I care not how fickle other people have been found: I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and can not be eradicated. Every colony,, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration of Independence will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the spirit of life. Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of relig ious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it, who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.

But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured, that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly com

pensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judgment approves the measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment independence now, and independence forever.

-Webster.

CX.-ROLLA'S ADDRESS TO THE PERUVIANS.

My brave associates, partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No; you have judged as I have the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours.

They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule; we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love; a God whom we adore. Whene'er they move in anger, desolation marks their progress! Whene'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship.

They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection. Yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs-covering and devouring them.

They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved for the desperate chance of something better, which they promise. Be our plain answer this: The throne we honor is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them, too, we seek no change; and, least of all, such change as they would bring us.

-Knowles.

CXI. NECESSITY OF RELIGION.

GENTLEMEN, it is not because I would prevent religious instruction, but because I would prevent the union of church and state, that I oppose this bill. So far from wishing to proscribe religious instruction, I maintain that it is more essential at this day than ever. The more a man grows, the more he ought to believe. As he draws nearer to God, the better ought he to recognize His existence. is the wretched tendency of our times to base all calculations, all efforts, on this life only,-to crowd every thing into this narrow span. In limiting man's end and aim to this terrestrial and material existence, we aggravate all his miseries by the terrible negation at its close. We add to the burthens of the unfortunate the insupportable weight of a hopeless hereafter. God's law of suffering we convert, by our unbelief, into hell's law of despair. Hence these deplorable social convulsions.

That I am one of those who desire-I will not say with sincerity merely, but, with inexpressible ardor, and by all possible means—to ameliorate the material condition of the suffering classes in this life, no one in this Assembly will doubt. But the first and greatest of ameliorations is to impart hope. How do our finite miseries dwindle in the presence of an infinite hope! Our first duty, then, whether we be clergymen or laymen, bishops or legislators, priests or writers, is not merely to direct all our social energies to the abatement of physical misery, but, at the same time, to lift every drooping head towards heaven,-to fix the attention and the faith of every human soul on that ulterior life where justice shall preside, where justice shall be awarded! Let us proclaim it aloud to all, No one shall unjustly or needlessly suffer! Death is restitution. The law of the material world is gravitation; of the moral world, equity. At the end of all, re-appears God. Let us not forget-let us everywhere teach it-There would be no dignity in life, it would not be worth the holding, if in death we wholly perish. All that lightens labor and sanctifies toil, all that renders man brave, good, wise, patient, benevolent, just, humble, and, at the same time, great, worthy of intelligence, worthy of liberty,-is to have perpetually before him the vision of a better world darting its rays of celestial splendor through the dark shadows of this present life.

For myself, since Chance will have it that words of such gravity should at this time fall from lips of such little authority, let me be permitted here to say, and to proclaim from the elevation of this Tribune, that I believe, that I most profoundly and reverently believe in that better world. It is to me more real, more substantial, more positive in its effects, than this evanescence which we cling to and call life. It is unceasingly before my eyes. I believe in it with all the strength of my convictions; and, after many struggles, and much study and experience, it is the

supreme certainty of my reason, as it is the supreme consolation of my soul!

I desire, therefore, most sincerely, strenuously, and fervently that there should be religious instruction; but let it be the instruction of the gospel, and not of a party. Let it be sincere, not hypocritical. Let it have heaven, not earth, for its end. -Victor Hugo.

CXII. NATURE A HARD CREDITOR.

NATURE admits no lie. Most men profess to be aware of this, but few in any measure lay it to heart. Except in the departments of mere material manipulation, it seems to be taken practically as if this grand truth were merely a polite flourish of rhetoric. Nature keeps silently a most exact savings-bank and official register, correct to the most evanescent item, debtor and creditor, in respect to one and all of us; silently marks down, creditor by such and such an unseen act of veracity and heroism; debtor to such a loud, blustery blunder, twenty-seven million strong or one unit strong, and to all acts and words and thoughts executed in consequence of that,-debtor, debtor, debtor, day after day, rigorously as fate (for this is fate that is writing); and at the end of the account you will have it all to pay, my friend;-there is the rub! Not the infinitesimalest fraction of a farthing but will be found marked there, for you and against you; and with the due rate of interest you will have to pay it, neatly, completely, as sure as you are alive. You will have to pay it even in money, if you live: and, poor slave, do you think there is no payment but in money? There is a payment which nature rigorously exacts of men, and also of nations,-and this I think when her wrath is sternest,-in the shape of dooming you to possess money :-to possess it; to have your bloated vanities fos