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doubt! what silent grief and loud lament! what fierce conflicts and subtle schemes of policy! what private and public revolutions! In the period through which many of us have passed, what thrones have been shaken! what hearts have bled! what millions have been butchered by their fellowcreatures! what hopes of philanthrophy have been blighted ! And, at the same time, what magnificent enterprises have been achieved! what new provinces won to science and art! what rights and liberties secured to nations!

2. It is a privilege to have lived in an age so stirring, so pregnant, so eventful. It is an age never to be forgotten. Its voice of warning and encouragement is never to die. Its impression on history is indelible. Amidst its events, the American Revolution, the first distinct, solemn assertion of the rights of men, and the French Revolution, that volcanic force which shook the earth to its center, are never to pass from men's minds. Over this age, the night will in deed gather more and more as time rolls away; but in that night, two forms will appear,- Washington and Napoleon,the one, a lurid meteor, the other, a benign, serene, and undecaying star.

3. Another American name will live in history, — your Franklin; and the kite, which brought lightning from heaven, will be seen sailing in the clouds by remote posterity, when the city where he dwelt may be known only by its ruins. There is, however, something greater in the age than its greatest men; it is the appearance of a new power in the world, the appearance of a multitude of men on that stage where, as yet, the few have acted their parts alone.

4. This influence is to endure to the end of time. What more of the present is to survive? Perhaps much of which we now take no note. The glory of an age is often hidden from itself. Perhaps some word has been spoken in our day which we have not deigned to hear, but which is to grow clearer and louder through all ages. Perhaps some

silent thinker among us is at work in his closet, whose name is to fill the earth. Perhaps there sleeps in his cradle some reformer, who is to move the church and the world; who is to open a new era in history; who is to fire the human soul with new hope and new daring.

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[Argumentative. See Rule 3, p. 169.]

1. We are asked, what have we gained by the war?* I have shown that we have lost nothing, either in rights, territory, or honor; nothing, for which we ought to have contended, according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war. What is our present situation? Respectability and character abroad; security and confidence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion of some, the full measure of retribution, our character and constitution are placed on a solid basis, never to be shaken.

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2. The glory acquired by our gallant tars on the sea, by our Jacksons and our Browns on the land, is that nothing? True we had our vicissitudes: there are humiliating events which the patriot cannot review without deep regret; but the great account when it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate from the proud pages of our history, the brilliant

The war of 1812.

Is

achievements of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea whom I cannot enumerate? there a man who could not desire a participation in the national glory acquired by the war? Yes, national glory, which, however the expression may be condemned by some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot.

*

3. What do I mean by national glory? Glory such as Hull, Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insensible to their deeds, to the value of them in animating the country in the hour of peril hereafter? Did the battle of Thermopyla † preserve Greece but once? While the Mississippi continues to bear the tributes of the Iron mountains and the Alleghanies to her delta, and to the Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen, in driving the presumptuous invader from our country's soil.

4. Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown, afford no pleasure? Every act of noble sacrifice of the country, every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the country's inheritance. They awe foreign powers; they arouse and animate our own people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment which ought to be cherished; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, and attempts to put it down, it will rise triumphant, and finally conduct this nation to that height, to which nature and nature's God have destined it.

Per'ry, the hero who commanded the American fleet on Lake Erie, and, in s very severe engagement, took the British fleet, September 10, 1813.

Ther-mcp'y-le. See note, p. 119.

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1. "It is impossible!" said one of Napoleon's staff-officers, in reply to his great commander's description of a plan for some daring enterprise. "IMPOSSIBLE!" cried the emperor, with indignation frowning on his brow, "Impossible is the adjective of fools!"

2. This may be an apocryphal anecdote of the imperial conqueror; but it is, at least, characteristic. Every young man who hopes to stand triumphant at the goal of life, must possess a measure of this energy, proportionate to the exigencies of his condition.

3. Energy is force of character,- inward power. It imparts such a concentration of the will, upon the realization of an idea, as enables the individual to march unawed over the most gigantic barriers, or to crush every opposing force that stands in the way of its triumph. of nothing but success; it never yields its purpose.

Energy knows

4. Longfellow's "Excelsior" is a beautiful embodiment of the idea of energy. Its hero is a young man seeking genuine excellence; proving himself superior to the love of ease, the blandishments of passion, and the sternest outward difficulties. You behold him ascending the rugged steeps of the upper Alps, at the dangerous hour of twilight. In his hand he bears a banner, whose strange device, "Excelsior," is the visible expression of his noble purpose to attain the height of human excellence.

5. His brow is sad; his eyes are gleaming with the light of lofty thought; his step is firm and elastic; while his deep, earnest cry, "Excelsior!" rings with startling effect among the surrounding crags and glaciers. Ease, in the form of

an enchanting cottage with its cheerful fireside, invites him to relax his effort. Danger frowns upon him from the brow of the awful avalanche, and from the "pine-tree's withered branch." Caution, in the person of an aged Alpine peasant, shouts in his ear and bids him beware; while Love, in the form of a gentle maiden with heaving breast and bewitching voice, wooes him to her quiet bowers.

6. But vain are the seductions of love, the voice of fear, or the aspects of danger. Regardless of each and of all, animated by his sublime aims, intent on success, he only grasps his mysterious banner more firmly, and bounds with swifter step along the dangerous steep. Through falling snows, along unseen paths, amid intense darkness, beside the most horrible chasms, he pursues his way, cheering his spirit, and startling the ear of night with his battle-cry, "EXCELSIOR!”

7. Thus, you see, that energy is the soul of every great enterprise; while enervation only enfeebles the spirit, and dooms the man to obscurity and ill-success. Should any young man desire a confirmation of these ideas, let him carefully study the history of every man who has written his name on the walls of the Temple of Fame. Let him view such minds in their progress toward greatness. He will see them rising, step by step, in the face of stubborn difficulties which gave way before them, only because their courage would not be daunted, nor their energy wearied. He will find no exception in the history of mankind.

8. Supine, powerless souls have always fainted before hostile circumstances, and sunk beneath their opportunities; while men of power have wrestled with sublime vigor, against all opposing men and things, and succeeded in their noble efforts, because they would not be defeated.

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