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And dare the threat'ning storm, and trace a path
'Mid countless dangers, to the destined port

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To station quick-eyed Prudence at the helm,
To guard thy sail from Passion's sudden blasts,
And make Religion thy magnetic guide,
Which, though it trembles as it lowly lies,
Points to the light that changes not, in heaven.
5. Farewell: Heaven smile propitious on thy course,
And favoring breezes waft thee to the arms
Of love paternal. Yes, and more than this;
Blest be thy passage o'er the changing sea
Of life; the clouds be few that intercept
The light of joy; the waves roll gently on
Beneath thy bark of hope, and bear thee safe
To meet in peace thine other Father, GOD!

LESSON CXXXIV. [34

EXTRACT FROM PRESIDENT JEFFERSON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

1. DURING the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers, unused to think freely, and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle; that, though the will of the majority is, in all cases, to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.

2. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony

and affection, without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things; and let us reflect, that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance, under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

3. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions, as to measures of safety.

4. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans; we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it.

5. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government` is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear, that this government, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.

6. Sometimes it is said, that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? or have we found angels, in the form of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question.

7. Let us, then, with courage and confidence, pursue oui own federal and republican principles; our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions, and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which, by all its dispensations, proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people?

8. Still, one thing more, fellow-citizens; a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement; and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

LESSON CXXXV. / 3 s

REFLECTIONS ON THE DEATH OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON."

WEBSTER.

1. ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more! On our fiftieth anniversary, the great day of National Jubilee, in the very hour of public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and re

a They died July 4th, 1826.

echoing voices of thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took their flight together to the world of spirits!

2. If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he lives; if that event which terminates life can alone crown its honors and its glory, what felicity is here! The great epic of their lives, how happily concluded! Poetry itself has hardly closed illustrious lives, and finished the career of earthly renown, by such a consummation.

3. If we had the power, we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of the Divine Providence. The great objects of life were accomplished; the drama was ready to be closed. It has closed! our patriots have fallen; but so fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we cannot rationally lament that that end has come, which we knew could not be long deferred.

4. Neither of these great men could have died at any time without leaving an immense void in our American society. They have been so intimately and for so long a time blended with the history of the country, and, especially, so united in our thoughts and recollections with the events of the Revolution, that the death of either would have touched the strings of public sympathy. We should have felt that one great link connecting us with former times was broken; that we had lost something more, as it were, of the presence of the Revolution itself, and of the act of independence, and were driven on, by another great remove, from the days. of our country's early distinction, to meet posterity, and to mix with the future.

5. Like the mariner, whom the ocean and the winds carry along, till he sees the stars, which have directed his course, and lighted his pathless way, descend, one by one, beneath the rising horizon, we should have felt that the stream of time had borne us onward, till another great luminary, whose light had cheered us, and whose guidance we had followed, had sunk away from our sight.

6. But the concurrence of their death, on the anniversary

of independence, has naturally awakened strong emotions. Both had been presidents, both had lived to great age, both were early patriots, and both were distinguished and everhonored by their immediate agency in the act of indepen. dence. It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act; that they should complete that year; and that then, on the day which had fast linked forever their own fame with their country's glory, the heavens should open to receive them both at once! As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of his care?

As

7. Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more! human beings, indeed, they are no more! They are no more, as in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of independence; no more, as on subsequent periods, the head of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more! They are dead!

8. But how little is there of the great and good which can die! To their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth, in the recorded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their example; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the civilized world.

9. A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for a while, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that when it glimmers in

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