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SPIRIT OF CONQUEST.

upon the strong nation which tramples in scorn upon the weak.

And what fortune awaits him, the appointed executor of this work, when it was all done? He, too, conceived the idea that his " destiny" pointed onward to universal dominion. France was too small; Europe, he thought, should bow down before him. But as soon as this idea took possession of his soul, he, too, became powerless. Just there, while he witnessed the humiliation, and, doubtless, meditated the subjugation, of Russia, He who holds the winds in his fist gathered the snows of the north, and blew them upon his six hundred thousand men. They died, they froze, they perished. And now the mighty Napoleon, who had resolved on universal dominion, he, too, is summoned to answer for the violation of that ancient law, "Thou shalt not covet anything which is thy neighbor's."

How are the mighty fallen! He, beneath whose proud footsteps Europe trembled, he is now an exile. at Elba, and now finally a prisoner on the rock of St. Helena; and there, on a barren island, in an unfrequented sea, in the crater of an extinguished volcano, there is the death-bed of the mighty conqueror. All his annexations have come to that! His last hour is now come; and he, the Man of destiny, he who had rocked the world as with the throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, still; even as the beggar, so he died. On the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only Power that controlled him while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior, another witness to that eternal decree, that they who do not rule in right

FAITH IN THE UNSEEN.

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eousness shall perish from the earth. He has found

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room at last. And France, - she, too, has found 66 room." Her eagles now no longer scream along the banks of the Danube, the Po, and the Borysthenes. They have returned home to their old eyrie, between the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrenees.

So shall it be with yours. You may carry them to the loftiest peaks of the Cordilleras, they may wave in insolent triumph in the halls of the Montezumas, the armed men of Mexico may quail before them, but the weakest hand in Mexico, uplifted in prayer to the God of justice, may call down against you a Power, in the presence of which the iron hearts of your warriors shall be turned into ashes!

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77. FAITH IN THE UNSEEN.

LL great inventions and discoveries have come from faith.

In the year 1492, a little vessel was struggling with storms on the bosom of the Atlantic, gradually making its way westward. This great ocean, now spotted everywhere with sails and traversed by steamers, which has its streets and roads almost as distinct as those of a city, rolled since creation without a trace of human existence on its vast surface. One man's faith has changed it all. who believed enough in things not seen to go forth and make his way into the great mystery of the unknown West, created a world. Believing in the invisible things of God and nature, the great navigator walked

One man,

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FAITH IN THE UNSEEN.

by faith just as much as Abraham did, and so faith added half a world to the domain of sight.

All the great discoveries of modern times were once ideas in the minds of their inventors. The printing press, which pours out its millions of sheets every day, which lays on our doorsteps every evening the news of the whole world, was once a matter of faith in the mind of a Faust.

The steamboat, whose tremendous machinery moves with such power and such ease, which unites the continents, abolishes the oceans, and ransacks every river, and bay, and lake of Europe and America with its restless activity, was once a matter of faith in the mind of Fulton.

The power looms, which roar from early morn to dewy eve by the streams of New England, and in the valleys of Old England, which clothe the inhabitants of the world, were, a few years since, a matter of faith in the mind of Watt.

The locomotives which traverse the plain, ascend the mountain, and rush across continents, drawing their immense burdens as easily as if they were a child's basket-wagon, were once a matter of faith in the mind of Stephenson.

The photograph, which brings to us the exact forms of the Pyramids of Egypt, and the ruins of Athens, which preserves the dear features of child and wife, which rescues from oblivion the tender gaze of love, the glow of thought, the expression of a generous purpose, that also was, at first, a belief in the mind of Daguerre.

All the inventions, luxuries, arts, all the knowledge, power, wealth, of the world, is in the creation of

THE UNION OF THE STATES.

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Columbus, Watt, Fulton, Daguerre, Stephenson, all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, they were persuaded of them and embraced them. They triumphed over obstacles, they bore ridicule and contempt willingly, because they counted God and Nature faithful, who had promised them in their strong conviction that they should succeed in accomplishing what they designed. And so they saw at last a part of what they foresaw, and their faith led to sight.

All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; Strong convictions precede

he. who doubts is weak.

great actions. The man strongly possessed of an idea is the master of all who are uncertain and wavering. Clear, deep, living convictions rule the world.

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8.

THE UNION OF THE STATES.

this great Republic union is peace, union is grandeur, union is power, union is honor, union is everything which a mighty nation should glory to possess. To us all, next to liberty, next to honor, be we persuaded that a cordial and abiding confederacy of the American people is the greatest of earthly good.

In the burning chambers of the dread hereafter, there is no infinity of wrath vast enough for him who, Herostratus-like, to be remembered only for infamy, shall apply the torch of destruction to this fair Ephesian temple of our Union. That time, in some long, long future age, and that person may come for the

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THE UNION OF THE STATES.

overthrow of our country. Accursed be the traitor, whensoever and wheresoever shall be his advent among us, like the Spirit of evil issuing from his realms of darkness to trouble the pure bliss of Paradise! To him that shall compass or plot the dissolution of this Union, I would apply language resembling what I remember to have seen of an old anathema: Wherever fire burns or water runs; wherever ship floats or land is tilled; wherever the skies vault themselves, or the lark carols to the dawn, or sun shines, or earth greens in his ray; wherever God is worshipped in temples or heard in thunder; wherever man is honored or woman loved, there, from thenceforth and forever, shall there be to him no part or lot in the honor of man or the love of woman. Ixion's revolving wheel, the overmantling cup at which Tantalus may not slake his unquenchable thirst, the insatiable. vulture gnawing at the immortal heart of Prometheus, the rebel giants writhing in the volcanic fires of Ætna, are but faint types of his doom.

I do not, I cannot, I will not, believe that opinions adverse hereto exist anywhere within the bounds of the Republic, and I would forestall their possible future upspringing. I would have our allegiance to the Union unshaken and unshakable; our constancy in the public cause fixed as the north star in the firmament; our dedication to its interest a vestal fire burning on with unextinguishable flame forever. Here in the eyes of our countrymen, and of the world, with the Muse of history before us to record our deeds and our words, let us, like Hannibal at the altar of his gods, swear eternal faithfulness to our country, eterInal hatred to its foes.

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