For myself, I believe that whatever estrangements may have existed in the past, or may linger among us now, are born of ignorance and will be dispelled by knowledge. I believe that of our forty-five States there are no two who, if they could meet in the familiarity of the intercourse, in the fulness of personal knowledge, would not only cease to entertain any bitterness, or alienation, or distrust, but each would utter to the other the words of the Jewish daughter, in that most exquisite of idylls which has come down to us almost from the beginning of time:

"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou guest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.

"Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part me and thee." GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR.

From "Address at the Banquet of the New England Society."

       *       *       *       *       *

He knew full well and displayed in his many splendid speeches and addresses that one unerring purpose of freedom and of union ran through her whole history; that there was no accident in it all; that all the generations, from the _Mayflower_ down, marched to one measure and followed one flag; that all the struggles, all the self-sacrifice, all the prayers and the tears, all the fear of God, all the soul-trials, all the yearnings for national life, of more than two centuries, had contributed to make the country that he served and loved. He, too, preached, in season and out of season, the gospel of Nationality. JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE.

From "Oration on Rufus Choate."

       *       *       *       *       *

I leave these fellows and turn for a moment to their victims. And I would here, without any reference to my own case, earnestly implore that sympathy with political sufferers should not be merely telescopic in its character, "distance lending enchantment to the view"; and that when your statesmen sentimentalize upon, and your journalists denounce, far-away tyrannies--the horrors of Neapolitan dungeons--the abridgment of personal freedom in continental countries--the exercise of arbitrary power by irresponsible authority in other lands--they would turn their eyes homeward and examine the treatment and the sufferings of their own political prisoners. I would in all sincerity suggest that humane and well-meaning men who exert themselves for the remission of the death-penalty as a mercy would rather implore that the doom of solitary and silent captivity should be remitted to the more merciful doom of an immediate relief from suffering by immediate execution--the opportunity of an immediate appeal from man's cruelty to God's justice. STEPHEN JOSEPH MEANY.

From "Legality of Arrest."

       *       *       *       *       *

Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can study, the scholar must have liberty first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom in politics. He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights, which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic If it clash with his case, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

From "The Duty of the American Scholar."

       *       *       *       *       *

Let us, then, go straight forward to our duty, taking heed of nothing but the right. In this wise shall we build a work in accord with the will of Him who is daily fashioning the world to a higher destiny; a work resting at no point upon wrong or injustice, but everywhere reposing upon truth and justice; a work which all mankind will be interested in preserving in every age, since it will insure the increasing glory and well-being of mankind through all ages. IGNATIUS DONNELLY.

From "Reconstruction."

       *       *       *       *       *

We are not only to do some things, but we are to do all things, and we are to continue so to do, so that the least deviation from the moral law, according to the covenant of works, whether in thought, word, or deed, deserves eternal death at the hand of God. And if one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve whose lives have been one continued rebellion against God! Before ever, therefore, you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful thing it is to depart from the living God. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

From Sermon, "On the Method of Grace."

       *       *       *       *       *

I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive acts. They must he repealed. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it that you will in the end repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation make the first advances to concord, to peace, and happiness; for that is your true dignity, to act with prudence and justice. That you should first concede is obvious, from sound and rational policy. Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power. It reconciles superiority of power with the feelings of men, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. LORD CHATHAM.