ON 52. ENGLAND'S DOOM. N that great and dreadful Day of the Lord, when nations as well as individuals shall be placed at the bar of God to be judged according to their works, England will have an awful account to render of her stewardship. Her impover ished and downtrodden population within her own borders, the crushed and degraded millions whom she has enslaved in India, and the widows and orphans whom she has made throughout the world, in her reckless career of ambition, will all rise up in judgment against her. 2. The nations of the civilized earth will stand up too, and will bear evidence to her hard-hearted and relentless avarice, to her utter disregard of the most solemn promises and treaties, to her all-grasping spirit of aggrandizement, and to her entire recklessness as to the means by which her ends were to be attained. 3. And on that awful day of final reckoning, the voice of poor crushed and bleeding Ireland shall be heard pleading, with all the earnest eloquence of truth, that justice, swift and terrible, may at length fall on the head of that unnatural stepdame, to whose wanton cruelty, griping avarice, and iron policy she owes most of the wrongs which have weighed her down for centuries. 4. What will England say, when all these terrible witnesses shall appear against her, and when the ghosts of her countless murdered victims shall glare at her "with their fiery eyeballs?" What answer shall she give when the long and darl roll of her iniquities towards Ireland shall be unfolded befor the judgment-seat of the most just, omnipotent, and all-seeing God of heaven and earth? Will her diplomacy then profit her any thing? 5. Will those cunning devices and that political legerdemain by which, on this earth, she has so often succeeded in making "the worse appear the better cause," then avail her aught? No, no. The Lord will then tear from her brow the veil of hypocrisy which has so long concealed her hideous de formities; He will strip her of all disguise, and exhibit her as she is before the assembled world; for on that day "He will reveal the hidden things of darkness, and manifest the counsels of hearts." 6. And then shall proud England be humbled even unto the lust, and poor bleeding Ireland, which has been downtrodden by her for nearly seven centuries, be raised up from her lowli ness to the lofty eminence to which her noble virtues and her long sufferings have entitled her. This is no mere flight of elevated fancy; it is a solemn and sober religious view of a subject invested with an all-absorbing interest. ABP. SPALDING. 53. A NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. FELLOW ELLOW-CITIZENS: let us seize this occasion to renew to each other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American Union, and let us recognize in our common title to the name and the fame of Washington, and in our common veneration for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal power which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in one glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about to construct be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union! 2. Let the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and riveted in a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the rising sun,-till that sun shall set to rise no more,draw forth from it daily, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony which shall strike a responsive chord in every heart throughout the republic! 3. Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you have assembled. Lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall adequately bespeak the gratitude of the whole American people to the illustrious Father of his country! Build it to the skies; you cannot outreach the loftiness of his principles! Found it upon the massive eternal rock; you cannot make it more enduring than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble; you cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and principles of ancient and of modern art; you cannot make it more proportionate than his character. 4. But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to transfer to a tablet or a column the tribute which is due from yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his example. He has built his own monument. We, and those who come after us, in successive generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians. The wide-spread republic is the future monument to Washington. 5. Maintain its independence. Uphold its Constitution. Preserve its union. Defend its liberty. Let it stand before the world in all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order, equality, and freedom to all within its boundaries, and shedding light, and hope, and joy upon the pathway of human liberty throughout the world, and Washington needs no other monument. Other structures may fully testify our veneration for him; this, this alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind. 6. Nor does he need even this. The republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged Union may fall; star by star, its glories may expire; stone by stone, its columns and its capitol may molder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals may be forgotten, but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongue shall anywhere plead for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those tongues prolong the fame, of GEORGE WASHINGTON. R. C. WINTHROP. THE 54. WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO HIS ARMY. THE chieftain gazed with moistened eyes upon the veteran band, Who with him braved the battle's storm for God and native land; At last the parting hour had come-from prairie, mount, and sea, The glad shout burst from countless hearts: "Our land-our land is free !" II. Then up from every altar rose a hymn of praise to God, sod; The stormy strife of grief and gloom, of blood and death, was o'er The heroes who survived its wrath might seek their homes once more. III. With bared heads bowed, and swelling hearts, they gathered round their chief; The parting day to them was one of mingled joy and grief; They thought of all his love and care, his patience sorely tried, Of how he shared their wants and woes, and with them death defied. IV. They looked back to that fearful night when 'mid the storm he stood, Beside the icy Delaware, to guide them o'er its flood Back to red fields where, thick as leaves upon an autumn day, The tawny savage warriors and British foemen lay. V. They thought of many a cheerless camp, where lay the sick and dead, Where oft that form was bent o'er many a sufferer's bed; Well had he won the deathless love of all that patriot bandTheir friend and guide, their nation's hope, the savior of their land. VI. He, too, saw all they had endured to break their country's chains Their naked footprints stamped in blood on Jersey's frozen plains; The gloomy huts at Valley Forge, where winter's icy breath Froze many a brave heart's crimson flow, chained many an arm in death. VII. Aud looking on their war-thinned ranks, he sighed for those who fell; It stirred the depths of his great heart to say the word "farewell:" He saw strong men, who, facing death, had never thought of fear, Dash from their scarred and sun-browned cheeks the quickly. gushing tear. VIII. He stood in the receding boat, his noble brow laid bare, And the wild fingers of the breeze tossing his silv'ry hair; . While to his trusty followers, the sternly tried and true, Whose sad eyes watched him from the shore, he waved a last adieu. IX. Earth showed no laurelled conqueror so truly great as he Who laid the sword and power aside when once his land was free Who calmly sought his quiet home when freedom's fight was won, While with one voice the nation cried: "God bless our WASHINGTON !" UNA |