7. 'Neath the blue morn, the He dies upon the tree; sunny morn, And he mourns that he can lose But one life for Liberty; " In the blue morn, the sunny morn, 8. His last words, his message-words, With his last words, his message-words, 9. From fame-leaf, and angel-leaf, The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven, And on fame-leaf and angel-leaf 1 COL OS SE UM. LESSON CXX. See note, page 333. 2 PAR' THE NON, a celebrated temple of Minerva at Athens, in Greece. LOSS OF THE UNION IRREPARABLE. DANIEL WEBSTER. From a eulogy on Washington, delivered in the city of Washington, in honor of his centennial birthday, Feb. 22, 1832. W ASHINGTON, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw we had nothing to fear; and, without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. 2. If we might regard our Country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we might consider him as representing her in her past renown, her present prosperity, and her future career, and as, in that character, demanding of us all to account for our conduct as political men or as private citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion and dismemberment ? Or how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice ? How should he answer him who would array State against State, interest against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance of that unity of government which constitutes us one people? 3. Gentlemen, the political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, it has acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attain ing to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. 4. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness. come. 5. Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overIf disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even, if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity? 6. No, gentlemen: if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Colosseum, and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty. 7. But, gentlemen, let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of His hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may fluence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career. 8. Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! LESSON CXXI. 1 PER I HIE' LI ON, (PERI, near; HELION, the sun;) the point of a planet's orbit nearest to the sun. 2 PLEIAD, one of the Pleiades, a group of seven small stars situated in the neck of the constellation Taurus, regarded by Madler as the central group of the system of the Milky Way. SOUTHERN CROSS. See note, page 138. 5 DI A PASON, (DIA, through; PASON, all;) all through the octave, or interval which includes all the tones of the diatonic scale; the entire compass of tones. 1. STARS IN MY COUNTRY'S SKY. A MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. RE ye all there, are ye all there, Are ye all there, are ye all there, In your shining homes on high? "Count us, count us!" was their answer, As they dazzled on my view, In glorious perihelion,1 Amid their field of blue. 2. I can not count ye rightly; There's a cloud with sable rim; 3. Then the angel touched mine eyelids, And it fled with murky shroud. 'Mid all that sister race; The Southern Cross3 gleamed radiant forth, 4. Then I knew it was the angel |