PRACTICAL LIBERTY.

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CITY AUTHORITIES 0fiM§6“§"f0N

IN THE

TREMONT TEMPLE,

3111133 I1, 18113.

 BY JOEL G1LE&

BOSTON:
184& 
L-T.‘.ASTBURN’S PRESS.

 

w.‘i«*

CITY or BOSTON.

In Oommon Council, July 6, 1848.

Resolved, That the thanks of the City Council be presented to Jon.
GILES, Esq., for the very able and appropriate Orzttion delivered by him
before the Municipal Authorities of the City, at the recent Celebration of
the Annivemtiry of the Declaration of the Independence of the United
States of America, and that he be requested to furnish a copy of the some
for the Press.

Sent up for concurrence.

BENJAMIN SEAVER, President.

I53 the Board of Aldermen, July 10, 1848.

Read and concurred.
JOSIAH QUINCY, .Tr., Mayor.

     

To rrrr. Mesrore or BOSTON:
Sm,

Agreeohly to the request of the City Council, I place at their
disposal the menuecript of the Oration delivered before them on the 4th
instant.

With great respect,

J. GILES.
Boston, July 1], 1848.

O RATIO N.

IN Eastern fable, the world is a harp. Earth, air, fire,
Water, life, death, and mind, are its seven strings.
When breathed upon by the gentle winds, its music is
love and peace. But, at set times, a mighty angel flies
through the heavens, and strikes this harp, and its quiv-
ering strings send forth those ever-recurring pulsations
of good and evil, which characterize the destiny of
man. At one time, there are tempests, and floods,
and earthquakes in divers places; at another, the
earth becomes as ashes, and the heavens as brass,---
the silver cord is loosed, and the golden bowl is bro-
ken at the fountain, ---- destruction vvasteth at noon-
day, and the mourners go about the streets. Anon,
the grass springs up, the fields blossom, the flocks
cover the hills like morning clouds, children look out
at the windows, and laughter rings again upon the
glad ear of Hope. Then, suddenly, we have wars and
rumors of wars 5 -------~ mischief upon mischief, rumor
upon rumor, and distress of nations with perplexity.
But at last the silver trumpet sounds, and Liberty is

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proclaimed throughout all the land, unto all the inhab-
itants thereof; and beautiful upon the mountains are
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pub-
lisheth peace.

Such is the fable. “ The moral is plain. The course
of time is marked by recurrent eras; those points of
light in the darkness of the past, which shed on the
present,visions of the future, and around Which are
grouped the great men, the noble acts, and the disap-
pointed hopes, of our race.

Time is full of eras. T Every nation, family, and
heart even, has its era. Our first love,--- our Wedding

day,-—--—the death of our first-born, -——-— the last fare-
well of a lost friend,---—form the green islands and

the dark rocks in the river of life, around which Memory
loves, in joy or in sorrow, to linger, as she Wanders
back to the home of our youth, that sacred spot on
which forever rests the golden light of innocence.

“ There is a land, of every land the pride;
Beloved of heaven o’er all the World beside;

There is a spot, of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found? T

O thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, that spot, t/lay home. ”

There are times when God’ confers on men birth-
day blessings; and there’ are times when men do to

themselves more good in an hour, than in years be?

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fore. When the angel strikes the spirit-string in the
harp of fate, and the mind is full of courage, and . the
heart is full of faith, and the tideof events is taken at
its flood, then great men act, and suffer, and triumph
in life or in death ; and the foundations of the temple
of liberty are laid amid the songs of the people.

Such an era we this day celebrate. Seventy-two
years ago, the Declaration of Independence was read
in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia; and the
question was, shall it be adopted ‘E-———-- and the ayes
had it. And that vote instantly changed the political
character of this Western world. It gave us a national
entity. It secured for us the admiration, and sympa-
thy, of the best men, in all nations. It made us free,
as Well as independent, and aroused into action those
productive er1.e:r'gi.es which have caused the wilderness
to blossom like the rose, and covered the seas with
the white Vvings of commerce, and filled this broad land
with industry and happiness.

What then is it, which, more than all the rest of
that Declaration, has commanded the applause of the
civilized World? It is this:----that the people “have
full power to levy War, conclude peace, contract allian-
ces, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and
things which independent states may of right do.”

Practical Liberty ! This has made us what We are,
and will make us what We shall be. This has made
the whole country a free school, and all the people
scholars, and has stamped the national mind with the
superscription of common sense. And it is this, if

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any thing, that will regenerate Europe, and bring to a

successful issue its present agonies. It is a principle

of power, of heroism, of danger, and of hope. Let us
hope.

The spirits of men are ever tempered to their work.
If you would be great, you must be free. You can
never have in your souls, either poetry, or eloquence,
or patriotism, or heroic goodness, without the light
and glow of liberty. God has made you so.

“ ’T is liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life, its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it. ”

Action without responsibility dwarfs the mind.
Exalted duties inspire corresponding virtues. Give
then to the masses, organized and responsible liberty,
and look for generous action, and you shall not be dis--»
appointed. That people which actually performs all
that free and independent states may of right do, will
soon be distinguished for magnanimity and success.
Their soldiers. and sailors will be invincible ; their
farmers will be intelligent and thrifty; a spirit and a
skill that cannot know defeat will characterize their
merchants and mechanics; their press will be fearless,
their forums and pulpits will be eloquent and true;
the honor and energy of all will be concentrated in
each one, and nothing can withstand their united and
onward march.

All this, and more, Practical Liberty has done for us.
It has fixed our national character, and given to us

our exponential men, and achieved for us what of

CID

glory we possess; and such have been its fruits in all -

ages and nations, when enjoyed without abuse. To
it, the world owes its heroism. Let us then briefly
trace its characteristic action, from the earliest dawn,
to the present time.

From the fifteenth to the eleventh century be»
fore Christ, the Jewish Government was a federative
republic ; and that was the heroic age of that chosen
people. Then it was, that the Israelites east of Jordan,
being oppressed by the children of Ammon, sent for
J ephtha, and, in an assembly of the people, 1nade him
their head and captain. And Jephtha, in the strength
of the popular will, sent messengers unto the king of
the children of Ammon, saying “What hast thou to
do with me, that thou art come against me, to fight
in my land?” And Jephtha vowed a vow unto

the Lord, alas, for his beautiful daughter! his only

 

child !—------and so he passed over and smote the Am-

monites from Aroer to Minnith, twenty cities, to the
plain of the Vineyards, with a very great slaughter;
and Faith and Liberty, like twin sisters, wept and
rejoiced together upon the mountains of Juclea.
Solon, in the sixth century before Christ, establish-
ed Practieal Liberty at Athens. The people had
power to deliberate upon public affairs, choose their
magistrates, and confirm the laws; and their impet-
uous spirit rushed like a mountain torrent into every
field of human enterprise. Their eloquence, poetry,
politics, commerce, and daring arms, soon rendered
inevitable a conflict between Western liberty and

2

 

10

Eastern despotism; and the battle of Marathon was the
result. There again Liberty, with her ten thousand
citizen-soldiers, triumphed over Despotism with her
hundred thousand veterans; That victory immortal-
ized Athenian impetuosity, and taught all succeeding
ages that a citizen soldiery, animated with the un-
quenchable spirit of freedom, and fighting for their
homes, are Liberty’s cheapest and best defence.

From the fifth century to about thirty years be-
fore Christ, the Roman people were partially free;
They voted upon the choice of magistrates and the
making of laws, and exercised some of the highest
functions of sovereignty; and that was the heroic age
of that heroic nation. In it flourished all those stern
virtues which have made the Roman name a republican
Watchword. The spirit of the masses was infused into
all their public affairs, which were managed with ad-
mirable vvisdom by the Senate. Their growing power
and martial famesoon brought them into collision with
the Carthaginians, Who, during the first part of the
same period, by reason of the popular element in their
government, had become the leading; maritime nation
of the world. And now came a trial of strength be-—

tween the equally free. Energy characterized the

Carthaginians; it carried Hannibal and his army over
the Alps; and, directed by slazill, it gave him the vie»
tory at Cannes, Where fifty thousand Romans perished
by the sword; and the scale of those rival republics,
for a moment, trembled in doubt, and many a dame
wept her knight in the Eternal City. But A Roman

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fortitude, in the end, prevailed; and that determined
people, fourteen years afterwards, under their great

Scipio, the model Roman, gave their rival, Carthage, I

her death-blow, at the battle of Zama, in Africa.

The whole soul of Roman Liberty, sprung from the
chaste blood of Lucretia, and nerved by the vicissitudes
of four hundred years of conflict, was concentrated into
one noble maxim,-———“ Never despair of the Republic.”
And that is the great lesson which Roman Liberty has
left for us:---——Nevcr, never-give up 3 the same senti-
ment which, two thousand years after the battle of
Oannae, burst from the dying lips of the gallant Law-
rence,»--—--“ Do n.’t give up the ship 1”

In modern times, the Italian Republics, whose inde- I

pendence was reérstabli;shed by the treaty of Con-
stance, in the twelfth century, preserved the spirit
of Liberty, which afterwards became diffused over
Western Europe. Their many deeds of liglit, and
of darlmess, with judgment due, are shadowed forth in
that national work, the ‘ Divina Commedia’ of Dante,
which will spell-bind the hearts of men as long as they
shall be interested in the spirit land of the mighty
dead. And the lesson we derive from them, is,-----
Honor the poets, who make the songs of the people.
In 1648, the independence of the Republic of Switz-
erland was acknowleclged by the treaty of Westphalia;
and Liberty once more dwelt in peace with the brave,
in that romantic land, where, amid the the vine-clad
valleys and the snow-capped mountains, she has ever

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found the Swiss heart glowing with the love of Free»
dom and of heme. b

In 1639, the Republic of Holland, under the invig-
orating influence of popular freedom, had become a
respectable power on the land, and, with a hundred
ships of war, bade defiance to every rival on " the seas.
Van Tromp, her national hero, destroyed the Spanish
fleet in the Downs, sinking and burning fifty ships.
This noble captain, in whose fall, the sovereignty of
his country fell before the freer spirit of England,
which had now become a commonwealth, achieved for
his country that l1eroic epithet, “Dutch Valor.” In
the great action between the Dutch, with one hundred
and twenty ships, and the English, with eighty-five,

commenced, August 6th, 1653, on the second day, Van

Tromp, having pierced the enemy’s centre with his own
ship,was surrounded, and, while fighting with desperate
‘valor, he fell by a musket shot, exclairning, before he
died,-—---“ Take courage, my lads; I have run my course
with glory In”

English Liberty was now in the ascendant, and
Blake was its champion upon the ocean. He was an
inflexible republican; and, in the might of the greater
Liberty, he conquered Van Tromp, and broke the power
of the Dutch, and‘ drove their fleets out of the sea.
He first inspired seamen with that boldness which
taught them what mighty things they could do, if they
were resolved. He nailed to the mast-head, England’s
cherished Virtue, British courage, and made it to be
respected throughout the world,

“ Ye mariners of’ England!

"Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,

As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy tempests blow.”

As early as 1656, a hundred and twenty years
before the American Revolution, nearly all of the
leading principles of popular liberty, as now practiced
in this country, were well understood, ably discussed,
and freely publislied in England.

In the Colonies, from the May Flower compact, in
1620, to the Declaration of Independence, in 17 76,
the spirit of Liberty, native to the English mind,

ad been constzuitly gn.ini11g strength by exercise, in
free <.:>r*ga.niar:Lt.ions, such as the Church, the School, the
Town, the Militia and the General Court.

Du1*iu,g the War of the Pen, as it has been called,

from 1.761 to 1775, the freedom of speech and of the

press was fully enjoyed, and abundantly used.

On the 10th day of April, 177 5, the first serious
conflict of arrns occurred at Lexington, between Old
England and her American Colonies. From words the
parties had come at last to earnest blows; and Eng-
land was at war with English Liberty! But who of

us can adequately describe that bloody contest? The ,

haughty oppression, the over-weening contempt, and
the pride of empire, on the one side; and on the other,
indignant suffering, sympathetic and determined free-
dom, and, withal, a tender reluctance to snap forever

14

the golden cord that bound so many hearts together
on either shore of the home-dividing sea. We know
the battles, ‘the sufferings, and the glories of the tented
field; we know the high resolve, and the impassioned
eloquence of freedom’s halls; but who can tell us of the
heart, where the flowers of life were crushed in the
blossom, and in the bud, by the hail of contending pas-
sions? None but a tory or a whig of “T6,.

But the right prospered. Liberty triumphed, and
we are here. Let a single fact sufzice to mark the
heroic achievements of Practical Liberty in half a cen--

tury. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought on the
17th day of June, 1775, and, on the same day, sixty-
three years afterwards, the Great Western, an English

steamship, but an American invention, arrived at New

York, a city of 350,000 inhabitants, and the capital of

only one of our then twenty-eight free and indepen-

dent States. 0

 Washington was the hero and model patriot of the
American Revolution. A true man, whose fame, un-
equalled in his own clay and country,will descend to the
end of time, the pride and honor of humanity. Unit-
ing in himself Jewish faith, Roman fortitude and Brit-
ish courage, he won our independence, established
our liberties, and left to us the national heritage of an

invincible prowess ; an heritage which was nobly vin-

dicated byour gallant army and navy, in 1812, and
again in 1847, by Taylor, Scott and Perry, with their
sons of liberty, at Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, and Cha-

pultepec. _

15

France, in 1789, was the first, in the old world, to
feel the electric shock of that Practical Liberty which
had become so active in the new. She was then labor»-
ing under a crushing inequality of taxation and politi-
cal rights. I-“Ier clergy paid one-fourteenth, her nobil~
ity one-sixth, and her people two-thirds of their income,
 taxes. Vengeance against the upper classes was
therefore the first movement of the French Revolution
of that period, and Robespierre was its model man.
Its second morvement was that of military ambition,
and Napoleon was its champion. I-ts history is written
with blood, and is a stain on human nature.

Froin 1810 to -1820, the Spanish Colonies in Mexico,
and South America, under the influence of our success-
ful example, threw oil?‘ the colonial yoke, and declared
their independence of old Spain; and, since that time,
they have made frwequent attempts to imitate our active
ity and our organizations; but *Catholicism, the mother
of dependence, has deprived their efforts of the vigor
essential to entire success. Bolivar, however, was a
true friend and supporter of his country’s liberty, on
which, after the death of his young and beautiful wife,
he bestowed his Whole heart and fortune. t

In 1830, France made another effort for liberty, and
secured enough of her sun-light, under the shadow of
the wings of monarchy, to prepare fer the Republic
of 1848,-----which, may Heaven bless, as it cares for
the happiness of tliirty-five millions of souls. And in
1832, England, moved by the impulse of the times, in

is

favor of liberty, passed the Reform Bill, which has
saved London from the barricades.

And now, in 1848, the mighty Angel has swept
again the strings of the mystic harp, and old nation-
alities rise, like the ghost of Samuel, to frighten kings.
France, Italy and Germany, are become the centres of
intense political excitement. Liberty is there, and
the Press, her giant champion, is unbound. Free suf-
frage is there. The people elect, and are elected.
France has a National Assembly, and nine million
electors. Germany has local assemblies, and a general
parliament. Italy has a lay council of state, and a
Pope who is an equal friend of peace and of liberty,
though he did threaten Rome with excoinmunication.

The undertow of the French Revolution of 1789,
was a current of blood, and the memory of its horrors
brings suspicion and distrust upon the new-born Re-
public of 1848. But the false current of the present
revolution runs, not against life, but against property;
and fearful, indeed, has been the sacrifice of all that
kind of wealth which depends for its value upon con-
fidence in existing laws and governments. Still itis
better for men to lose their incomes for a season, than
their heads. We may therefore rejoice that the ex-
cesses of the revolution are no greater; and,‘ when We
call to mind transactions in this city prior to our own
revolution, we may Well exercise charity towards the
sons of Liberty in Europe. Besides, it is our duty, and,
I trust, our pleasure, to hope for the best issue 3 and,

for one, I say, God speed the free ballot and the free A

17

press, the ‘world over; and other things will take "care.
of themselves. I

The influence of Practical Liberty is fast becoming
paramount throughout the civilized World. It is the
steam that drives our activities, at a dizzy speed. It is
the breeze which fans the popular mind in the British
Provinces on our northern border. It is the spirit
which preserves the fermenting republics in South
America and Mexico. It is the new sense which be»,
vvilders its possessors in France, Italy and Germany;
and it is the life of the body of English liberties.
And shall this, too, pass away? Is our race forever
destined. to relapse into the bogs of despotism? Is
there no recuperative spring in man or the Word of
God by which he lives? The faithless think so. Dis»-
girstecl with the abuses and frequent failures of popu-
lar freedom, they are ready to forswear all attempts to

alleviate man’s aolitical servitude. But let such re--.
1

member, that, notvvithstanding man fell from his

original uprightness, and has continued to fall for six a

thousand years, (rod still creates him a free agent.
Practical Liberty is essentially active. In 1633, it
induced the passage of a law that no person should
pass his time idly or unprofitably, under pain of such
punishment as the court should think meet to inflict;

and, since the Declaration of Independence, it has hewn.

from the primeval forest, seventeen new States, and
filled them with happy millions. . It must have some

thing to do, and a way to do it: and, to act with safe»

  ty and effect, it must be organized. . The Mississippi .

3

18

must have its banks. The ballot must be instituted.‘
The natural presumption of right in favor of majorities
must have its controlling weight, until rebutted by
trial. The legislative power, which is supreme ands
indestructible, must be balanced by the divine organ»
ism of triple coordinates. Hence the necessity of
constitutions, laws, charters, societies, and parties, of
which our country is full; and through which, the
sovereignty of the people becomes intelligent and re-
sponsible.

at Constitutions are the political brain of the people.
Each of our thirty States has one, and our glorious
Union has another, by which unceasing action is 1nain-
tained upon all rightful subjects of government.

a Men are governed by three principles,—---reason, love,
and force; and without. these there is no government
worthy of the name, human or divine. The C‘onstitu-
tion of the United States is the organ of the sovereign
reason of the people. This is the field for giant minds
and patriot hearts; and its hero,-——-—for it has a hero,
unrivalled and alone, in his chosen dornain,-~—-is the
p?eople"s Webster. And do you ask for heroes of
the heart, with power to acquire wealth, learning and
influence, and a will to use them all for the people’s
honor and the people’s good? Go to your scientific
schools, your institutes, and your libraries, and read
the honored names of their founders. Go to the mis-~
sionary rolls, and admire the number and the devotion
of your Christian martyrs. Force, too, that dire ne-
cessity of fallen man, and of nations, has its heroes,

19

a small and charméd band, Whose martial fame, like
the forked lightning, dazzles the eyes of the people.
May they ever be few in number, great in action, and

wvorthy to tread in the footprints of L the immortal

Washington. 1
r Preserve, then, your constitutions, your corporations,"
your societies, your towns, your cities, your free
schools, and your churches. They are organisms for
the exercise, discipline, and efficient action, of Practi-
cal Liberty. And especially, preserve your militia.
It is the legal organization of force; the right hand of
all government, the ultimate protector of all the fruits
of liberty, and a terror only to evil doers. .
~ The people are, by the constitution of the United
States, armed; and, by every principle of liberty, they
are supreme. Force always resides in the masses.
Armed, but unorganized, it is a sleeping lion, ready
to spring upon you at any moment of famine, or of
passion. Then train it,-----«train it; and it shall lie
down with the lambs in the green pastures of peace
and tranquillity. T
Even parties are useful organizations of Practical
Liberty, which might otherwise fall into anarchy in
the exercise of its elective functions. And in a coun-
try so free as this, no administration can stand with-
out the support of a dominant party, embracing, for
the time being, a majority of the people. Be not
frightened, then, at parties; but prove them all, by
the test of Practical Liberty, and hold fast that which
isgood. @ . .. a it

20

 There naturally spring out of the excitement, en»
ergy and success of l?ract-ical Liberty, an impatience of
restraint, and a desire to accomplish at once, and by

force, many things which require wisdom and the
noiseless hand of time. There are some things which
the people may not of right do. They ma.y not-, in
the exercise of their liberty, violate their constitutions;
for that is suicidal. They may not violate nationali-
ties, and force others to be free; for that is doing evil,
that good may come. They may not prosecute foreign
and aggressive wars, for the success of which it be-
comes necessary to silence the freedom of speech and
of the press, at home; for that is wounding the
daughter of Zion with a deadly hurt, and breaking the
golden bowl at the fountain. And they may not lay
the iron hand of law upon personal and private rights.
They may not prescribe to me, what I shall eat
and what I shall drink, and wherewithal I shall be
clothed ; nor the time, nor the place, nor the compen-
sation, of my labor. All that is my business. - Let
my rights be forfeited, before they’ are sacrificed.
Never let the individual be crushed by the mass, for lib-
erty overdone is tyranny outdone; and never let a
sovereign people-be guilty of an unjust or a mean thing.
And, in a country like ours, where the utmost freedom
of thepress, the endless social organizations, and the
network of rail-roads and telegraphs, render liberty so
impulsive, let the people cultivate an instinctive and
spotless «honor, that shall "make all their conduct true
and without reproach.   H

' Practical Liberty has, in about half a century, raised
this country from colonial insignificance to the rank of
a leading power. In population and resources, present
and prospective, we would not exchange conditions
with any nation. In science, literature and art, we
have genius, and time will give us execution. Our
military and naval power has proved itself competent to
all the exigencies of peace and war. For boldness
and ability, our diplomacy is unrivalled; and our pop-—
ular industry has no equal in the world. We are a
downright, positive people; negatives are out of their
element here. Every man and organization is full of
actualities. Every energy is intent on something to
be done. Life is a practical school ; and the problems
to be solved are not, as in books, hypothetical, but

present and real. The young are to be married, and

for love too, for more people marry for love in this
country than in all the world besides ;. and the ques-
tion is, how shall they win their Grenevieves, their
“bright and beauteous bri.des‘?” The middle-aged
must acquire wealth, and take care of their responsibil-
ities; and the question is, how shall it be quickest
done? This party, and that party, and the all--and~
singular party, has each nominated its favorite candi-
date, and the question is, how shall he be elected?

The whole country has something to do, honorable

and right, and the question is, how shall it discharge
its whole duty This requires thought, and the people
think; decision, and the people resolve; action, and
the people do it ; and, as a crowning virtue, the people

22

compromise their differences, and keep good natured,
and will not be hung on abstractions. .
Our fathers founded this beloved Republic. It is
ours,---—- a labor no less god-lilie,---— to exercise and pre-
serve it. What, then, are the great problems before us
as a nation‘? That War is ended, which ought never
to have been begun. By it, we have Won more glory
than we deserve, and acquired more territory than We
Want. For monopoly is against divine intent, and cannot
prosper in the long run. It is not for one man, or one
nation, to do every thing. The same law, which makes

individuals, families, tribes, tongues, and races, divides

among them the regions of the earth, and the labor to
be done therein.

We occupy a central position, fronting on two seas.
Of land and Water we have our share, and enough.
Our boundaries, at last, are fixed by treaties of peace;
and cursed be he who again disturbs our land-marks.

Our military position cannot be improved. With a
neutral nation on either wing, our Atlantic and Pacific
fleets on either front, and a nation of freemen in the
centre, we shall ever be invincible to all foreign foes;
and, in case of war upon this continent, the centre
commands the wings.

. Let us therefore be content. We have thirty States
already, and territory enough for forty more as large ;
and beyond them, the boundless commerce of the Pa-

cific, with China and Japan 5 —--- a glorious and suificient

field for all the peaceful energies of our Liberty,
ztnipghty, as they are. A And into this Union those States

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will surely con1e. Shall they be free? Yes, they shall
be free. Let peace abroad and union at home be our
policy, and our watch-Words of Freedom; and Slavery
shall vanish from our land, like night before the sun.

The history of vour State and City should inspire us
with grateful affection for the memory of our fathers.
What spots are more consecrate to Liberty, than
Faneuil Hall, Bunker Hill and Lexington Common?
hat names shine briglrter on their country’s roll of
patriots, than Orrs, QUINCY, WARREN, ADAMS, ITANCOCK,
and FRANKLIN? What city has surpassed Boston in
doing good? Her praises shall soon be as cooling
Water, on every torigue.

The nation has recently mourned the death of Mas»-
sachusetts’ most clistinguished son. His history is that
of his country. He Was a true champion of Liberty,
and the free, of whatever age or nation, in all time to
come, will call him blessed. Happy is that land which
he called his home. In grateful memory of his exalted
virtues, let us, in the spirit of that Liberty, a11d the
peace of thatGrospel, which he so much loved, do as
he did, with our might, whatsoever our hands find to
do in the service of our country.

The charms of that Liberty which We enjoy, so
grateful to the aspirations of all men 5 the unexampled
success of our political and social organizations; the
space which we fill in the affairs of the World, and the
influence of rising power, have assigned us a conspic-
uous position among the nations of the earth. We
cannot, if we Would, avoid the responsibility of affect-

24

ing the Welfare of millions of our fellow-«men. J The
commands of Heaven are upon us!
Jewish faith, Grecian impetuosity, Carthaginian energ.

, gy, Roman fortitude, Swiss patriotism, Dutch valor,

British courage, and our father’s invincible prowess,
are all, our rightful heritage, as sons of the purest Lib-«
erty; and We are bound, in Christian honor, to make
them tell, in the glorious fields of peaceful enterprise
for the head, the hand, and the heart, which God has
opened before us. ,

The dutyis great, but the promise is greater; for
the Redeemer of our race, Whose gospel is the founda,-_«
tion and guaranty of all our liberties, has said, that if
ye continue in my WOI‘Cl, then shall ye know the truth,

and the truth shall make you free.

And may faith in God, faith in man, and faith in
union, knit together thehearts of this great people in
the golden bonds of love, and the iron might of action,

till time shall be no more! A vs