendor of noon — such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by man. True it is, generally speaking, that " murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so or- dained, and doth so govern things, that those who [278] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER break the great law of heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery; es- pecially in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intently dwell on the scene; shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself ; or rather, it feels an irresist- ible impulse of conscience to be true to itself: it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is de- vouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses, soon comes to possess him. And, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding dis- closure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his [ 279 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to break forth. It must be con- fessed, it will be confessed ; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS DANIEL WEBSTER From a speech in defence of the Union and the Con- stitution, delivered in the Senate of the United States, Jan. 26, 1830. THE eulogium pronounced by the honorable gentleman on the character of the State of South Carolina, for her revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes be- fore me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor; I par- take in the pride, of her great names. I claim [280] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER them for countrymen, one and all, — the Laurences, the 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, and the whole country ; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentle- man himself bears, — does he esteem me less capa- ble of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of 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 gratifica- tion and delight, rather. I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is 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 happens to spring up beyond the limits of my own State- or neighborhood ; when I re- fuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the [281] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER 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 or 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 ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; let me indulge in refreshing remembrances of the past; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of princi- ple and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution; hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Un- kind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. Mr. President, 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 [282] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAXER past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker 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. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If dis- cord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, — it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. [ 283 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE CONSTITUTION THE SAFEGUARD OF LIBERTY DANIEL WEBSTER From a speech in honor of George Washington, de- livered at a public dinner in Washington, D. C, February 22, 1832. THE political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this great agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dis- memberment strikes at the very being which pre- serves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but aU power of regaining lost, or acquiring new posses- sions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, [284] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness. Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it ; if it exhaust our treasury, future indus- try may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be re- built. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, how- ever, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art ; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than [285] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of consti- tutional American liberty. But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the peo- ple, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look for- ward to the end of that century which is now com- menced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do them- selves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more • [286] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country ! SHAKESPEARE EDWIN GORDON LAWRENCE Edwin Gordon Lawrence, teacher of oratory and dra- matic art, and author of " The Power of Speech " and " The Lawrence Reader and Speaker," was born in Philadelphia, Pa., November 1, 1859. The following is an extract from a lecture delivered in New York during 1906 and 1907. OF William Shakespeare, the man, I have very little to say, as almost nothing is known con- cerning him. That he hved and died we know, for the evidence that proves these facts exists, and is at the disposal of all who seek it, but the events of Jiis life, except for some trifling details, are shrouded in mystery. Even the dates of his birth and marriage, and the spelling of his name, are uncertain. He was born in April, 1564, but on what day we do not know. He was, however, bap- tized on the twenty-sixth of that month, and as it was customary to take the child to the font when it was three days old, we conclude he was bom on the twenty-third. He was educated at the grammar school of his native town, which he attended for about six years, during which time he studied the usual English branches, and gained a smattering of [287] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Latin. This was all the schooling he is known to have received, although there was a period of about five years in his life, when he first went to London, which he is supposed to have devoted to broaden- ing his education generally, and particularly to gaining a knowledge of French and Itahan. William Shakespeare was bom, as is supposed, on April 23, 1564*, at Stratford-on-Avon, and died there, exactly fifty-two years later, on April 23, 1616. We know little more than this concerning the man, but the dramatist has left to us inex- haustible fountains of knowledge that will be a source of enjoyment, inspiration, and benefit to mankind until time shall be no more. When nineteen years of age he married Ann Hathaway, a woman eight years his senior, by whom he had three children, two only reaching maturity, Susanna, who married John Hall, a physician, by whom she had a daughter named Elizabeth, the only grandchild of the poet's to grow to maturity, and as she died without issue the direct line of descent from the great dramatist ceased with her death, and Judith, the wife of Thomas Quiney, whose three children died before reaching man's estate. So you see we do not know the exact date of his birth, neither the date when the religious cere- [288] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER monj was performed which united him to Ann Hathaway, nor the date of his leaving Stratford, nor what he did with himself for five years after reaching London, nor even the correct way of spelling his name. And all that the many com- mentators can tell us of the life of this remarkable man, beyond the few facts I have stated, is that it is " supposed " to have been " such and such," it is " believed " he did " so and so," and thus it goes through chapters and volumes devoted to legends, surmises, and guesses which give us no knowledge, but only tend to confuse us, concerning the earthly career of the man to whom God entrusted the greatest mind that ever dwelt within a mortal sphere, and which left children of its creation to live long after all issue of his corporeal frame had passed into oblivion. Some claim that we can know Shakespeare the man by means of the characters he created, that as they are the children of his brain they conse- quently reflect his feelings and desires. This I consider erroneous, because Shakespeare was pri- marily a dramatist and depicted men and things as he saw them and not, like the poet, as he fancied them. He knew man and nature as no other writer has known them, and he tells us only of the men and things he knew except, as in " The Tempest " ^9 [ 289 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER and " A Mid-Summer Night's Dream," he gives wing to his imagination and creates beings of fancy, " trifles light as air," who " are such stuff as dreams are made of," or puts into the mouth of Mercutio the description of Queen Mab in order to drive sadness away from the love-sick Romeo. This is not Shakespeare speaking, but the puppets he created for the amusement of men, just as the actor when impersonating a character does not give expression to his own thoughts and feelings, but reproduces, as it were, those of the character he is impersonating. As the painter in drawing the sunset does not create a sun but makes a picture of what he sees in the firmament above him, so also Shakespeare reproduces what he sees with his eye and not what he feels with his heart. Were not this the case he would have been of so complex a nature as to make him absolutely unhuman. The following is an interesting anecdote concern- ing him, showing his human and humorous qualities, which was found in a diary kept by a barrister named Manningham where, under date of 1602, appears this entry : — " Upon a time when Bur- bage played Richard III, there was a lady so charmed by his performance that she requested him to visit her that night, and that he should announce himself as Richard III. Shakespeare [290] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER overheard the conversation and determined to ' cut out ' his fellow player by arriving first at the fair dame's house. This he could readily do as Burbage had to get into his everyday clothes be- fore leaving the theatre, and as the lady had never seen Burbage, except as Richard III, she would not know the difference between him and Shake- speare. However, the poet arrived first and was being gorgeously entertained with food and wine when a message was brought that Richard III was at the door. Shakespeare, not wishing to be dis- turbed, sent back answer that William the Con- queror was before Richard III." Shakespeare does not reveal his sympathies through his characters, but causes them to move as will best suit his purpose from the standpoint of the stage, and does not reward or punish them according to their deserts. Otherwise the fair Ophelia would not have perished a suicide, Desde- mona would not have been murdered, Romeo and Juliet would not have been parted, nor such terri- ble affliction visited upon the head of poor old Lear. The hand of fate apparently controlled the creations of Shakespeare just as the hand of Provi- dence regulates the lives of us mortals and " directs our ends rough hew them as we will." He moved his characters in the mimic world in order that he [291] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER might produce a powerful play that would attract audiences to the theatre, and not to point a moral, reform the world, or indicate his own character. Shakespeare depicted all the emotions the human being is capable of feeling, and drew true to life the men and women of all climes and stations. The Itahan Romeo, the French Katherine, Othello the Moor, English Harry, Shylock the Jew, Ham- let the Dane, and so on through his characters, he causes them to stand out on the printed page as though brought back from the grave to revisit, at the wish of the reader, " the glimpses of the moon." The crafty, cynical villain speaks in lago; the open, buoyant spirit in Mercutio; the physically courageous, but mentally cowardly, in Macbeth; the vain, sorely punished in Lear; and the far-seeing politician in Marc Antony. In Juliet he depicts the warm-hearted, trusting girl; in Rosalind one whose deep affectionate nature is masked by her mirth and wit; in Lady Macbeth the ambitious, unscrupulous woman; and in Cor- delia, the faithful child, who would rather sacrifice her share in her father's kingdom than flatter his ears with meaningless protestations of affection which her true heart told her should not be uttered. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of prince and peasant words appropriate to each, and depicts [292] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER accurately the scenes of camp, palace, and hovel. In fact his genius swept the gamut of passion from the foundation to the apex, and created all kinds, classes, and conditions of beings so true to nature as to make one almost believe that in his person lived the magician Prospero armed with his fabled wand. DESTINY EDWIN GORDON 3LAWIIENCE HUMAN destiny, or such an event as is plainly brought about by man's action, whereby he is controlled by himself, is easily understood and plainly discernible; as, he chose the wrong course through life and failure was his destiny. But how can we explain the following? Napoleon took his army to Russia, but its destiny was death. Who or what caused the destruction of that once glorious and apparently irresistible body of men welded into a vast machine of fighting force by the marvellous genius of the great Captain? Did some unseen and unknown power purposely set the icy barriers across its path, and baffle its progress by blinding snows, in order to defeat the human will; or was the failure of the attempt to subju- gate Russia caused by the mistakes of this same [293] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER human will? Was it foreordained by a wise Provi- dence that this vainglorious man should fail ere he started on his errand of conquest ; or was it but a natural result of his actions, just as failure was the destiny of the man who chose the wrong course ? Man is the architect of his own fate and builder of his own fortune, and to him belongs the credit for success, or the blame for failure. As the architect requires instruments with which to draw the plans of his structure, and the builder tools with which to erect his building, so also does man require the means of fashioning his fate; and the greatest of these means is sympathy. Without sympathy for his fellow, man cannot hope for enduring success, because of the opposition to his plans which his selfishness is bound to create, and which in time will gather in such force as to com- pletely overwhelm him; as the snows and ice im- peded the progress of the French army, and finally caused its destruction, so also is selfish man de- feated by the vices brought into being by his selfishness. Napoleon was a man utterly devoid of sym- pathy, and thought only of self. Had he thought of that army as a body of men, and not merely as a machine for accomplishing his purpose, he [294] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER would have made proper provision for its comfort and safety, and not mercilessly exposed it to the fury of the Russian winter. Man's cruelty and lack of thought, not Divine destiny, was the cause of that dreadful catastrophe. It would be folly to walk along the edge of a precipice, and, if we should fall over the brink to the rocks below, cry out that fate threw us there. If we cannot swim, we are but fools if we leap into the ocean and expect not to drown; or dash our heads against a rock and expect to escape injury. It is our own lack of judgment that is to blame if we go forth into the forest in the dead of winter insufficiently clad, and are bitten by the cold; or if we drop from the top of a high build- ing instead of descending by the stairs. Lack of wisdom, not cruelty of fate, would be responsible for all evil that befell us under such circumstances ; and to the same cause must we attribute the failure of Napoleon in Russia. Want of sympathy was the main defect in the character of this otherwise great man. Had he any sympathy for Josephine, who had given the best years of her life to aiding his fortunes, when he mercilessly divorced her in order to marry the Austrian ? No ; he thought only of self, thought of strengthening his position by an alliance with [ 295 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER that ancient monarchy, thought of perpetuating his name by leaving a son, and sons of that son, to rule for ages over France and the world. Such selfish ambition was doomed to failure, not by destiny, but by the wrongs and suffering of others who were the cause of arousing opposition to his purpose, which even his powerful will was incapa- ble of overcoming. Individual man is but a part of man and cannot work selfishly in opposition to his other parts and obtain ultimate success, no more than one arm of a man can work contrary to the other and accom- plish results ; and when Napoleon set out on his errand of selfishness, he defeated himself and was not vanquished by destiny. Did Charles the First lose his head on account of destiny? Was it ordained before he came into the world that a Cromwell would be created in order to destroy him; or did his own actions cause that Cromwell to arise as a representative of the people who had suffered by the acts of Charles? Did Louis XVI go to the guillotine by decree of des- tiny ; or for his failure to remedy the abuses that had accumulated under a succession of kings of that name? Had these monarchs possessed sym- pathy for their people, and exercised the power they possessed in order to better the material con- 1296} LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER dition of their fellow man, instead of crushing him to the earth like a worm, those very people would have called them blessed in place of exacting their blood. Both these monarchs went to the scaffold by decree of their own errors and not the mandate of destiny. Is Washington idolized by his countrymen and admired by civilized man the world over, by com- mand of destiny; or for his unselfish devotion to that country and his endeavors toward the better- ment of the condition of mankind? Did he not put aside vaulting ambition, and consider the weal of others? Was his army at Valley Forge saved from destruction during that terrible winter by destiny, or the unselfish sacrifices of his country- men who composed that noble band? Did he not share with them their sufferings, instead of seizing on the glory alone? Yes; and his star will shine in the zenith, when " the man of destiny's " has set forever below the horizon of time. Was Grant a man foreordained by fate to mar- shall the hosts of the North, and thus prevent the destruction of that Nation brought into being by the sword of Washington ? No ; he fitted himself for the great task by so moulding his character as to give him the tenacity of purpose which alone insured success; and thus, by his own efforts, he [ 297 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER made himself the logical and necessary man of the hour, and was not the mere child of destiny. Was Lincoln a product of destiny ; or the natu- ral result of a life of unremitting toil and absolute devotion to, and love of, mankind? Assuredly the latter. Thus history, through all ages, shows us, in unmistakable terms, that man is the creator of his own destiny by fitting himself for success or fail- ure according to the uses he makes of the powers which a Divine Creator has planted in his soul, and which, by his own actions and life, he can either cultivate or destroy. Therefore, as he possesses these powers, he is the master of his own destiny. EVE'S ACCOUNT OF HER FIRST DAY JOHN MILTON John Milton was born in London, England, December 9, 1608, and died there November 8, 1674. The following is an extract from " Paradise Lost," Book IV. WHAT day I oft remember, when from sleep I first awaked, and found myself reposed* Under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound Of waters issued from a cave, and spread Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved, [298] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Pure as the expanse of Heaven; I thither went With inexperienced thought, and laid me down On the green bank, to look into the clear Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky. As I bent down to look, just opposite, A shape within the watery gleam appeared. Bending to look on me ; I started back, It started back ; but pleased I soon returned. Pleased it ;returned as soon with answering looks Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire, " Had not a voice thus warned me : ' What thou seest. What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself; With tliee it came and goes ; but follow me. And I will bring thee where no shadow stays Thy coming and thy soft embraces — he Whose image thou art; him thou shalt enjoy. Inseparably thine; to him shalt bear Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called Mother of human race.' What could I do. But follow straight, invisibly thus led? Till I espied thee, fair indeed and tall, Under a platane; yet methought less fair. Less winning soft, less amiably mild. Than that smooth watery image : back I turned ; Thou following criedst aloud, * Return, fair Eve, Whom fliest thou? whom thou fliest of him thou art. His flesh, his bone: to give thee being I lent. Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart, [299] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Substantial life to have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear; Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim My other half.' With that thy gentle hand Seized mine; I yielded, and from that time see How beauty is excelled by manly grace And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.'* THE OCEAN LORD BYRON Lord George Noel Gordon Byron was born in London, England, January 22, 1788, and died in Missolonghi, Greece, April 19, 1824. The following is an extract from ** Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." OH! that the Desert were my dwelling-place. With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race. And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements ! — in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted — Can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot.^* Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods. There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: [300] 11 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER I love not Man the less, but Nature more. From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne*er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin — his control Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage save his own. When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise. Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies. And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay. And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, [301] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The oak leviathans^, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake. They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou. Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play — Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm. Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime — The image of Eternity — the throne Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee. Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be [ 302 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear. For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. ABRAHAM LINCOLN JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, 1819, and died there Aug. 12, 1891. The following extract is from the " Ode Recited at the Harvard Com- memoration," July 21, 1865. SUCH was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led. With ashes on her head. Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and bum. And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan. Repeating us by rote; For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw. And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, [ 303 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be. Not lured by any cheat of birth. But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill. And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. Fruitful and friendly for all human kind. Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. Nothing of Europe here. Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still. Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will; Here was a type of the true elder race. And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not ; it were too late ; And some innative weakness there must be [304] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait. Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time. And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime. Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums. Disturb our judgment for the hour, But at last silence comes ; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower. Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man. Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame. New birth of our new soil, the first American. THE LOST LEADER 1 ROBERT BROWNING Robert Browning was bom in Camberwell, London, land. May 7, 1812, and died in Venice, Italy, Decemb 1889. JUST for a handful of silver he left us; Just for a riband to stick in his coat — Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote. They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, * Wordsworth.. ^o [ 305 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER So much was theirs who so little allowed. How all our copper had gone for his service ! Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him. Lived in his mild and magnificent eye. Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. Made him our pattern to live and to die ! Shakespeare was of us, Milton wa;^ for us. Burns, Shelley, were with us — they watch from their graves ! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen! He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! We shall march prospering — not through his pres- ence; Songs may inspirit us — not from his lyre ; Deeds will be done — while he boasts his quiescence. Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire. Blot out his name, then — record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. One more devils' triumph and sorrow for angels. One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins ; let him never come back to us ! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight. Never glad, confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gal- lantly. Menace our heart ere we master his own; [306] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. Pardoned in Heaven^ the first by the throne! THANATOPSIS WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794, and died in New York City, June 12, 1878. TO him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house. Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart — Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around — Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — Comes a still voice: Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground. Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, [S071 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth to be resolved to earth again; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix for ever with the elements — To be a brother to the insensible rock. And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings. The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good — Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between — The venerable woods — rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all. Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste. Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun. The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread [ 308 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom.— Take the wings Of morning; traverse B area's desert sands, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure! All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men. The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years — matron, and maid. And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — Shall one by one be gathered to thy side By those, who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, [ 309 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night. Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. DAFFODILS WILLIAM WORDSWORTH William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumber- land, England, April 7, 1770, and died at Rydal Mount, near Grasmere, England, April 23, 1850. I WANDERED, lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills. When all at once I saw a crowd — A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees. Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way. They stretched in never-ending line ' Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I, at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, [310] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER In such a jocund company; I gazed — and gazed — but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought : For oft, when on my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood. They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude, And then my heart with pleasure fills. And dances with the daffodils. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809, and died in Boston, Mass., October 7, 1894. THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign. Sails the unshadow'd main — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings. In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings. And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wreck'd is the ship of pearl ! And every chamber'd cell, [311] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell. As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies reveal'd, — Its iris'd ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal'd! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew. He left the past year's dwelling for the new. Stole with soft step its shining archway through. Built up its idle door, Stretch'd in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee. Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : — Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last. Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free. Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting seal [312] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE MAKING OF MAN ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE Algernon Charles Swinburne was born in London, Eng- land, April 5, 1837, and died in Putney, England, April 10, 1909. The following extract is from "Atalanta in Caly- don." BEFORE the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance, fallen from heaven; And madness, risen from hell; Strength, without hands to smite; Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light; And life, the shadow of death. And the high gods took in hand Fire, and the falling of tears. And a measure of sliding sand From under the feet of years ; And froth and drift of the sea; And dust of the laboring earth; And bodies of things to be In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter, [313] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER And fashioned with loathing and love. With life before and after. And death beneath and above; For a day and a night and a morrow. That his strength might endure for a span With travail and heavy sorrow. The holy spirit of man. From the winds of the north and the south They gather as unto strife; They breathed upon his mouth. They filled his body with life; Eyesight and speech they wrought For the veils of the soul therein; A time for labor and thought, A time to serve and to sin. They gave him light in his ways. And love, and a space for delight; And beauty and length of days. And night, and sleep in the night. His speech is a burning fire. With his lips he travaileth; In his heart is a blind desire. In his eyes foreknowledge of death ; He weaves and is clothed with derision; Sows, and he shall not reap ; His life is a watch for a vision Between a sleep and a sleep. [314] 11 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS ROBERT BURNS Robert Burns was born near Ayr, Scotland, January 25, 1759, and died at Dumfries, Scotland, July 21, 1796. MY heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go. Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, The birth-place of valor, the country of worth; Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, The hills of the Highlands forever I love. Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow; Farewell to the straths and green valleys below; Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer ; A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. My heart *s in the Highlands, wherever I go. [815] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER FLOWERS HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and died in Cambridge, Mass., March 24, 1882. SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden. Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. Stars they are, wherein we read our history, As astrologers and seers of eld; Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Like the burning stars, which they beheld. Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, God hath written in those stars above; But not less in the bright flowers under us Stands the revelation of his love. Bright and glorious is that revelation. Written all over this great world of ours ; Making evident our own creation. In these stars of earth, these golden flowers. And the poet, faithful and far-seeing. Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part [316] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Of the self-same^ universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eve of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining. Buds that open only to decay ; Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues. Flaunting gayly in the golden light; Large desires, with most uncertain issues, Tender wishes, blossoming at night ! These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers. Which the poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. Everywhere about us are they glowing. Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born ; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing. Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn ; Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing. And in Summer's green-emblazoned field. But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing. In the centre of his brazen shield; Not alone in meadows and green alleys. On the mountain-top, and by the brink [317] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys, Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink; Not alone in her vast dome of glory, Not on graves of bird and beast alone. But in old cathedrals, high and hoary. On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone ; In the cottage of the rudest peasant, In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers. Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers ; In all places, then, and in all seasons. Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings^ Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to human things. And with childlike, credulous affection We behold their tender buds expand ; Emblems of our own great resurrection. Emblems of the bright and better land. [S18] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE INDIVIDUALITY OF WOMAN ALFRED TENNYSON Lord Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincoln- shire, England, August 6, 1809, and died in Aldworth, Sur- rey, England, October 6, 1892. The following extract is from " The Princess." i i T) LAME not thyself too much," I said, " nor JL-# blame Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws; These were the rough ways of the world till now. Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free: For she that out of Lethe scales with man The shining steps of Nature, shares with man His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal. Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — If she be small, slight-natured, miserable. How shall men grow ? but work no more alone ! Our place is much: as far as in us lies We two will serve them both in aiding her — - Will clear away the parasitic forms That seem to keep her up but drag her down — Will leave her space to burgeon out of all Within her — let her make herself her own To give or keep, to live and learn, and be All that not harms distinctive womanhood. For woman is not undevelopt man, [319] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER But diverse : could we make her as the man. Sweet love were slain: his dearest bond is this. Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height. Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man. Like perfect music unto noble words ; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, fuU-summ'd in all their powers. Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, Self-reverent each and reverencing each. Distinct in individualities. But like each other ev'n as those who love. Then comes the statelier Eden back to men; Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: Then springs the crowning race of human-kind. May these things be ! ** [320] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER BURNS JOHN GREENLEAP WHITTIER John Greenleaf Whittier was born near Haverhill, Mass., December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, N. H., Sep- tember 7, 1892. NO more the simple flowers belong To Scottish maid and lover — Sown in the common soil of song, They bloom the wide world over. In smiles and tears, in sun and showers. The minstrel and the heather — The deathless singer and the flowers He sang of — live together. Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns ! The moorland flower and peasant! How, at their mention. Memory turns Her pages old and pleasant ! The gray sky wears again its gold And purple of adorning. And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews of boyhood's morning — The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure — The sky that flecked the ground of toil With golden threads of leisure. 21 [321] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER I call to mind the summer day — The early harvest mowing, The sky with sun and cloud at play. And flowers with breezes blowing. I hear the blackbird in the corn. The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn. Old tunes my heart is playing. How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, And sang with Burns the hours away. Forgetful of the meadow ! Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I heard the squirrels leaping — The good dog listened while I read. And wagged his tail in keeping. I watched him while in sportive mood I read " The Twa Dogs' " story, And half believed he understood The poet's allegory. Sweet day, sweet songs ! — The golden hours Grew brighter for that singing, From brook and bird and meadow flowers A dearer welcome bringing. [322] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER New light on home-scene nature beamed^ New glory over woman; And daily life and duty seemed No longer poor and common. I woke to find the simple truth Of fact and feeling better Than all the dreams that held my youth A still repining debtor — That nature gives her handmaid, art^ The themes of sweet discoursing, The tender idyls of the heart In every tongue rehearsing. Why dream of lands of gold and pearl. Of loving knight and lady. When farmer-boy and barefoot girl. Were wandering there already ? I saw through all familiar things The romance underlying — The joys and griefs that plumed the wings Of Fancy skyward flying. I saw the same blithe day return. The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And sank on crystal Devon. [S23] LAWRENCE READERAND SPEAKER I matched with Scotland's heathery hills The sweet-briar and the clover — With Ayr and Doon my native rills, Their wood-hymns chanting over. 0*er rank and pomp, as he had seen, I saw the Man uprising — No longer common or unclean. The child of God's baptizing. With clearer eyes I saw the worth Of life among the lowly ; The Bible at his Cotter's hearth Had made my own more holy. And if at times an evil strain. To lawless love appealing. Broke in upon the sweet refrain Of pure and healthful feeling. It died upon the eye and ear. No inward answer gaining; No heart had eye to see or hear The discord and the staining. Let those who never erred forget His worth, in vain bewailings ; Sweet Soul of Song ! — I own my debt Uncancelled by his failings ! [ 324 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Lament who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty — How kissed the maddening lips of wine, Or wanton ones of beauty — But think, while falls that shade between The erring one and heaven, .That he who loved like Magdalen, Like her may be forgiven. Not his the song whose thunderous chime Eternal echoes render — The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, And Milton's starry splendor ! But who his human heart has laid To nature's bosom nearer? Who sweetened toil like him, or paid To love a tribute dearer? Through all his tuneful art how strong The human feeling gushes ! The very moonlight of his song Is warm with smiles and blushes ! v Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So " Bonnie Doon " but tarry ! Blot out the epic's stately rhyme. But spare his Highland Mary ! [ S25 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER ODE TO THE BARDS JOHN KEATS John Keats was born in London, England, October 29, 1795, and died at Rome, Italy, February 33, 1821. This poem was written on the blank page before Beaumont and Fletcher's "The Fair Maid of the Inn." BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth ! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-liv'd in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon ; With the noise of fountains wondrous. And the parle of voices thund'rous ; With the whisper of heaven's trees And one another, in soft ease Seated on Elysian lawns Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns ; Underneath large blue-bells tented. Where the daisies are rose-scented. And the rose herself has got , Perfume which on earth is not; Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing. But divine melodious truth; Philosophic numbers smooth; Tales and golden histories Of heaven and its mysteries. [ 226 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Thus ye live on high^ and then On the earth ye live again ; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you. Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-bom souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights ; Of their passions and their spites ; Of tEeir glory and their shame ; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away. Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth ! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-liv'd in regions new ! [327] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER TO THE SKYLARK PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Field Place, Sussex, England, August 4, 1792, and was drowned in the Gulf of Spezia, July 8, 1822. H "AIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert. That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher. From the earth thou springest. Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest. And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the setting sun. O'er which clouds are brightening. Thou dost float and run ; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale, purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven. In the broad daylight. Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. [328 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud. As, when night is bare. From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- flowed. What thou art we know not ; What is most like thee ? From, rainbow-clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see. As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought. Singing hymns unbidden. Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden, In a palace tower. Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: [3291 LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Like a glow-worm golden, In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered. Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass. Rain-awakened flowers. All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us sprite or bird What sweet thoughts are thine : I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal. Or triumphant chant. Matched with thine would be all ' But an empty vaunt — A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. [ 330 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER What obj ects are the fountains Of thy happy strain ? What fields, or waves, or mountains ? What shapes of sky or plain ? What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking, or asleep Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream; Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after. And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. [331 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Better than all measures Of delightful sound; Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know. Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow. The world should listen then, as I am listening now. THE CHASE SIR WALTER SCOTT Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Au- gust 15, 1771, and died in Abbotsford, Scotland, September 21, 1832. The following extract is from " The Lady of the Lake." THE stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill. And deep his midnight lair had made In lone Glen Artney's hazel shade; But, when the sun his beacon red Had kindled on Ben Voirlich's head. The deep-mouth'd bloodhound's heavy bay Resounded up the rocky way, And faint, from farther distance borne. Were heard the clanging hoof and horn. [ 832} LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER As Chief, who hears his warder call, " To arms ! the f oemen storm the wall," The antler'd monarch of the waste Sprung from his heathery couch in haste. But, ere his fleet career he took. The dew-drops from his flanks he shook; Like crested leader proud and high, Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky; A moment gazed adown the dale, A moment snuff'd the tainted gale, A moment listen'd to the cry. That thicken'd as the chase grew nigh; Then, as the headmost foes appear'd. With one brave bound the copse he clear'd. And, stretching forward free and far. Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var. Yell'd on the view the opening pack; Eock, glen, and cavern, paid them back; To many a mingled sound at once The awaken'd mountain gave response. A hundred dogs bay*d deep and strong, Clatter'd a hundred steeds along. Their peal the merry horns rung out, A hundred voices joined the shout; With hark and whoop and wild halloo. No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe. Close in her covert cower'd the doe, [333] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER The falcon^ from her cairn on high, Cast on the rout a wondering eye. Till far beyond her piercing ken The hurricane had swept the glen. Faint and more faint, its failing din Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn. And silence settled wide and still, On the lone wood and mighty hill. Less loud the sounds of sylvan war Disturb'd the heights of Uam-Var, And roused the cavern, where *t is told, I A giant made his den of old; For ere that steep ascent was won. High in his pathway hung the sun. And many a gallant, stay'd perforce, Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, And of the trackers of the deer, ^ Scarce half the lessening pack was near; So shrewdly on the mountain side Had the bold burst their mettle tried. The noble stag was pausing now. Upon the mountain's southern brow. Where broad extended, far beneath. The varied realms of fair Menteith. With anxious eye he wandered o'er Mountain and meadow, moss and moor. And ponder'd refuge from his toil, [334.] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER By far Lochard or Aberfoyle. But nearer was the copsewood grey, That waved and wept on Loch-Achray, And mingled with the pine-trees blue On the bold cliffs of Benvenue. Fresh vigor with the hope returned, With flying foot the heath he spurn'd. Held westward with unwearied race^ And left behind the panting chase. 'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er, , As swept the hunt through Cambus-more ; What reins were tighten'd in despair, When rose Benledi's ridge in air; Who flagged upon Bochastle's heath, Who shunn'd to stem the flooded Teith, For twice that day, from shore to shore. The gallant stag swam stoutly o'er. Few were the stragglers, following far. That reach'd the lake of Vennachar; And when the Brigg of Turk was won The headmost horseman rode alone. Alone, but with unbated zeal. That horseman plied the scourge and steel; For jaded now, and spent with toil, Emboss'd with foam, and dark with soil. While every gasp with sobs he drew, The laboring stag strain'd full in view. [ 335 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, Unmatch'd for courage, breath, and speed. Fast on his flying traces came And all but won that desperate game; For, scarce a spear's length from his haunch. Vindictive toil'd the bloodhounds staunch; Nor nearer might the dogs attain. Nor farther might the quarry strain. Thus up the margin of the lake. Between the precipice and brake. O'er stock and rock their race they take. The hunter marked that mountain high. The lone lake's western boundary. And deem'd the stag must turn to bay. Where that huge rampart barr'd the way; Already glorying in the prize. Measured his antlers with his eyes; For the death-wound and death-halloo, Muster'd his breath, his whinyard drew ; — . But thundering as he came prepared. With ready arm and weapon bared. The wily quarry shunn'd the shock. And turn'd him from the opposing rock; Then, dashing 'down a darksome glen. Soon lost to hound and hunter's ken. In the deep Trosachs' wildest nook His solitary refuge took. There, while close couch'd, the thicket shed [336] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Cold dews and wild-flowers on his head^ He heard the baffled dogs in vain Rave through the hollow pass amain. Chiding the rocks that yell'd again. Close on the hounds the hunter came. To cheer them on the vanish'd game; But, stumbling in the rugged dell, The gallant horse exhausted fell. The impatient rider strove in vain To rouse him with the spur and rein, For the good steed, his labors o'er, Stretch*d his stiff limbs, to rise no more; Then, touch'd with pity and remorse. He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse. ** I little thought, when first thy rein I slack'd upon the banks of Seine, That Highland eagle e*er should feed On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed! Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day. That cost thy life, my gallant grey ! " [ ^37 I LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER THE RAVEN EDGAR ALLAN POE Edgar Allan Poe was born in Baltimore, Md., February 19, 1809, and died there October 7, 1849. ONCE, upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my cham- ber door: " 'T is some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door — Only this, and nothing more.'* Ah, distinctly I remember! It was in the bleak De- cember, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore — Nameless here forevermore. [338] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating " 'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my cham- ber door — Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ; — This it is and nothing more." Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, " Sir," said I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping. And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door. That I scarce was sure I heard you," — here I opened wide the door : — Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing. Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, [339] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ** Lenore ! " This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, " Lenore ! *' Merely this, and nothing more. Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning. Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than before : " Surely," said I, ** surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore — Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery ex- plore ; — 'T is the wind, and nothing more/' Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter. In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore; Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door — Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my cham- ber door — Perched, and sat, and nothing more. [ ^^0 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore; ** Though thy crest be shorn and shaven^ thou," I said, " art sure no craven. Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the Nightly shore — Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plu- tonian shore ! " Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly — Though its anwer little meaning, little relevancy bore: For we cannot help agreeing that no living human be- ing Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his cham- ber door — i Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his cham- ber door. With such name as " Nevermore.'* But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further then he uttered — not a feather then he fluttered — [ 341 ] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have flown before — On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, " Nevermore/* Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, " Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and store. Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore — Till the dirges of his hope the melancholy burden bore Of * Never-nevermore/ ** But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling. Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door; Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore — What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking " Nevermore/* [342] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable ex- pressing To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core; This, and more, I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er. But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamplight gloating o'er. She shall press — ah, nevermore ! Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. " Wretch ! " I cried, " thy God hath lent thee, by these angels he hath sent thee Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore ! " Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." *' Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore — Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land en- chanted, [343] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore — Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I implore ! " Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." ** Prophet ! ** said I, *' thing of evil — prophet still, if bird or devil! By that heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore — Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore — Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." Quoth the raven, *' Nevermore." " Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I shrieked, upstarting — ** Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plu- tonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door I " Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." [344] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming. And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore! MARC ANTONY'S ORATION SHAKESPEARE William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Eng- land, April 23, 1564, and died there April 23, 1616. FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious; If it were so, it was a grievous fault. And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, — For Brutus is an honorable man, [345] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER So are they all, all honorable men, — Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransom did the general coffers fill; Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown. Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honorable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke. But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts. And men have lost their reason ! — Bear with me ; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me. • •••••• But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence. [346] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER masters! if I were dispos'd to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 1 should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong. Who, you all know, are honorable men. I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you. Than I will wrong such honorable men. But here 's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar ; I found it in his closet ; 't is his will. Let but the commons hear this testament — Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read — And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds. And dip their napkins in his sacred blood, Yea, beg a hair of him for memory. And, dying, mention it within their wills. Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on; 'T was on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii. Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through; See what a rent the envious Casca made; Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it. As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd [347] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER If Brutus so unkindly knock' d, or no; For Brutus, as you know, was Ceesar's angel: Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov'd him! This was the most unkindest cut of all; For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart; And, in his mantle muffling up his face. Even at the base of Pompey's statue. Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down. Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us. O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel The dint of pity; these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what! weep you when you but behold Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here. Here is himself, marr'd as you see, with traitors. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny. They that have done this deed are honorable. What private griefs they have, alas! I know not, That made them do it; they are wise and honorable. And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: I am no orator, as Brutus is. But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend; and that they know full well [348] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither vnt, nor words, nor worth. Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech. To stir men's blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths. And bid them speak for me; but, were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. SPEECH OF BRUTUS SHAKESPEARE OPENING, Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear; be- lieve me for mine honor, and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. BODY. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Csesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my an- [349] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER swer, — Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rej oice at it ; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was am- bitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman .f^ If any, speak, for him have I oflPended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I of- fended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. AIL None, Brutus, none. CONCLUSION. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Marc Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall [350] LAWRENCE READER AND SPEAKER receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart, — that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. THE END [351] MAR 29 19t1 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Nov. 2007 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 1 One copy del. to Cat. Div. 28 1911