ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.

Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw we had nothing to fear; and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country.

If we might regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington; if we might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of us all, to account for our conduct, as political men, or as private citizens, how should he answer him, who has ventured to talk of disunion and dismemberment? Or, how should he answer him, who dwells perpetually on local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How should he answer him, who would array state against state, interest against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance of that unity of government which constitutes us one people?

Gentlemen, the political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life, capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest.

But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties; it would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself, hereafter, in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were

but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley.

All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individal security, and public prosperity?

No, gentlemen, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coloseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were éver shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw-the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

But, gentlemen, let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that Gracious Being, who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven, which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty, which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens and lead our country still onward in her happy career.

Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon; so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing to the sea; so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country.

6*

LESSON XXIX.

Wild Horses. - FLINT.

THE day before we came in view of the Rocky mountains, I saw in the greatest perfection that impressive, and, to me, almost sublime spectacle, an immense drove of wild horses, for a long time hovering around our path across the prairie. I had often seen great numbers of them before, mixed with other animals, apparently quiet, and grazing like the rest. Here there were thousands unmixed, unemployed; their motions, if such a comparison might be allowed, as darting, and as wild as those of humming birds on the flowers.

The tremendous snorts, with which the front columns of the phalanx made known their approach to us, seemed to be their wild and energetic way of expressing their pity and disdain, for the servile lot of our horses, of which they appeared to be taking a survey. They were of all colors, mixed, spotted, and diversified with every hue, from the brightest white to clear and shining black; and of every form and structure, from the long and slender racer, to those of firmer limbs and heavier mould; and of all ages, from the curvetting colt, to the range of patriarchal steeds, drawn up in a line, and holding their high heads for a survey of us, in the rear.

Sometimes they curved their necks, and made no more progress than just enough to keep pace with our advance. Then there was a kind of slow and walking minuet, in which they performed various evolutions, with the precision of the figures of a country dance. Then a rapid movement shifted the front to the rear. But still, in all their evolutions and movements, like the flight of sea-fowl, their lines were regular, and free from all indications of confusion.

At times a spontaneous and sudden movement towards us, almost inspired the apprehension of an united attack upon us. After a moment's advance, a snort and a rapid retrograde movement seemed to testify their proud estimate of their wild independence. The infinite variety of their rapid movements, their tamperings and manoeuvres, were of such a wild and almost terrific character, that it required but a moderate stretch of fancy, to suppose them the genii of these grassy plains.

At one period they were formed, for an immense depth in

front of us. A wheel, executed almost with the rapidity of thought, presented them hovering on our flanks. Then, again, the cloud of dust, that enveloped their movements, cleared away, and presented them in our rear. They evidently operated as a great annoyance to the horses and mules of our cavalcade. The frighted movements, the increased indications of fatigue, sufficiently evidenced, with their frequent neighings, what unpleasant neighbors they considered their wild compatriots to be.

So much did our horses appear to suffer from fatigue and terror, in consequence of their vicinity, that we were thinking of some way in which to drive them off; when on a sudden, a patient and laborious donkey of the establishment, who appeared to have regarded all their movements with philosophic indifference, pricked up his long ears, and gave a loud and most sonorous bray from his vocal shells. Instantly this prodigious multitude, and there were thousands of them, took what the Spanish call the stompado.' With a trampling like the noise of thunder, or still more like that of an earthquake, a noise that was absolutely appalling, they took to their heels, and were all in a few moments invisible in the verdant depths of the plains, and we saw them no more.

6

LESSON XXX.

National Recollections the foundation of National Character. E. EVERETT.

AND how is the spirit of a free people to be formed, and animated, and cheered, but out of the store-house of its historic recollections? Are we to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermopyla; and going back to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin of the exemplars of patriotic virtue?

I thank God that we can find them nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil;-that strains of the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man, are breathing to us out of every page of our country's history, in the native eloquence of our mother tongue;-that the colonial and provincial councils of America exhibit to us models of the spirit and character, which gave Greece and Rome their name

and their praise among the nations. Here we ought to go for our instruction;-the lesson is plain, it is clear, it is applicable.

When we go to ancient history, we are bewildered with the difference of manners and institutions. We are willing to pay our tribute of applause to the memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his country, in the face of his foe. But, when we trace him to his home, we are confounded at the reflection, that the same Spartan heroism, to which he sacrificed himself at Thermopylæ, would have led him to tear his own child, if it had happened to be a sickly babe,—the very object for which all that is kind and good in man rises up to plead, from the bosom of its mother, and carry it out to be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus.

We feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at Marathon, by the ten thousand champions of invaded Greece; but we cannot forget that the tenth part of the number were slaves, unchained from the workshops and doorposts of their masters, to go and fight the battles of freedom.

I do not mean that these examples are to destroy the interest with which we read the history of ancient times; they possibly increase that interest by the very contrasts they exhibit. But they do warn us, if we need the warning, to seek our great practical lessons of patriotism at home; out of the exploits and sacrifices of which our own country is the theatre; out of the characters of our own fathers.

Them we know,—the high-souled, natural, unaffected, the citizen heroes. We know what happy firesides they left for the cheerless camp. We know with what pacific habits they dared the perils of the field. There is no mystery, no romance, no madness, under the name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute, manly resistance for conscience' and liberty's sake, not merely of an overwhelming power, but of all the force of long-rooted habits, and native love of order and peace.

Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we tread; it beats in our veins; it cries to us not merely in the thrilling words of one of the first victims in this cause,-'My sons, scorn to be slaves!'-but it cries with a still more moving eloquence- 'My sons, forget not your fathers!' Fast, oh! too fast, with all our efforts to prevent it, their precious memories are dying away. Notwithstanding our numerous written memorials, much of what is known of those eventful times dwells but in the recollections of a few