3. Liberty, property, life and honor, are all at stake. Upon your courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country. Our wives, children and parents, expect safety from us only; and they have every reason to believe that heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is badtheir men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works, and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire until he is sure of doing execution.

WASHINGTON.

CXXIX.-LIBERTY AND UNION.

1. I PROFESS, ~, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view, the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, 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 although 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.

2. 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 KIDD.-25

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 should be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people, when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

3. 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 vail. 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 at land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, 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 every where spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, 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!

WEBSTER.

CXXX.-DEATH OF JOHN Q. ADAMS.

1. MR. SPEAKER: The mingled tones of sorrow, like the voice of many waters, have come unto us from a sister state, -Massachusetts, weeping for her honored son. The state

I have the honor in part to represent once endured, with yours, a common suffering, battled for a common cause, and rejoiced in a common triumph. Surely, then, it is meet, that in this the day of your affliction, we should mingle our griefs.

2. When a great man falls, the nation mourns; when a patriarch is removed, the people weep. Ours, my associates, is no common bereavement. The chain which linked our hearts with the gifted spirits of former times has been suddenly snapped. The lips from which flowed those living and glorious truths that our fathers uttered are closed in death.

3. Yes, my friends, Death has been among us! He has not entered the humble cottage of some unknown, ignoble peasant; he has knocked audibly at the palace of a nation! His footstep has been heard in the halls of state! He has cloven down his victim in the midst of the councils of a

people. He has borne in triumph from among you the gravest, wisest, most reverend head. Ah! he has taken him as a trophy who was once chief over many statesmen, adorned with virtue, and learning, and truth; he has borne at his chariot wheels a renowned one of the earth.

4. How often have we crowded into that aisle, and clustered around that now vacant desk, to listen to the counsels of wisdom as they fell from the lips of the venerable sage, we can all remember, for it was but of yesterday. But what a change! How wondrous! how sudden! 'Tis like a vision of the night. That form which we beheld but a few days since, is now cold in death!

5. But the last sabbath, and in this hall he worshiped with others. Now his spirit mingles with the noble army of martyrs and the just made perfect, in the eternal adoration of the living God. With him, "this is the end of earth." He sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. He is gone and forever! The sun that ushers in the morn of that next holy day, while it gilds the lofty dome of the capitol, shall rest with soft and mellow light upon the consecrated spot beneath whose turf forever lies the PATRIOT FATHER and the PATRIOT SAGE.

L. E. HOLMES

CXXXI-MORAL EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.

1. THE sufferings of animal nature, occasioned by intem. perance, are not to be compared with the moral agonies, which convulse the soul. It is an immortal being, whe sins, and suffers; and, as his earthly house dissolves, he is approaching the judgment-seat, in anticipation of a miserable eternity.

2. He feels his captivity, and, in anguish of spirit, clanks his chain, and cries for help. Conscience thunders, remorse goads, and, as the gulf opens before him, he recoils, and trembles, and weeps, and prays, and resolves, and promises, and reforms, and "seeks it yet again;" again resolves, and weeps, and prays, and "seeks it yet again!"

3. Wretched man! he has placed himself in the hands of a giant, who never pities, and never relaxes his iron gripe. He may struggle, but he is in chains. He may cry for release, but it comes not; and lost! lost! may be inscribed on the door-posts of his dwelling.

4. In the meantime, these paroxysms of his dying nature decline, and a fearful apathy, the harbinger of spiritual death, comes on. His resolution fails, and his mental energy, and his vigorous enterprise; and nervous irritation and depression ensue. The social affections lose their fullness and tenderness, and conscience loses its power, and the heart its sensibility, until all that was once lovely, and of good report, retires and leaves the wretch, abandoned to the appetites of a ruined animal.

5. In this deplorable condition, reputation expires, busi ness falters, and becomes perplexed, and temptations to drink multiply, as inclination to do so increases, and the power of resistance declines. And now the vortex roars, and the struggling victim buffets the fiery wave, with feebler stroke, and warning supplication, until despair flashes upon his soul, and, with an outcry that pierces the heavens, he ceases to strive, and disappears.

L. BEECHER.

DRAMATIC AND RHETORICAL.

CXXXII.-BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

1. THE warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire,

And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire; "I bring thee here my fortress-keys, I bring my captive train, I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord!-0! break my father's chain !"

2. "Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed man, this day!

Mount thy good horse; and thou and I will meet him on his way."
Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,
And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy speed.

3. And lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band,

With one that 'midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land; "Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he, The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned so long to see."

4. His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's hue came and went;

He reached that gray-haired chieftain's side, and there, dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took-
What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?

5. That hand was cold-a frozen thing-it dropped from his like lead!

He looked up to the face above-the face was of the dead!

A plume waved o'er the noble brow-the brow was fixed and

white;

He met, at last, his father's eyes-but in them was no sight!

6. Up from the ground he sprang and gazed; but who could paint that gaze?

They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and amazeThey might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood; For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the

blood.