wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman, he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. 6. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created' "How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, 7. Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism! LESSON CXXIX. THE WRECK OF THE ARCTIC. H. W. BEECHER 1. Ir was autumn. Hundreds had wended their way from pilgrimages; from Rome and its treasures of dead art, and its glory of living nature; from the sides of the Switzer's mountains, from the capitals of various nations all of them saying in their hearts, we will wait for the September gales to have done with their equinoctial fury, and then we will embark; we will slide across the appeased ocean, and in the gorgeous month of October, we will greet our longed-for native laud, and our heart-loved homes. 2. And so the throng streamed along from Berlin, from Paris, from the Orient, converging upon London, still hastening toward the welcome ship, and narrowing every day the circle of engagements and preparations. They crowded aboard. Never had the Arctic borne such a host of passengers, nor passengers so nearly related to so many of us. 3. The hour was come. The signal ball fell at Greenwich. It was noon also at Liverpool. The anchors were weighed ; the great hull swayed to the current; the national colors streamed abroad, as if themselves instinct with life and national sympathy. The bell strikes; the wheels revolve; the signal gun beats its echoes in upon every structure along the shore, and the Arctic glides joyfully forth from the Mersey, and turns her prow to the winding channel, and begins her homeward run. The pilot stood at the wheel, and men saw him. Death sat upon the prow, and no eye beheld him. Whoever stood at the wheel in all the voyage, Death was the pilot that steered the craft, and none knew it. He neither revealed his presence nor whispered his errand. 4. And so hope was effulgent, and lithe gayety disported it self, and joy was with every guest. Amid all the inconvenien cies of the voyage, there was still that which hushed every murmur-home is not far away. And every morning it was still one night nearer home, and at evening one day nearer home! Eight days had passed. They beheld that distant bank of mist that forever haunts the vast shallows of Newfoundland. Boldly they made it, and plunging in, its pliant wreaths wrapped them about. They shall never emerge. The last sunlight has flashed from that deck. The last voyage is done to ship and passengers. At noon there came noiselessly stealing from the north that fated instrument of destruction. In that mysterious shroud, that vast atmosphere of mist, both steamers were holding their way with rushing prow and roaring wheels, but invisible. 5. At a league's distance, unconscious, and at nearer approach unwarned; within hail, and bearing right toward each other, unseen, unfelt, till in a moment more, emerging from the gray mists, the ill-omened Vesta dealt her deadly stroke to the Arctic. The death-blow was scarcely felt along the mighty hull. She neither reeled nor shivered. Neither commander nor officers deemed that they had suffered harm. Prompt upon humanity, the brave Luce (let his name be ever spoken with admiration and respect,) ordered away his boat with the first officer to inquire if the stranger had suffered harm. As Gourley went over the ship's side, O that some good angel had called to the brave commander in the words of Paul on a like occasion, except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” 66 6. They departed, and with them the hope of the ship, for now the waters gaining upon the hold and rising up upon the fires, revealed the mortal blow. O, had now that stern, brave mate, Gourley, been on deck, whom the sailors were wont to mind—had he stood to execute efficiently the commander's will -we may believe that we should not have to blush for the cowardice and recreancy of the crew, nor weep for the untimely dead. But, apparently, each subordinate officer lost all presence of mind, then courage, and so honor. In a wild scramble, that ignoble mob of firemen, engineers, waiters and crew rushed for the boats, and abandoned the helpless women, children and men to the mercy of the deep! Four hours there were from the catastrophe of the collision to the catastrophe of SINKING! 6. Oh, what a burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green-fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burialplace. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and left the sea as if it had not been. LESSON CXXX. THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. . PHILLIPS. 1. THERE is, however, one subject connected with this trial, public in its nature, and universal in its interest, which imperiously calls for an exemplary verdict; I mean the liberty of the press a theme which I approach with mingled sensations of awe, and agony, and admiration. Considering all that we too fatally have seen-all that, perhaps, too fearfully we may have cause to apprehend, I feel myself cling to that residuary safeguard, with an affection no temptation can seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lull, with a fortitude that peril but infuriates. 2. In the direful retrospect of experimental despotism, and the hideous prospect of its possible reänimation, I clasp it with the desperation of a widowed female, who, in the desolation of her house, and the destruction of her household, hurries the last of her offspring through the flames, at once the relic of her joy, the depository of her wealth, and the remembrancer of her happiness. It is the duty of us all to guard strictly this mes timable privilege-a privilege which can never be destroyed, save by the licentiousness of those who willfully abuse it. 3. No, it is not in the arrogance of power-no, it is not in the artifices of law-no, it is not in the fatuity of princes-no it is not in the venality of parliaments--to crush this mighty, this majestic privilege! Reviled, it will remonstrate; murdered, it will revive; buried, it will reäscend. The very atteript at its oppression, will prove the truth of its immortality; and the atom that presumed to spurn, will fade away before the trumpet of its retribution. Man holds it on the same principle that he does his soul: the powers of this world cannot prevail against it, it can only perish through its own depravity. 4. What, then shall be his fate, through whose instrumentality it shall be sacrificed? Nay, more, what shall be his fate, who, intrusted with the guardianship of its security, becomes the traitorous accessory to its ruin? Nay, more, what shall be his fate by whom its powers, delegated for the public good, are converted into the calamities of private virtue; against whom, industry denounced, merit undermined, morals calumniated, piety aspersed, all through the means confided for their protection, cry aloud for vengeance? What shall be his fate? Oh, I would hold such a monster, so protected, so sanctified, and so sinning, as I would some demon, who, going forth, consecrated in the name of Deity, the book of life on his lips, and the dagger of death beneath his robe, awaits the sigh of piety as the signal of plunder, and unveins the heart's blood of confiding adoration. LESSON CXXXI. THE PUBLIC INFORMER. CURRAN. 1. BUT the learned gentleman is further pleased to say, that the traverser has charged the government with the encourage ment of informers. This, gentlemen, is another small fact that |