95.-Emmet's last Speech. - Part II.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor. Let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the Provisional Government' speaks for my views. No inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treach ery from abroad.

I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, — am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No: God forbid! 2

1 Provisional Government, the | Emmet to say that his sentiments scheme for the temporary govern- disgraced his father, Dr. Emmet, ment of Ireland, planned by the who was a man, that, if alive, patriots with whom Emmet asso- would not approve of such opinciated. ions. This fact will explain the eloquent and touching apostrophe that follows.

2 God forbid! Here Lord Norbury, the chief justice, interrupted

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, O, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father! look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life.

My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the artificial terrors1 which surround your victim. It circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished. My race is run. The grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

ROBERT EMMET.

1 terrors; i.e., the British soldiery present in the courthouse.

96. The Blind Preacher.

The following celebrated descriptive sketch is by William Wirt (1772-1834), a native of Maryland, and at one time attorney-general of the United States. The blind preacher referred to was Rev. James Waddell of Virginia.

It was one Sunday, as I traveled through the county of Orange,1 that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous old wooden house, in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in traveling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.

Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriveled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of palsy; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.

The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But, ah, how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were

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1 Orange; i.e., Orange County | story it is related that bees settled Virginia. on the lips of the infant Plato, in token that he was to be honeybees. In Greek tongued (mellifluous).

2 prognostic, prophetic.

3 Plato. . .

the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Savior. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that, in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Savior, -his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but never until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. My soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.

But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness, of our Savior,- when he drew to the life his blessed eyes streaming in tears to Heaven, his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being

entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flow of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans and sobs and shrieks of the congregation.

It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed: indeed, judging by the usual but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher; for I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.

The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau:1 "Socrates 2 died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!"

WILLIAM WIRT.

1 Rousseau, an eloquent French | few minutes of deathlike silence writer of the last century.

2 Socrates, a Greek philosopher. Elocution. In reading or delivering this piece, the following description of the blind preacher's mode of delivery given by Wirt should be studied by the pupil: "You are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised, and then the

which reigned throughout the house; the preacher, removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, 'Socrates died like a philosopher,' - then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his 'sightless balls' to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice, — 'but Jesus Christ-like a God!'"