Beadle's Dime National Speaker, Embodying Gems of Oratory and Wit, Particularly Adapted to American Schools and Firesides

THE UNION A HOUSEHOLD. – Ibid

The great object which the statesmen of the Revolution sought, was the defense, protection, and good government of the whole, without injustice to any portion of the people. Experience had taught them that it was impossible for a great republic to grow up where its every act of public policy was liable to be thwarted by the vote of the individual States; therefore they framed an organic law at the foundation of our common government, which gave the men of Carolina and Massachusetts a name dearer than any sectional name – the name of an American citizen! In that conflict of opinions, by a temper of conciliation and brotherly love, by an earnest loyalty to freedom and profoundest reverence for law, they framed that constitution which has been the admiration of the world.

I yield to no man in my admiration for those noble men whose names are our household words; but in this history I see the hand of God and acknowledge that our nationality was his gift and not the fruits of our fathers' wisdom. Ours is not the only nation who have sought to be free. Strong arms and stout hearts have often failed – the world is filled with the lamentations of the patriots and dirges for the dead. God always gives to a nation its birthright and its name. A nation is not a mere aggregate of households, or villages, or States – national life is something beyond the fact that individual men have banded together for mutual defense. This belonged to the savage tribes who once roamed over this goodly land. They may be strong, daring, freedom-loving men, without national life. There never was a nobler race than the people who dwelt in the fastnesses of Scotland, but their tie was only one of kindred; the family became a clan, separate clans warred with each other in murderous strife, and Scotland was a field of blood. Until the cross was firmly planted in Britain, England had no nationality – it was a land of faction until the law and providence of God became the people's guide, and then the nobler name of Saxon became a Christian name to tell of all that is manly and true. Our national life is the gift of God. No other hand could gather out of other lands millions of people of different tongues and kindred, and mold these into one mighty nation that shall receive into itself the men of every clime, and stamp on them its own mark of individuality, teaching them its language, making them its kin, and binding them as one household under its own constitution and laws.

INDEPENDENCE BELL. – July 4th, 1776

When it was certain that the Declaration would be adopted and confirmed by the signatures of the delegates in Congress, it was determined to announce the event by ringing the old State-House bell which bore the inscription, "Proclaim liberty to the land: to all the inhabitants thereof!" and the old bellman posted his little boy at the door of the hall to await the instruction of the doorkeeper when to ring. At the word, the little patriot-scion rushed out, and, flinging up his hands, shouted "Ring! Ring! RING!"

There was tumult in the city,In the quaint old Quaker's town,And the streets were rife with peoplePacing restless up and down;People gathering at corners,Where they whisper'd each to each,And the sweat stood on their temples,With the earnestness of speech.As the bleak Atlantic currentsLash the wild Newfoundland shore,So they beat against the State-House,So they surged against the door;And the mingling of their voicesMade a harmony profound,'Till the quiet street of chestnutsWas all turbulent with sound."Will they do it?" "Dare they do it?""Who is speaking?" "What's the news?""What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?""Oh, God grant they won't refuse!""Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!""I am stifling!" "Stifle, then!When a nation's life's at hazard,We've no time to think of men!"So they beat against the portal,Man and woman, maid and child;And the July sun in heavenOn the scene look'd down and smiled,The same sun that saw the SpartanShed his patriot-blood in vain,Now beheld the soul of freedomAll unconquer'd rise again.See! See! The dense crowd quiversThrough all its lengthy line,As the boy beside the portalLooks forth to give the sign!With his small hands upward lifted,Breezes dallying with his hair,Hark! with deep, clear intonation,Breaks his young voice on the air.Hush'd the people's swelling murmur,List the boy's strong joyous cry!"Ring!" he shouts, "Ring! GrandpaRing! Oh, Ring for Liberty!"And straightway, at the signal,The old bellman lifts his hand,And sends the good news, makingIron-music through the land.How they shouted! What rejoicing!How the old bell shook the air,Till the clang of freedom ruffledThe calm gliding Delaware!How the bonfires and the torchesIllumed the night's repose,And from the flames, like Phœnix,Fair Liberty arose!That old bell now is silent,And hush'd its iron tongue,But the spirit it awaken'dStill lives, – forever young.And while we greet the sunlight,On the fourth of each July,We'll ne'er forget the bellman,Who, twixt the earth and sky,Rung out Our Independence;Which, please God, shall never die!

THE SCHOLAR'S DIGNITY. – Hon. George E. Pugh July 5th, 1859

The purpose of all genuine effort, beyond the satisfaction of physical wants, should be to enlarge the compass of human sympathy and desire, to purify, elevate, ennoble the intellectual constitution of our race. God has so created us that these results can be attained by simple and even direct agencies. Man is a sympathetic being; and the full discharge of his obligation toward his own family, his friends, his neighbors, is the method by which he can best discharge his duty in other relations; toward God and his country, toward the millions of his fellow-beings now alive, and the millions who will inherit the earth in a course of ages. Hence arise man's real pleasures, and (not less) his noblest responsibilities and actions. But, as our nature is composed of appetites and passions which rightly adjusted, each with another, lift us almost to the dignity of the Godhead, but when disorganized, show us to be meaner than the brutes; so civil society, or the association of mankind pursuant to the Divine order, while capable, in its normal state, of the utmost happiness for all its members, is now disorganized and demoralized, its sweet bells of sympathy turned to discord, even its charities stained by selfishness and base pretension; its capacities for good entirely perverted to the oppression, to the cruel debasements of the multitude, and to the unjust advantage of a few. Here is the field of chivalry for him – scholar and squire who would be something more – conscious of his earnest duty, of the vast rewards which must crown success, and alive to the inspiration of all the past, the present, and the future; here is a field on which he may win the gilded spurs of knighthood, and where, with his own arm, he can truly redress the innocent, rescue the unfortunate, and reclaim even the oppressor to a recognition of the rights of the oppressed. Or, if he would choose a holier part, although less conspicuous, it may be, let him join that valiant array of pioneers which is marching now (as, in time past, it ever has marched) at the head of the generation; hewing down primeval forests of ignorance; bridging the torrents of crime; leveling mountains of doubt and difficulty; filling up quagmires of sorrow; that so, in age after age, the hosts of pilgrims from the cradle to the grave shall traverse their distance without harm, and measurably anticipate, if not realize, the beatitude of toil forever accomplished.

In a true sense, the scholar is a king of the noblest power. Not his that dominion which exercises itself over the bodies of men, subduing alike their happiness and their will, making of his fellow-creatures a mere sport or convenience, but that dominion which exists by the full consent of the governed, and without which, in reality, their happiness and peace can not be secured. [Nam, uti genus hominum compositum ex anima et corpore, ita res cunctæ, studiaque omnia nostra, corporis alia, alia animi naturam sequuntur. Igitur, præclara facies, magnæ divitiæ, ad hoc vis corporis, alia hujuscemodi, omnia brevi dilabuntur; at ingenii egregia facinora, sicuti anima, immortalia sunt. Postremo, corporis et fortunæ bonorum, ut initium, finis est: omnia orta occidunt, et aucta senescunt: animus incorruptus, æternus, RECTOR HUMANI GENERIS, agit atque habet cuncta, neque ipse habetur.] The liberty of men does not stand in rebellion against the truth, nor against the truly-anointed genius of the age:

Unjustly thou depravest it with the nameOf servitude, to serve whom God ordains,Or Nature; God and Nature bid the same,When he who rules is worthiest, and excelsThem whom he governs. This is servitude,To serve th' unwise, or him who hath rebell'dAgainst his worthier.

THE CYCLES OF PROGRESS. – Ibid

The world moves in a grand cycle of days, and weeks, and months, and years, susceptible of approximation, but not of exact ascertainment. There are cycles, also, of the human understanding; or, at least, of opinions with regard to the faculties and organism of the human intellect. Locke was thought to have demonstrated, by unanswerable argument, our entire lack of innate ideas; thus demolishing the foundation upon which others had erected so many and such various theories. But now Kant has proven, by a logic far more subtle, and altogether more conclusive, that the mind acts only in certain processes, or by means of certain categories, which are the laws of its organization, and whence result conceptions or ideas not derived from experience, or observation, or confidence in others. Plato arrived at the same conclusion two thousand years ago, although he supposed these conceptions or ideas to be the reminiscences of a former and superior state of intellectual existence. What has Kant accomplished, in all his philosophy, except our remission to the speculations of Plato, as enforced and illustrated by the wisdom of revealed religion? And so, in the world of moral sentiment, there must be cycles of repetition and restoration, but of restoration with new auspices, and informed by principles of higher and pure significance.

The Age of Chivalry was an age of moral improvement, an age of sympathy and generous enterprise, after centuries of darkness, antagonism, and oppression. When scholars, therefore, shall have become true to themselves, true to the mission of their faith and labors, as against the overwhelming allurement of our time; shall have become the actual prophets, and priests, and rulers, which once they were, another Age of Chivalry will arise and dawn upon earth. It will restore us a Government paternal in character, and yet stripped of the usurpations by which government is now rendered oppressive; it will restore us a Church of pristine authority and influence, but authority and influence derived from purity in practice as well as in precept. And with these two elements so long extinct or lost – leaving mankind to all the terrors of tyranny and all the wiles of imposture – with a Church and a Government reflecting the Divine conception of men's duties toward their Creator and toward each other, will Human Society attain, at last, the summit of human perfection. Then will the original brotherhood and equality of our race be forever acknowledged; then will there be work for all, and wages for work, instead of the injustice, the crime, the misery, the wasteful disorder which fill our hearts with so much despondency and woe. This Chivalry is of magnificent design; since to the faith, to the hope, to the steadfastness of our fathers, to their moral excellence and solid greatness, will thus be united the wondrous material achievements for which we have been so distinguished – a Chivalry of splendors enhanced as well as rekindled, or splendors essentially bright, and joyous, and immortal.

History tells us of republics full of promise and full of glory like our own. Such were those which clustered upon the shores of the Mediterranean, in almost the same latitude with us, and accomplished, centuries ago, their rise, their zenith, and their fall. Such were those free states and cities which braved the bleakness and inclemency of the Baltic and German coasts; and which likewise had their increase, and fullness, and extinction. These were all the children of Commerce, and followed her along the borders of the sea. Their ships explored the very ends of the world; laid the Indies under tribute; and on this remote continent, also, planted colonies and outposts of civilization. Alas! those republics and free states and cities have gone to their decay; the armed legions of Despotism tread upon their tombs, and scatter even their sacred ashes to the winds. But may our New World, which inherits their enterprise as well as their liberty, rejuvenate the nations grown old in oppression and despair, and plant upon the Eastern Continent the germs of a Civilization nobler than has yet been recognized – nobler than was ever sung by the poets, or foretold by oracles – a Civilization which shall raise up Labor from its fallen estate, heal its infirmities, cover its nakedness, and enthrone it with honor; as the rescued maniac, by Divine compassion, was seated near the feet of our Saviour, clothed, and in his right mind!

A CHRISTMAS CHANT. – Alfred Domett

It was the calm and silent night!Seven hundred years and fifty-threeHad Rome been growing up to might,And now was queen of land and sea!No sound was heard of clashing wars,Peace brooded o'er the hush'd domain;Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars,Held undisturb'd their ancient reign,In the solemn midnight,Centuries ago!'Twas in the calm and silent night!The senator of haughty RomeImpatient urged his chariot's flight,From lordly revel rolling home.Triumphal arches, gleaming, swellHis breast with thoughts of boundless sway;What reck'd the Roman what befellA paltry province far away,In the solemn midnight,Centuries ago?Within that province far awayWent plodding home a weary boor;A streak of light before him lay,Fallen through a half-shut stable-doorAcross his path. He paused, for naughtTold what was going on within;How keen the stars, his only thought;The air, how calm, and cold, and thin,In the solemn midnight,Centuries ago!Oh, strange indifference! low and highDrowsed over common joys and cares;The earth was still, but knew not why;The world was listening – unawares!How calm a moment may precedeOne that shall thrill the world forever!To that still moment, none would heed,Man's doom was link'd, no more to sever,In the solemn midnight,Centuries ago!It is the calm and silent night!A thousand bells ring out, and throwTheir joyous peals abroad, and smiteThe darkness, charm'd and holy now;The night that erst no shame had worn,To it a happy name is given;For in that stable lay, new-born,The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven,In the solemn midnight,Centuries ago!

STABILITY OF CHRISTIANITY. – Rev. T. H. Stockton, House of Representatives, March 19th, 1860

I contemplate the heaven and earth of the old world: the overrulings of Providence and changes of society there. I think of the passing away of the whole circle of ancient Mediterranean civilization. I think of the dark ages of Europe. I think of the morning of the Reformation, and the fore-gleamings of "the latter-day glory." I think of Art, and her printing-press; of Commerce, and her compass; of Science, and her globe; of Religion, and her Bible. I contemplate the opening of the heaven and earth of the New World: the overrulings of Providence and changes of society here. I think of the passing away of savage simplicities, and of the rude semblances of civilization in Mexico and Peru, and of earlier and later declensions. I think of the gracious reservation of our own inheritance for present and nobler occupancy. I think of our Revolution, and its result of Independence. I think of our first Union, first Congress, first prayer in Congress, and first Congressional order for the Bible; and of our wonderful enlargement, development, and enrichment since. And, in view of all – of the whole heaven and whole earth of the whole world; and of all changes, social and natural, past, present, and future; profoundly and unalterably assured, as I trust we all are, that the truth as it is "in Jesus" is the only stability in the universe – I feel justified, in invoking, this day, your renewal of our common and constant confession – that: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the words of Christ shall never pass away. And, standing where we do, on the central summit of this great Confederacy, unequalled in all history for all manner of blessings, – if we did not so confess Christ; if we did not cherish the simple confidence of His primitive disciples, and hail the coming of our Lord with hosannas; if we could ignobly hold our peace, – the very statues of the Capitol "would immediately cry out;" the marble lips of Columbus, Penn, and Washington, of War and Peace, of the Pioneer, and of Freedom, would part to praise His name; and the stones of the foundation and walls, of the arcades and corridors, of the rotunda and halls, would respond to their glad and grand acclaim.

From Maine to Florida, from Florida to Texas, from Texas to California, from California to Oregon, and from Oregon back to Maine; our lake States, gulf States, and ocean States; our river States, prairie States, and mountain States, all unite in confessing and blessing His name, beholding His glory, surrounding His throne, high and lifted up, and ever crying, like the six-winged seraphim, one to another, far and near, from the North and the South, from the East and the West: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory!"

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