hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which leads to peace, liberty, and safety.

DANIEL WEBSTER AT BUNKER HILL

BY SAMUEL GRISWOLD GOODRICH

THE first time I ever saw Mr. Webster was on the 17th of June, 1825, at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. I shall never forget his appearance as he strode across the open area, encircled by some fifty thousand persons men and women waiting for the "Orator of the Day," nor the shout that simultaneously burst forth as he was recognized, carrying up to the skies the name of "Webster! Webster! Webster!"

It was one of those lovely days in June when the sun is bright, the air clear, and the breath of nature so sweet and pure as to fill every bosom with a grateful joy in the mere consciousness of existence.

There were present long files of soldiers, in their holiday attire. There were many associations, with their mottoed banners; there were miles of citizens from the towns and the country round about; there were two hundred grayhaired men, remnants of the days of the Revolution. Among them was a stranger, of great mildness and dignity of appearance, on whom all eyes rested, and when his name was known the air echoed with the cry, "Welcome, welcome, Lafayette!"

I have seen many public festivities and ceremonials, but never one of more general interest than this. Every

thing was fortunate; all were gratified; but the address. was that which seemed uppermost in all minds and hearts. Mr. Webster was in the very zenith of his fame and of his powers.

There was a grandeur in his form, an intelligence in his deep dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a

significance in his arched

lip, altogether beyond those of any other human being I ever saw. And these, on the occasion to which I refer, had their full expression and interpretation.

In general, the oration was serious, full of weighty thought and deep reflection. Occasionally there were flashes of fine imagination, and several passages of deep overwhelming emotion.

As I was near the speaker, I not only heard every word, but saw every movement of his countenance. When he came to address the few scarred and time-worn veterans

some forty in number - who had shared in the scene which all had now gathered to now gathered to commemorate, he paused a moment, and as he uttered the words, "Venerable men!" his voice trembled, and I could see a cloud pass over the sea of faces that turned upon the speaker.

OUR SACRED TRUST

FROM THE ORATION AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNERSTONE OF
BUNKER HILL MONUMENT

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

VETERANS of half a century! When in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude.

Look abroad upon this lovely land which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled. Yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind!

And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty and our government are daily dropping from among us. The great trust now descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented to us, as our appropriate object.

We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of States. Our fathers have filled them.

But there remains to us a great duty of defense and preservation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.

Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and ar habitual feeling, that these twenty-four states are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act.

Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.

WASHINGTON

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

AMERICA has furnished to the world the character of Washington! If our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Washington! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen !" Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman, while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world: "What character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime?" And I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching unanimity, the answer would be, "Washington!"

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or a single state, but by all the families of man,