There will be no

There will be

drugged and silenced on earth, will speak out. doubt nor question as to the right and wrong. no vain excuses, nor any attempt to make them. There will be no more sophistry, no more considerations of expediency, no more pleading of the laws of men and the customs of society, no more talk about organic sins being converted into constructive righteousness, or collective and corporate frauds releasing men from individual responsibilities.

When we see a man, a professed Christian, running a race with the worshippers of wealth and fashion, absorbed in the vanities of the world, or endeavoring to serve both God and mammon, we hear the voice, Step to the capain's office and settle! When we see editors and politicians setting power in the place of goodness, and expediency in the place of justice, and law in the place of equity, and custom in the place of right, putting darkness for light, and evil for good, and tyranny for general benevolence, we think of the day when the issuers of such counterfeit money will be brought to light, and their sophistries and lies exposed, for among the whole tribe of unprincipled politicians there will be great consternation when the call comes to step to the captain's office and settle. When we see unjust rulers in their pride of power fastening chains upon the bondmen, oppressing the poor, and playing their pranks of defiant tyranny before high heaven, then also come these words to mind, like a blast from the last trumpet, Step to the captain's office and settle!

G. B. Cheever.

LE

CCLXI.

JUDICIAL TRIBUNALS.

ET me here say that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme Court of the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with the history of judicial proceedings to regard them with any superstitious reverence. Judges are but men, and in all ages have shown a full share of frailty. Alas! alas! the worst crimes of history have been perpetrated under their sanction. The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the ground, summons them to judgment.

It was a judicial tribunal which condemned Socrates to drink

the fatal hemlock, and which pushed the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of Jerusalem, bending beneath his cross. It was

a judicial tribunal which, against the testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair Virginia as a slave; which arrested the teachings of the great apostle to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judea to Rome; which, in the name of the Old Religion, adjudged the saints and fathers of the Christian Church to death, in all its most dreadful forms; and which afterwards, in the name of the New Religion, enforced the tortures of the Inquisition, amidst the shrieks and agonies of its victims, while it compelled Galileo to declare, in solemn denial of the great truth he had disclosed, that the earth did not move round the sun.

It was a judicial tribunal which, in France, during the long reign of her monarchs, lent itself to be the instrument of every tyranny, as during the brief reign of terror it did not hesitate to stand forth the unpitying accessory of the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a judicial tribunal in England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which sanctioned every despotic caprice of Henry the Eighth, from the unjust divorce of his queen, to the beheading of Sir Thomas More; which lighted the fires of persecution that glowed at Oxford and Smithfield, over the cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rogers; which, after elaborate argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship-money against the patriotic resistance of Hampden; which, in defiance of justice and humanity, sent Sydney and Russell to the block; which persistently enforced the laws of Conformity that our Puritan Fathers persistently refused to obey; and which afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of English history with massacre and murder even with the blood of innocent woman.

Ay, sir, and it was a judicial tribunal in our country, surrounded by all the forms of law, which hung witches at Salem, - which affirmed the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, while it admonished "jurors and the people" to obey, and which now, in our day, has lent its sanction to the unutterable atrocity of the Fugitive Slave Bill.

24

C. Sumner

CCLXII.

WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN.

Extract from a eulogy on President Lincoln, delivered in Boston June 1, 1865.

FOR

OR the second time in our annals, the country has been summoned by the President to unite, on an appointed day, in commemorating the life and character of the dead. The first was on the death of George Washington, when, as now, a day was set apart for simultaneous eulogy throughout the land; and cities, towns, and villages all vied in tribute. More than half a century has passed since this early observance in memory of the Father of his Country, and now it is repeated in memory of Abraham Lincoln.

Thus are Washington and Lincoln associated in the grandeur of their obsequies. But this association is not accidental. It is from the nature of the case, and because the part which Lincoln was called to perform resembled in character the part which was performed by Washington. The work left undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service, kindred in patriotism, each was naturally surrounded at death by kindred homage. One sleeps in the East, the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in death, as in life, one is the complement of the other.

Each was at the head of the Republic during a period of surpassing trial; and each thought only of the public good, simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted devotion to country will always find a synonym in their names. Each was the national chief during a time of successful war. Each was the representative of his country at a great epoch of history.

Unlike in origin, conversation, and character, they were unlike, also, in the ideas they served, except so far as each was the servant of his country. The war conducted by Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln as the peace which crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace which began to smile on the other. The two wars did not differ in the scale of operations, and in the tramp of mustered hosts, more than in the ideas involved. The first was for national independence; the second was to make the republic one and indivisible, on the

indestructible foundations of liberty and equality. In the relation of cause and effect, the first was the natural precursor and herald of the second. By the sword of Washington independence was secured; but the unity of the Republic and the principles of the Declaration were left exposed to question. From that day to this, through various changes, they have been questioned, and openly assailed until at last the Republic was constrained to take up arms in their defence.

Such are these two great wars in which these two chiefs bore such part. Washington fought for national independence, and triumphed making his country an example to mankind. Lincoln drew a reluctant sword to save those great ideas, essential to the life and character of the Republic, which unhappily the sword of Washington had failed to put beyond the reach of assault.

It was by no accident that these two great men became the representatives of their country at these two different epochs, so alike in peril, and yet so unlike in the principles involved. Washington was the natural representative of national independence. He might also have represented national unity had this principle been challenged to bloody battle during his life; for nothing was nearer his heart than the consolidation of our Union, which, in his letter to Congress transmitting the Constitution, he declared to be the "greatest interest of every true American." But another person was needed, of different birth and simpler life, to represent the ideas which in our day have been assailed.

Washington, always strictly just, according to prevailing principles, and ordering at his death the emancipation of his slaves, was a general and a statesman rather than a philanthropist. His origin, his early life, his opportunities, his condition, his character, were all in contrast with the origin, the early life, the opportunities, the condition, and the character of him whom we commemorate to-day.

Mourn not the dead, but rejoice in his life and example. Rejoice as you point to this child of the people, who was lifted so high that republican institutions became manifest in him ! Rejoice that through him emancipation was proclaimed! Above all, see to it that his constant vows are fulfilled, and that the

promises of the fathers are maintained, so that no person in the upright form of men can be shut out from their protection. Then will the unity of the Republic be fixed on a foundation that cannot fail, and other nations will enjoy its security.

The corner stone of national independence is already in its place, and on it is inscribed the name of George Washington. There is another stone which must have its place at the corner also. This is the Declaration of Independence, with all its promises fulfilled. On this stone we will gratefully inscribe the name of Abraham Lincoln.

C. Sumner.

CCLXIII.

LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG.

FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought

forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A. Lincoln.