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nobly has she borne all her misfortunes. Her throes have been to her but as that second birth of the purer Christian life which never dies. Fairer cities will spring from the ashes of the old; richer and ampler fields will whiten with the vegetable fleece; wider fields of cane will rustle in the night-wind, like rushing waters, and send their sweetness to every clime; schools, factories, and effective implements will crowd into the land; the clumsy log-cabin will give place to the tasteful and comfortable mansion; ancient feuds will be forgotten in the midst of general prosperity and happiness; and a people who fought so bravely for their political principles will prove to the world that they still possess all the elements of a progressive, bright, moral, and enduring nation.

Ex. 17. THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND. — Loring. INE TENTHS of our people, perhaps more, are

N

toiling on the land, or on the sea, in the workshops, in the professions, in all educational institutions, to furnish themselves and their families with subsistence, to create the material wealth of the community, and to elevate, and refine, and organize, and save society. To the productive and cultivating power of these classes everything else stands secondary To them every avenue is open. From this great multitude spring, in each succeeding generation, the foremost men, who accomplish for us in every service the great results.

It is our laborers who become our inventors, anxious to relieve the burdens and quicken the capacity of toil. It is they who, step by step, advance from the simplest, commonest service up to the highest positions in all the great enterprises which make up our busy life. They

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build, and organize, and rise into the control of our railroads; they conduct our mills; they guide our ships; they open the paths for capital; they fill our schools; they apply their ingenuity to the soil; they legislate for us; they rise into the highest seats of power.

The farmer's boy,* to whom neither academy nor college was ever opened, spends his youth in clearing the forests, and his manhood in guiding the councils of his country through a great war. A young village merchant becomes Secretary of the Treasury, and upon his integrity and sagacity the country implicitly relies. The highest judicial officer in the land once labored on the soil. From our work-shops and farms sprang the heroes of the war. And all over the land stand the tasteful and elegant abodes of those who toiled with their own hands to lay the foundation of their prosperity,- of those who have not forgotten to cultivate themselves as they have progressed, and who remember the intellectual and moral and religious wants of the rising generation.

YE

ES, sir! say what you will, this is the day of the merchant. As in early ages war was the great concern of society, and the very pivot of power, so is trade now; and as the chiefs of old were the notables, -placed at the very top of their time, so are the merchants now. All things attest the change. War, which was once the universal business, is now confined to a few; once a daily terror. it is now the accident of an age. Not for adventures of the sword, but for trade, do men descend upon the sea in ships, and traverse broad continents on iron pathways. Not for protection against vio

*Lincoln.

† Boutwell.

+ Chase.

prayers; and trade summons from t cest marble and granite to build i displaying warehouses which outdo and salesrooms which outdo the du

There are now European bankers with the dukes and princes of oth are traffickers everywhere whose ti ledger and the desk,-fit success barons. As the feudal chief took followers the soil, which was the priz so now the merchant, with a gras reaching, takes to himself and follo of every land, triumphantly won by

At this moment, especially in ou chant more than any other character boots of the old feudal chief; of a tions, his is now the most extensi making all others its tributaries, an even the lawyer and the clergyman stipendiaries.

IT

T is eminently true that the lab country like this can profit by not There may be other classes of men w wealth, or from other surroundings, advantages over their fellow-men by

tice and wrong; but the man who labors with his own hands to maintain a family by the sweat of his own brow is interested in nothing so much as justice. For how can he ask justice of the officers of the government, of his fellow-men, if he denies justice in the performance of the duties that devolve upon him?

His interest is in wise laws, honestly administered by faithful public servants, who do their duty under all circumstances; and, above all, it is his interest in laying a firm and deep foundation of the government under the universal system of public instruction. And so long as in Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, in the great Valley of the Mississippi, and upon the slopes of the Pacific, shall be and remain the system of Public Instruction, supported at the public expense, unto which are brought for education the children of the rich and of the poor, where justice is taught as the supreme law of individuals and public life, this nation will remain; it will prosper; it will advance. It will be the guide to the nations of the earth; and if, in the performance of this duty, we falter, there is no security.

It is only by general intelligence, by individual virtue, aggregated and made powerful, that the government, with the rights of the people, can be secure. Laboring men, see that the means of education are furnished to your children and the children of the whole people. Inculcate justice; recognize the great doctrines of independence, that not some, but all men are created equal. Recognize and act upon these great principles, and nothing can shake your government.

Neither the repose of peace can weaken nor the shock of war disturb it. It is more powerful in the intelligence and virtue of the people than any other nation can be. Rule, laboring men, the land in which you dwell, but rule under principles of virtue, guided by intelligence.

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Ex. 20. THE REFORMER.

Greeley.*

HOUGH the life of the reformer may seem rugged

THO

and arduous, it were hard to say considerately that any other were worth living at all. Who can thoughtfully affirm that the career of the conquering, desolating, subjugating warrior; of the devotee of gold, or pomp, or sensual joys; the monarch in his purple, the miser by his chest, is not a libel on humanity, and an offence against God?

But the earnest, unselfish reformer, born into a state of darkness, evil, and suffering, and honestly striving to displace these by light and purity and happiness, may fall and die, as so many have done before him, but he cannot fail. His vindication shall gleam from the walls of his hovel, his dungeon, his tomb; it shall shine in the radiant eyes of uncorrupted childhood, and fall in blessings from the lips of high-hearted generous youth.

As the untimely death of the good is our strongest moral assurance of the resurrection, so the life wearily worn out in a doubtful and perilous conflict with wrong and woe is our most conclusive evidence that wrong and woe shall vanish forever.

Life is a bubble which any breath may dissolve; wealth or power a snow-flake, melting momently into the treacherous deep, across whose waves we are floated on to our unseen destiny; but to have lived so that one less orphan is called to choose between starvation and infamy, one less slave feels the lash applied in mere wantonness or cruelty, to have lived so that some eyes of those whom fame shall never know are brightened.

* Mr. Greeley as a writer and speaker of the purest and tersest English is an excellent model for all who would speak and read well.

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