It spoke of peace, it spoke of love, And God himself was there! That bade the trembling heart rejoice! LESSON XCVII. NOTE. JOHN ADAMS and THOMAS JEFFERSON died July 4th, 1826, the anniversary of American Independence. Jefferson was the framer of the Declaration of Independence, and John Adams, a strenuous advocate for its adoption in the Continental Congress. They both had been Presidents of the United States, and though they differed in politics, yet they were too noble-minded to allow political differences to sever their friendship. They maintained a friendly intercourse through life, and both took their departure from earth on that day, rendered memorable by their deeds. EULOGY ON THE LIVES OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. STORY. 1. We have just passed the jubilee of our independence, and witnessed the prayers and gratitude of millions ascending to Heaven for our public and private blessings. That independence was the achievement, not of faction and ignorance, but of hearts as pure, and minds as enlightened, and judgments as sound, as ever graced the annals of mankind. Among the leaders were statesmen and scholars, as well as heroes and patriots. We have followed many of them to the tomb, blessed with the honors of their country. We have been privileged yet more; we have lived to witness an almost miraculous event in the departure of two great authors of our independence, on that memorable and blessed day of jubilee. 2. I may not, in this place, presume to pronounce the funeral panegyric of these extraordinary men. It has already been done by s of the master-spirits of our country, by men worthy of the task, worthy as Pericles to pronounce the honors of the Athenian dead. It was the beautiful saying of the Grecian orator, that "This whole earth is the sepulcher of illustrious men. Nor is it the inscription on the columns in their native soil alone, that show their merit; but the memo rial of them, better than all inscriptions, in every foreign nation, reposited more durably in universal remembrance, than on their own tombs." 3. Such is the lot of ADAMS and JEFFERSON. They have lived, not for themselves, but for their country; not for their country alone, but for the world. They belong to history, as furnishing some of the best examples of disinterested and successful patriotism. They belong to posterity, as the instructors of all future ages, in the principles of rational liberty, and the rights of the people. They belong to us of the present age, by their glory, by their virtues, and by their achievements. These are memorials which can never perish. They will brighten with the lapse of time, and, as they loom on the ocean of eternity, will seem present to the most distant generations of men. 4. That voice of more than Roman eloquence, which urged and sustained the Declaration of Independence,-that voice, whose first and whose last accents were for his country, is indeed mute. It will never again rise in defense of the weak against popular excitement, and vindicate the majesty of law and justice. It will never again awaken a nation to arms to assert its liberties. It will never again instruct the public councils by its wisdom. It will never again utter its almost oracular thoughts in philosophical retirement. It will never again pour out its strains of parental affection, and in the domestic circle, give new force and fervor to the consolations of religion. 5. The hand, too, which inscribed the Declaration of Independence, is indeed laid low. The weary head reposes on its mother earth. The mountain winds sweep by the narrow tomb, and all around has the loneliness of desolation. 6. The stranger-guest may no longer visit that hospitable home, and find him there, whose classical taste and various conversation, lent a charm to every leisure hour; whose bland manners and social simplicity made every welcome doubly dear; whose expansive mind commanded the range of almost. every art and science; whose political sagacity, like that of his illustrious coadjutor, read the fate and interests of nations, as with a second sight, and scented the first breath of tyranny in the passing gale; whose love of liberty, like his, was inflexible, universal, supreme; whose devotion to their common country, like his, never faltered in the worst, and never wearied in the best of times; whose public services ended but with life, carrying the long line of their illumination over sixty years; whose last thoughts exhibited the ruling passion of the heart, enthusiasm in the cause of education; whose last breathing committed his soul to God, and his offspring to his country. 7. Yes, ADAMS and JEFFERSON are gone from us forever,gone, as a sunbeam to revisit its native skies,-gone, as this mortal to put on immortality. Of them, of each of them, every American may exclaim, "Ne'er to the chambers, where the mighty rest, Since their foundation, came a nobler guest, 8. We may not mourn over the departure of such men. We should rather hail it as a kind dispensation of Providence to affect our hearts with new and livelier gratitude. They were not cut off in the blossom of their days, while yet the vigor of manhood flushed their cheeks, and the harvest of glory was ungathered. They fell, not as martyrs fall, seeing only in dim perspective, the salvation of their country. 9. They lived to enjoy the blessings earned by their labors, and to realize all which their fondest hopes had desired. The infirmities of life stole slowly and silently upon them, leaving still behind a cheerful serenity of mind. In peace, in the bosom of domestic affection, in the hallowed reverence of their countrymen, in the full possession of their faculties, they wore out the last remains of life, without a fear to cloud, with scarcely a sorrow to disturb its close. 10. The joyful day of our jubilee came over them with its refreshing influence. To them, indeed, it was "a great and good day." The morning sun shone with softened luster on their closing eyes. Its evening beams played lightly. on their brows, calm in all the dignity of death. Their spirits escaped from these frail tenements without a struggle or a groan. Their death was gentle as an infant's sleep. It was a long, lingering twilight, melting into the softest shade. 11. Fortunate men, so to have lived, and so to have died. Fortunate, to have gone, hand in hand, in the deeds of the Revolution. Fortunate, in the generous rivalry of middle life. Fortunate, in deserving and receiving the highest honors of their country. Fortunate, in old age to have rekindled their friendship with a holier flame. Fortunate, to have passed through the dark valley of the shadow of death together. Fortunate, to be indissolubly united in the memory and affections of their countrymen. Fortunate, above all, in an immortality of virtuous fame, on which history may with severe simplicity write the dying encomium of Pericles, "No citizen, through their means, ever put on mourning." 12. ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more. As 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; nò more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They are dead But how little is there of the great and good, which can die To their country they yet live, and live forever. 13. 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. 14. A superior and commanding 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 its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit. 15. Bacon died; but the human understanding, roused by the touch of his miraculous wand to a perception of the true philosophy, and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on its course successfully and gloriously. Newton died; yet the courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on in the orbits which he saw, and described for them in the infinity of space. 16. These suns, as they rose slowly and steadily, amidst clouds and storms, in their ascendant, so they have not rushed from their meridian to sink suddenly in the west. Like the mildness, the serenity, the continuing benignity of a summer's day, they have gone down with slow-descending, grateful, long-lingering light; and now that they are beyond the visible margin of the world, good omens cheer us from "the bright track of their fiery car!"-WEBSTER. LESSON XCVIII. THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE. A. B. STREET. 1. WITH storm-daring pinion, and sun-gazing eye, There he blends his keen shriek with the roar of the flood, 2. A fitful red glaring, a low, rumbling jar, Proclaim the Storm-Demon, yet raging afar ; |