the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influence these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and altho our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, as it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" Nor those other

words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterward"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every true American heart-Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

FAREWELL ADDRESS*

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

MY FRIENDS:-No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of this people I owe everything. Here I lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him I can not succeed. With that assistance I can not fail. Trusting in him who can go with me and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

INCENTIVES TO DUTY

BY CHARLES SUMNER

Go forth into the many mansions of the house of life: scholars store them with learning; jurists! build them with justice; artists! adorn them with beauty; philanthropists! let them resound with love. Be servants of truth,

*Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861.

It

each in his vocation; doers of the word and not hearers only. Be sincere, pure in heart, earnest, enthusiastic. A virtuous enthusiasm is always self-forgetful and noble. is the only inspiration now vouchsafed to man. Like Pickering, blend humanity with learning. Like Story, ascend above the present, in place and time. Like Allston, regard fame only as the eternal shadow of excellence. Like Channing, bend in adoration before the night. Cultivate alike the wisdom of experience and the wisdom of hope. Mindful of the future, do not neglect the past; awed by the majesty of antiquity, turn not with indifference from the future. True wisdom looks to the ages before us, as well as behind us. Like the Janus of the Capitol, one front thoughtfully regards the past, rich with experience, with memories, with the priceless traditions of virtue; the other is earnestly directed to the All Hail Hereafter, richer still with its transcendent hopes and unfulfilled prophecies.

We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of violence and wrong are retreating to their kindred dark

The age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity has come. The horse, whose importance, more than human, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields his foremost place to man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knight ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor, wide as the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight-scholars! jurists! artists! philanthropists! heroes of a Christian age, companions of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth, be brave, loyal, and successful!"

And may it be our office to-day to light a fresh beacon fire on the venerable walls of Harvard, sacred to truth, to Christ, and the church-to truth immortal, to Christ the Comforter, to the Holy Church Universal. Let the flame spread from steeple to steeple, from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to the holy contests of knowledge, justice, beauty, love.

EULOGY ON LAFAYETTE

BY EDWARD EVERETT

There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name of a great man. What is greatness? Does goodness belong to greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who, I would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through such a career with so little reproach, justly or unjustly bestowed? Are military courage and conduct the measure of greatness? Lafayette was entrusted by Washington with all kinds of service-the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience; the perilous, that demanded nerve; and we see him performing all with entire success, and brilliant repu

tation. Is the readiness to meet vast responsibilities a proof of greatness? The memoirs of Mr. Jefferson show us that there was a moment, in 1789, when Lafayette took upon himself, as the head of the military force, the entire responsibility of laying down the basis of the Revolution. Is the cool and brave administration of gigantic power a mark of greatness? In all the whirlwind of the Revolution, and when, as commander-in-chief of the National Guard, an organized force of three millions of men, who, for any popular purpose, needed but a word, a look, to put them in motion, we behold him ever calm, collected, disinterested; as free from affectation as selfishness, clothed not less with humility than with power. Is the voluntary return, in advancing years, to the direction of affairs, at a moment like that, when, in 1815, the ponderous machinery of the French Empire was flying asunder-stunning, rending, crushing thousands on every side a mark of greatness? Lastly, is it any proof of greatness to be able, at the age of seventythree, to take the lead in a successful and bloodless revolution; to change the dynasty; to organize, exercise, and abdicate a military command of three and a half millions of men; to take up, to perform, and lay down the most momentous, delicate, and perilous duties, without passion, without hurry, without selfishness? Is it great to disregard the bribes of title, office, money; to live, to labor, and suffer for great public ends alone; to adhere to principle under all circumstances; to stand before Europe and America conspicuous for sixty years, in the most responsible stations, the acknowledged admiration of all good men?

But it is more than time, fellow citizens, that I commit. the memory of this great and good man to your unprompted contemplation. On his arrival among you, ten years ago, when your civil fathers, your military, your children, your whole population, poured itself out, in one throng, to salute him; when your cannons proclaimed his advent with joyous salvos, and your acclamations were answered, from steeple to steeple, by festal bells-with what delight did you not listen to his cordial and affectionate words—