suited to such an hour as this. I shall endeavor to atone for it by turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn, or revolution alter. 2. It is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the garland of the great; and, surely, even in the eyes of its deity, his grape is not the less lovely when glowing beneath the foliage of the palm tree and the myrtle. Allow me to add one flower to the chaplet, which, though it sprung in America, is no exotic. Virtue planted it, and it is naturalized every where. I see you anticipate me--I see you concur with me, that it matters very little what immediate spot may be the birth-place of such a man as Washington. 3. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared; how bright in the brow of the fir mament was the planet which it revealed to us! 4. In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were-splendid exemplifications of some single qualification-Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely chef d'œuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. 5. As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman, he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. 6. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created! "How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, 7. Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism! LESSON CXXIX. THE WRECK OF THE ARCTIC. H. W. BEECHER. 1. Ir was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages; from Rome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains, from the capitals of various nations; all of them saying in their hearts, we will wait for the September gales to have done with their equinoctial fury, and then we will embark; we will slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October, we will greet our longed-for native land, and our heart-loved homes. 2. And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship, and narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. 3. The hour was come. The signal ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors were weighed; the great hull swayed to the current; the national colors streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy. The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the signal gun beats its echoes in upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence nor whispered his errand. 4. And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety disported itself, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconveniencies of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur-home is not far away. And every morning it was still one night nearer home, and at evening one day nearer home! Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it, and plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about, They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible. 5. At a league's distance, un conscious, and at nearer approach unwarned; within hail, and bearing right toward each other, unseen, unfelt, till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect,) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, O that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, "except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." 6. They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters gaining upon the hold and rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. O, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind--had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will -we may believe that we should not have to blush for the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters and crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, chil dren and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the catastrophe of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING! 6. Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green-fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial. place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been. LESSON CXXX. THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. PHILLIPS. 1. THERE is, however, one subject connected with this trial, public in its nature, and universal in its interest, which imperiously calls for an exemplary verdict; I mean the liberty of the press- -a theme which I approach with mingled sensations of awe, and agony, and admiration. Considering all that we too fatally have seen-all that, perhaps, too fearfully we may have cause to apprehend, I feel myself cling to that residuary safeguard, with an affection no temptation can seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lull, with a fortitude that peril but infuriates. 2. In the direful retrospect of experimental despotism, and the hideous prospect of its possible reänimation, I clasp it with the desperation of a widowed female, who, in the desolation of her house, and the destruction of her household, hurries the last of her offspring through the flames, at once the relic of her joy, the depository of her wealth, and the remembrancer of her happiness. It is the duty of us all to guard strictly this inestimable privilege-a privilege which can never be destroyed, save by the licentiousness of those who willfully abuse it. 3. No, it is not in the arrogance of power-no, it is not in |