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LESSON CX.

THE MISERIES OF WAR.

CHALMERS.

1. Он, tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, as goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy; or, faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance; or, wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body, or, lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness for that succor which no sympathy can yield him?

2. It may be painful to dwell thus, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual; but, multiply it ten thousand times; say how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field; give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation, and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death.

3. Oh, say what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the suffering of our brethren; which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands; which makes the very magnitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and its horrors; which causes us to eye, with indifference, the field that is crowded with the most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh which each individual would, singly, have drawn from us, by the report of the many that have fallen and breathed their last in agony along with him.

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LESSON CXI.

THE TRUE GREATNESS OF OUR COUNTRY.

SEWARD.

1. BEHOLD here, then, the philosophy of all our studies on this grateful theme. We see only the rising of the sun of empire-only the fair seeds and beginnings of a great nation. Whether that glowing orb shall attain to a meridian height, or fall suddenly from its glorious sphere-whether those prolific seeds shall mature into autumnal ripeness, or shall perish yielding no harvest-depends on God's will and providence. But God's will and providence operate not by casualty or caprice, but by fixed and revealed laws.

2. If we would secure the greatness set before us, we must find the way which those laws indicate, and keep within it. That way is new and all untried. We departed early-we departed at the beginning-from the beaten track of national ambition. Our lot was cast in an age of revolution- -a revolution which was to bring all mankind from a state of servitude to the exercise of self-government—from under the tyranny of physical force to the gentle sway of opinion-from under subjection to matter to dominion over nature. It was ours to lead the way, to take up the cross of republicanism and bear it before the nations, to fight its earliest battles, to enjoy its earliest triumphs, to illustrate its purifying and elevating virtues, and by our courage and resolution, our moderation and our magnanimty, to cheer and sustain its future followers through the bapism of blood and the martyrdom of fire.

3. A mission so noble and benevolent demands a generous nd self-denying enthusiasm. Our greatness is to be won by beneficence without ambition. We are in danger of losing that holy zeal. We are surrounded by temptations. Our dwellings become palaces, and our villages are transformed, as if by magic, into great cities. Fugitives from famine and oppression

and the sword crowd our shores, and proclaim to us that we alone are free, and great, and happy. Ambition for martial fame and the lust of conquest have entered the warm, living, youthful heart of the republic. Our empire enlarges. The castles of enemies fall before our advancing armies; the gates of cities open to receive them. The continent and its islands seem ready to fall within our grasp, and more than even fabulous wealth opens under our feet. No public virtue can withstand, none ever encountered, such seductions as these. Our own virtue and moderation must be renewed and fortified under circumstances so new and peculiar.

4. Where shall we seek the influence adequate to a task so arduous as this? Shall we invoke the press and the desk? They only reflect the actual condition of the public morals, and cannot change them. Shall we resort to the executive authority? The time has passed when it could compose and modify the political elements around it. Shall we go to the senate? Conspiracies, seditions, and corruptions, in all free countries, have begun there. Where, then, shall we go, to find an agency that can uphold and renovate declining public virtue? Where should we go, but there, where all republican virtue begins and must end—where the Promethean fire is ever to be rekindled, until it shall finally expire-where motives are formed and passions disciplined? To the domestic fireside and humble school, where the American citizen is trained.

LESSON CXII.

EDUCATE THE PEOPLE.

MACAULAY.

1. "EDUCATE the people," was the first admonition addressed by Penn to the commonwealth he founded-"educate the people" was the last legacy of Washington to the republic of the

United States-"educate the people" was the unceasing exhortation of Jefferson. Yes, of Jefferson himself; and I quote his authority with peculiar favor; for of all the eminent public men that the world ever saw, he was the one whose greatest delight it was to pare down the functions of governments to the lowest possible point, and to leave the freest possible scope for the exercise of individual exertion.

2. Such was the disposition-such, indeed, might be said to be the mission of Jefferson; and yet the latter portion of his life was devoted with ceaseless energy to the effort to procure the blessing of a state education for Virginia. And against the concurrent testimony of all these great authorities, what have you, who take the opposite side, to show? Against this splendid array of authority, you can oppose but one great philosopher, but one great teacher of wisdom, but one man distinguished for his services in the cause of letters and of humanity. Have you, I ask, anything else to oppose to the concurrent testimony of the wise, and the good, and the great of every age and of every clime? Nothing, except a clamor got up so recently as in 1846; a clamor in which those who engage condemn not only the wisest and the best of those who have gone before them, but even their former selves.

3. This new theory of government may at least claim the merit of originality. It signifies this, as I read it, if it signifies anything all men have hitherto misconceived the proper functions of government, which are simply those of the great hangman of the age; the business of government is to do nothing for the repression of crime except by harsh and degrading means. From all other means, which operate by exalting the intellectual character-by disciplining the passions-by purifying man's moral nature-government is to be peremptorily excluded. The only means it may employ are those of phys ical force-of the lash, the gibbet, and the musket, and of the terror which they evoke.

4. The statesman who wields the destiny of an empire is to look calmly on while the population of cities and towns is hourly increasing. He knows that on the moral and intellect ual culture of the bulk of that population the prosperity of the country, nay, more, perhaps the very foundations of the state' may depend; no matter, he is not to dream of operating on their moral and intellectual nature. He is not to advance their knowledge. He may build barracks as many as he pleases he may parade bayonets and ordnance to overawe them if he dreads their appeal to violence; if they break out into insurrection, he may send troops and artillery to mow them down for violating duties he never taught them; but of educating them he must not dream.

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5. The same holds good of the rural districts. and shudder as he sees, the rural population growing up with as little christianity, as little civilization, as little enlightenment as the inhabitants of New Guinea, so that there is at every period a risk of a jacquerie· -no matter, he is not to interfere. He must wait till the incendiary fires are blazing—till repeated attempts are made on the machinery of the district-till riots occur, such as disgraced this country in 1830 and 1831; and then begins his business, which is simply to hang, imprison, or transport the offenders. He sees seminaries for crime arising on all hands around him-seminaries which are eagerly attended by the youth of the population; but he must not endeavor to allure them from those haunts.

6. He may have a thorough conviction on his own mind that if he were to offer the means of wholesome instruction to those youth, a very great number of them would be drawn away from vice, and induced to dedicate their lives to an honorable purpose; but he dare not make the experiment. He must look calmly on with folded arms, and suffer those to become the cancers of the state who might have been made its power and its strength. He must remain inactive till the harvest of

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