the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that, in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour, - his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but never until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. My soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.

But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness, of our Saviour, when he drew to the life his blessed eyes streaming in tears to Heaven, his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being

entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flow of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of the congregation.

It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed: indeed, judging by the usual but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher; for I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.

The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau:1 "Socrates2 died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!"

WILLIAM WIRT.

1 Rousseau, an eloquent French | few minutes of death-like silence writer of the last century.

which reigned throughout the
house; the preacher, removing his
white handkerchief from his aged
face, and slowly stretching forth
the palsied hand which holds it,
begins the sentence, 'Socrates died
like a philosopher,' - then paus-
ing, raising his other hand, press-
ing them both, clasped together,
with warmth and energy to his
breast, lifting his 'sightless balls'
to heaven, and pouring his whole
soul into his tremulous voice, —
'but Jesus Christ-like a God!'"

97.- Liberty and Union.

The following is an extract from one of the most magnificent of Daniel Webster's speeches, delivered in the United States Senate, Jan. 26, 1830, in reply to a speech of Senator Hayne of South Carolina.

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and the honor of the whole country, and the preservation of the Federal Union. I have not allowed myself to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind; I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder; I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depths of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!

When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious

Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured; bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterwards; " but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable."

DANIEL WEBSTER.

98.- America's Obligations to England.

This is an extract from a speech in the British House of Commons, by Col. Isaac Barré (1726-1802), who was one of the warmest friends of the American colonists. He had himself visited America, having taken part in the French and Indian war, and having been adjutant-general of Wolfe's army, that assailed Quebec. This fact will explain an allusion in the last part of the speech.

The honorable member has asked, " And now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence, and protected by our arms, - will they grudge to contribute their mite?" They planted by your care! No! Your oppressions planted them in America.

They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, our American brethren met these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those that should have been their friends.

They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect! As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them,men whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them.

They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defense: have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry, for the defense of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me, the very same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them still.

Heaven knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat. What I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen that country, and been conversant with its affairs. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but they are a people jealous of their liberties, and who, if those liberties should ever be violated, will vindicate them to the last drop of their blood.

ISAAC BARRÉ.