Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

profperity; that he reigned in the affections of every virtu ous heart; that his memory is honored by the tears of his own and diftant nations;

15. The painter, the fculptor, the historian and the poet, fhall vie with each other in conveying to future ages the benign traits of his countenance, the majeftic fymmetry of his perfon, the fair features of his expanded mind, and the fair fame of his achievements;

16. What avails him now, that the most enlightened ftrangers from the European world, croffed the vaft Atlan tic, to behold the Jofhua and the Solomon of America; that mighty veffels, and towns, and cities, and provinces, bear his name! a name that feems to combine whatever is good, and great, and amiable among men ! Alas! neither this mighty name, nor all the events that now agitate the earth, are any thing to him.

17. The vaft extent of eternity now displayed before his eyes; his everlasting destiny in a new state of existence; the realities of the eternal world opened on his view, fix all the attention and absorb all the faculties of his immortal spirit

18. Thrice happy, I truft, to have learned from the bleffed religion, which he profeffed and refpected, that all the fucceffes and difgraces of this transitory state, when not referred to God, are little elfe than empty dreams; that there is no real happiness or mifery but in eternity.

19. These are leffons which our divine religion had delivered to the venerable and beloved father of our country: it was his happiness to believe them: the veil is now rent afunder; and I doubt not but this great benefactor of mankind, is actually perceiving, feeling, and approving them, in the bofom of the Eternal.

20. And we my hearers, fhall very foon perceive these truths and approve them alfo. A few days perhaps, but certainly a few years, will put a period to our mortal exiftence. But were our lives to be protracted even through a feries of ages, yet still the longest life would be only a moment, when measured upon the fcale of eternity;

21. The duration of the loftieft cedar on Libanus, is not lefs contracted and precarious, than that of the humble fhrub that grows in its fhade. to be, "to be born and to die."

The whole of man seems
The space that intervenes

between these terms of his mortality is fo very fhort, that it appears to be juft nothing.

22. Genius, opulence, fame, authority and reputation; all the gifts and treasures of nature and of fortune, are evidently contained in a small veffel of clay; which no fooner falls, than it is broken in pieces, and its scattered fragments lie useless on the ground.

23. My hearers, let us accuftom ourselves to think, as we shall think in eternity; to judge as we shall then judge. Happy, thrice happy, the venerable fage and patriot, whofe death we now lament, that in life he regarded God as the fovereign mafter; religion as the fovereign law; the happinefs of eternity as the fupreme object, that should intereft his affections.

24. To us, O Lord, it belongs not to penetrate into the depths of thy judgments; and well we know that human virtues, the moft refplendent and fublime, can entitle no man to the benefit of falvation. From thy pure mercy only can this grace be derived.

25. This we trust has been extended to our beloved father, and protector. Though a conquering warrior, he delighted in peace; and therefore we confider he is now called a child of God:-With justice and humanity he judged his Ifrael; and therefore we humbly hope that he also has been judged according to the abundance of thy mercy.

EXTRACT FROM MR. AMES' ORATION ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WASHINGTON.

1. WHEN WASHINGTON heard the voice of his country in distress, his obedience was prompt; and though his facrifices were great, they coft him no effort. Neither the object nor the limits of my plan, permit me to dilate on the military events of the revolutionary war.

2. Our history is but a transcript of his claims on our gratitude. Our hearts bear teftimony, that they are claims not to be fatisfied. When overmatched by numbers ; a fugitive, with a little band of faithful foldiers; the states as

G

much exhausted as difmayed; he explored his own undaunted heart, and found there refources to retrieve our affairs.

3. We have feen him display as much valor as gives fame to heroes, and as confummate prudence as enfures fuccefs to valor; fearless of dangers that were perfonal to him ; hefitating and cautious, when they affected his country; preferring fame before fafety or repose; and duty, before fame.

4. Rome did not owe more to Fabius, than America to Washington. Our nation fhares with him the fingular glory of having conducted a civil war with mildness, and a revolution, with order.

5. The event of that war feemed to crown the felicity and glory both of America and its chief. Until that conteft, a great part of the civilized world had been surprisingly ignorant of the force and character, and almost of the existence, of the British colonies.

6. They had not retained what they knew, nor felt curiosity to know the state of thirteen wretched settlements, which vaft woods enclosed, and ftill vafter woods divided from each other. They did not view the colonists fo much a people, as a race of fugitives, whom want, and folitude, and intermixture with the favages, had made barbarians.

7. Great-Britain, they faw, was elate with her victories Europe ftood in awe of her power: her arms made the thrones of the most powerful unfteady, and disturbed the tranquillity of their states, with an agitation more extenfive than an earthquake. As the giant Enceladus is fabled to lie under Etna, and to fhake the mountain when he turns his limbs, her hoftility was felt to the extremities of the world.

8. It reached to both the Indies; in the wilds of Africa, it obftructed the commerce in flaves; the whales, finding, in time of war, a refpite from their purfuers, could venture to sport between the tropics, and did not flee, as in peace, to hide beneath the ice-fields of the polar circle.

9. At this time, while Great-Britain wielded a force not inferior to that of the Roman empire under Trajan, fuddenly, aftonifhed Europe beheld a feeble people, till then unknown, stand forth, and defy this giant to the combat. was fo unequal, all expected it would be fhort,

It

10. The events of that war were fo many miracles, that attracted, as much perhaps as any war ever did, the wonder of mankind. Our final fuccefs exalted their admiration to its highest point; they allowed to Washington all that is due to tranfcendent virtue, and to the Americans more than is due to human nature.

11. The peace of America hung by a thread, and factions were already fharpening their weapons to cut it. The project of three separate empires in America was beginning to be broached, and the progrefs of licentioufnefs, would have foon rendered her citizens unfit for liberty in either of

them.

12. An age of blood and mifery would have punished our disunion; but these were not the confiderations to deter ambition from its purpose, while there were fo many cir cumstances in our political fituation to favor it.

13. At this awful crifis, which all the wife fo much dreaded at the time, yet which appears, on a retrofpect, fo much more dreadful than their fears; fome man was wanting, who poffeffed a commanding power over the popular paffions, but over whom those passions had no power. man was Washington.

That

14. His name, at the head of fuch a lift of worthies as would reflect honor on any country, had its proper weight with all the enlightened, and with almost all the well difpofamong the lefs informed citizens, and, bleifed be God! the conftitution was adopted.

ed

15. Although it was impoffible that fuch merit as Washington's fhould not produce envy, it was fcarcely poffible. that, with fuch a transcendent reputation, he should have rivals. Accordingly, he was unanimoufly chofen prefident of the United States.

16. As a general and a patriot, the measure of his glory was already full: there was no fame left for him to excel but his own; and even that task, the mightiest of all his labors, his civil magiftracy has accomplished.

17. No fooner did the new government begin its aufpicious course, than order feemed to arife out of confufion. The governments of Europe had feen the old confederation finking, fqualid and pale, into the tomb, when they beheld the new American republic rife fuddenly from the

ground; and, throwing off its grave clothes, exhibiting the ftature and proportions of a young giant, refreshed with fleep.

18. Commerce and industry awoke, and were cheerful at their labors; for credit and confidence awoke with them. Every where was the appearance of profperity; and the only fear was, that its progrefs was too rapid, to confift with the purity and fimplicity of ancient manners.

:

19. The cares and labors of the prefident were inceffant his exhortations, example and authority, were employed to excite zeal and activity for the public service : able officers were selected, only for their merits; and fome of them remarkably diftinguished themfelves by their fuccessful management of the public business.

20. Government was administered with fuch integrity, without myftery, and in fo profperous a course, that it feemed to be wholly employed in acts of beneficence.

21. However his military fame may excite the wouder of mankind, it is chiefly by his civil magiftracy, that his example will inftruct them. Great generals have arisen in all ages of the world, and perhaps moft in those of defpotilm and darknefs. In times of violence and convulfion, they rife, by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in it, and direct the ftorm.

22. Like meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a fplendor, that, while it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the darkness. The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar: they multiply in every long war: they ftand in history, and thicken in their ranks, almost as undiftinguished as their own foldiers.

23. But fuch a chief magiftrate as Washington, appears like the pole ftar in a clear sky, to direct the skilful statesman. His prefidency will form an epoch, and be diftinguifhed as the age of Washington. Already it affumes its high place in the political region.

24. Like the milky way, it whitens along its allotted portion of the hemifphere. The latest generations of men will furvey, through the telescope of hiftory, the space where fo many virtues blend their rays, and delight to feparate them into groups and diftinct virtues.

25. As the beft illuftration of them-the living monu

« AnteriorContinuar »