Imatges de pàgina
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hill-sides; no blooming orchards, as at the present day, wore the livery of Eden, and loaded the breeze with sweet odors; no rich pastures nor waving crops stretched beneath the eye, along the way-side, from village to village, as if Nature had been spreading her halls with a carpet fit to be pressed by the footsteps of her descending God! The beauty and the bloom of the year had passed. The earth, not yet subdued by culture, bore upor. its untilled bosom nothing but a dismal forest, that mocked their hunger with rank and unprofitable vegetation. The sun was hot in the heavens. The soil was parched; and the hand of man had not yet taught its secret springs to flow from their fountains. The wasting disease of the heart-sick mariner was upon the men; and the women and children thought of the pleasant homes of England, as they sunk down from day to day, and died, at last, for want of a cup of cold water, in this melancholy land of promise.

EXERCISE XXII.

VALEDICTORY ADDRESS.

We thank you, friends, who have come hither on this occasion, to encourage and cheer us with your presence. We thank you, who have gone so far and learned so much, on your journey of life, that you so kindly look back and smile upon us just setting out on our pilgrimage. We thank you who have climbed so high up the Hill of Science, that you condescend to pause a moment in your course, and bestow a cheering, animating glance on us, who, almost invisible in the distance, are toiling over the roughness of the first ascent. May you go on your way in peace, your path, like the sun, waxing brighter and brighter till the perfect day; and may the light of your example long linger in blessings on those of us who shall survive to take your places in the broad and busy world!

We thank you, respected instructors, for your paternal care, your faithful counsels, and affectionate instructions. You have opened before us those ways of wisdom which

are full of pleasantness and peace. You have warned us of danger, when dangers beset our path; you have removed obstacles, when obstacles impeded our progress; you have corrected us when in error, and cheered us when discouraged. You have told us of the bright rewards of knowledge and virtue, and of the fearful recompense of ignorance and vice. In the name of my companions, I thank you — warmly, sincerely thank you for it all. Our lips cannot express the gratitude that glows within our hearts; but we will endeavor, with the blessing of Heaven, to testify it in our future lives by dedicating all that we are, and all that we may attain, to the promotion of virtue and the good of mankind.

And now, beloved companions, I turn to you. Long and happy has been our connection as members of this school; but with this day it must close forever. No longer shall we sit in these seats to listen to the voice that woos us to be wise; no more shall we sport together on the noisy green, or wander in the silent grove. Other scenes, other society, other pursuits, await us. We must part; - but parting shall only draw closer the ties that bind us. The setting sun and the evening star, which have so often witnessed our social intimacies and joys, shall still remind us of the scenes that are past. While we live on the earth, may we cherish a grateful remembrance of each other; and, oh! in Heaven, may our friendship be purified and perpetuated! And now, to old and young, to patrons and friends, to instructors and associates, we tender our reluctant and affectionate farewell.

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EXERCISE XXIII.

THE PEOPLE IN THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM.

In the prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling splendor of their array, there is something revolting to the reflective mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate, the mercenary, the depraved; an iron slavery, by the name of subordination, merges the free will of one hundred thousand men in the unquali

fied despotism of one; the humanity, mercy, and remorse, which scarce ever desert the individual bosom, ale sounds without a meaning, to that fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army. It is hard to say who are most to be commiserated, the wretched people on whom it is let loose, or the still more wretched people, whose substance has been sucked out to nourish it into strength and fury.

But, in the efforts of the people, of the people struggling for their rights, moving not in organized, disciplined masses, but in their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart, — though I like not war, nor any of its works, there is something glorious. They can then move forward without orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming lines of battle, without entrenchments to cover, or walls to shield them.

No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home, where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars; no long service in the ranks of a conqueror has turned the veteran's heart into marble; their valor springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a life knit by no pledges to the life of others; but in the strength and spirit of the cause alone, they act, they contend, they bleed. In this, they conquer.

The people always conquer. They always must conquer. Armies may be defeated; kings may be overthrown, and new dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people never invade; and when they rise against the invader, are never subdued.

If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks, and everlasting hills, are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket, their palisado; and nature, God, is their ally. Now he overwhelms the hosts of their enemies beneath his drifting mountains of

sand; now he buries them beneath a fall.ng atmosphere of polar snows; he lets loose his tempests on their fleets; he puts a folly into their counsels, à madness into the hearts of their leaders; and never gave, and never will give, a full and final triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free.

EXERCISE XXIV.

KNOWLEDGE AND ENTERPRISE.

We hear much at present of the veins of gold which are brought to light in every latitude of either hemisphere. But I care not what mines may be opened in the north or in the south, in the mountains of Siberia or the Sierras of California; wheresoever the fountains of the golden tide may gush forth, the streams will flow to the regions where the educated intellect has woven the boundless net-work of the useful and ornamental arts. Yes, sir, if Massachusetts remains true to the policy which has hitherto in the main governed her legislation, a generous wave of the golden tide will reach her distant shores. Let others

Tempt icy seas, where scarce the waters roll,

Where clearer flames glow round the frozen pole;
Or under southern skies exalt their sails,

Led by new stars, and borne by spicy gales,

For me

Yes, for me may poor old rocky, sandy Massachusetts exclaim, land as she is of the school, the academy, and the college, -land of the press, the lecture-room, and the church,

For me the balm shall bleed, and amber flow,
The coral redden, and the ruby glow,

The pearly shell its lucid globe infold,

And Phoebus warm the ripening ore to gold.

It matters not if every pebble in the bed of the Sacramento were a diamond as big and as precious as the mysterious Ko-hi-noor, which we read of in the last accounts from India, on whose possession the fate of empire is believed, in those benighted regions, to depend. It matters not if this new Pactolus flow through a region which stretches for furlongs-a tract of solid gold. The

jewels and the ingots will find their way to the great centres of civilization, where cultivated minds give birth to the arts, and freedom renders property secure. The region itself, to which these fabulous treasures are attracting the countless hosts of thrift, cupidity and adven ture, will derive, I fear, the smallest part of the benefit. Could they be peopled entirely with emigrants like the best of those who have taken their departure from among us, and who carry with them an outfit of New England principles and habits, it would be well; but much I fear the gold region will for a long time be a scene of anarchy and confusion, of violence and bloodshed, of bewildering gains and maddening losses, of anything but social happiness, and well-regulated civil liberty.

EXERCISE XXV.

POWER OF INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER.

THE power of character, growing out of the free development of the turn of mind of every individual, and the feeling connected with it, that each one may and must choose his own course, open his own path, and determine his own condition, has made New England impregnable, and covered her comparatively stubborn and sterile soil with abundance. This is the secret magic by which her sons command success and wealth wherever they wander. The states included under that name have contracted limits, and are subject to many disadvantages; on the expanding map, or in the multiplying census of the Union, they may appear feeble and insignificant. But their prosperity is sure, and will he perpetual. No power of party, no sectional prejudice, no error of policy, no injustice of government, can permanently or essentially check the career of progress in wealth and civilization, along which the energies of individual ingenuity, enterprise, intelligence, and industry, have from the beginning impelled them.

When this force of individual character, this consciousness of inherent power, is once brought into exercise, and becomes habitual, entering into the frame of the min 1, then is man clothed with his true strength. Ob

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