present at the scene, and he dwells on it often with sympathetic delight. There in the old Town House of Boston sat the five judges of the Province, with Hutchinson as chief justice, in robes of scarlet, cambric bands, and judicial wigs; and there, too, in gowns, bands, and tie-wigs, were the barristers. Conspicuous on the wall were full-length portraits of two British monarchs, Charles II. and James II., while in the corners were the likenesses of Massachusetts governors. In this presence the great oration was delivered. The patriot lawyer had refused compensation. "In such a cause as this," said he, “I despise a fee." He spoke for country and mankind.

Firmly he planted himself on the rights of man, which, he insisted, were by the everlasting law of nature inherent and inalienable; and these rights, he nobly proclaimed, were common to all without distinction of color. To suppose them surrendered in any other way than by equal rules and general consent was to suppose men idiots or mad, whose acts are not binding.

The effect was electric. The judges were stunned into silence and postponed judgment. The people were aroused to a frenzy of patriotism. "American Independence," says John Adams, in the record of his impressions, " was then and there born; the seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown, to defend the vigorous youth. Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born."

C. Sumner.

CCLXXXII.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LOUISIANA.

MR. PRESIDENT and Fellow-citizens

At the request

of the Committee of Arrangements, I am present as a spectator, to witness the imposing and grand ceremonies of this interesting occasion, and reluctantly to express in words my great gratification at the progress that has been made in the

restoration of Louisiana to the Union of States, and in the majestic evidence before me of the returning loyalty of its people.

my

I have watched with the deepest interest the momentous events in the struggle through which we are passing, from its inception to the present hour. In common with the mass of my countrymen I have sorrowed at reverses, and rejoiced in victories. I have mourned over the heroes who have fallen on the field of battle brothers in blood, my brothers in arms and have joined in the honors which a grateful people have showered upon the gallant spirits who upon the sea and upon the land have led our hosts to victory. They never can be forgotten. Day by day and hour by hour, I have observed the receding armies of the enemy, until more than half the territory covered by the shadow of the rebel flag at the beginning of the war, has fallen into the possession of the Government, and is covered by the Stars and Stripes the emblem of Liberty, now and forever, here and everywhere.

We have, indeed, enough to rejoice our hearts in the progress of our armies, and to give joy to the festivities of this glad hour, —

"But much remains

To conquer still. Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than war."

In order to maintain the ground we have recovered with such terrible sacrifice of precious life, and to enable the gallant leaders and heroic men of our armies to retire to the walks of civil life again, it is necessary that civil institutions of government should be reëstablished, and a new, subdued, yet patriotic spirit, like that which held

"The helm of Rome, when robes, not arms,

Repelled the fierce Epirote and the bold African,”

should animate our people and restore the pristine purity and power of the nation.

Louisiana has not been faithless to her duties, nor is she now, nor will she be in the future. Among the truest spirits in the hour of trial were her sons and her daughters. Among the bravest and truest upon the field of battle have been her volunteers. She was the first in this great revolution of ideas rather

than arms, to organize her public schools upon a war footing, and infuse into the uncorrupted hearts of their pupils this new sentiment of nationality, by the daily repetition, with the morning prayers, of the magnificent anthems of American liberty. She was the first to institute the system of compensated labor, that makes the restoration of the institution of slavery on this continent impossible that compels us to prepare for the elevation of the oppressed race among us, and the ultimate recognition of all their rights. She is the first in this revolution of ideas to give to the social element of the people a national interest and a national spirit in the great drama of life through which we are passing. And here, to-day, with this splendid pageant — here, to-day, at the inauguration which consummates an election by the people of more than ordinary purity and of unrestricted freedom here, to-day she is to recognize, as a national sentiment for the new age and the new history, the doctrine that Union AND Liberty, now and forever, must be, and will be, one and inseparable.

as of a people

In proportion to the confidence with which the people of the American continent shall view the results of this day's history, so will arise, in all parts of our land, a cry of joy liberated from the bondage of slavery and death. And from the hearthstone and the altar will arise the prayer of the good and wise, that this first gleam of light will prove a joyful harbinger of a perpetual day of peace, prosperity, and power.

N. P. Banks.

CCLXXXIII.

THE BIBLE-ITS INFLUENCE.

THIS Book has taken such a hold on the world as no other. The literature of Greece, which goes up like incense from that land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the influence of this Book from a nation alike despised in ancient and modern times. It is read of a Sunday in all the thirty thousand pulpits of our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up, week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot

sail the sea without it; no ship of war goes to the conflict but the Bible is there! It enters men's closets; mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. The affianced maiden prays God in Scripture for strength in her new duties; men are married by Scripture. The Bible attends them in their sickness; when the fever of the world is on them, the aching head finds a softer pillow if such leaves lie underneath. The mariner, escaping from shipwreck, clutches this first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to God. It goes with the peddler, in his crowded pack; cheers him at eventide, when he sits down dusty and fatigued ; brightens the freshness of his morning face. It blesses us when we are born; gives names to half Christendom; rejoices with us; has sympathy for our mourning; tempers our grief to finer issues. It is the better part of our sermons. It lifts man above himself; our best of uttered prayers are its storied speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed.

The timid man, about awaking from this dream of life, looks through the glass of Scripture and his eye grows bright; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand, and bid farewell to wife, and babes, and home. Men rest on this their dearest hopes. It tells them of God, and of his blessed Son; of earthly duties and of heavenly rest. Foolish men find it the source of Plato's wisdom, and the science of Newton, and the art of Raphael; wicked men use it to rivet the fetters of the slave. Men who believe nothing else that is Spiritual, believe the Bible all through; without this they would not confess, say they, even that there was a God.

T. Parker.

CCLXXXIV.

THE BIBLE-ITS DEEP AND LASTING POWER.

FOR this deep and lasting power of the Bible there must be

an adequate cause. That nothing comes of nothing is true all the world over. It is no light thing to hold, with an electric chain, a thousand hearts, though but an hour, beating and bounding with such fiery speed. What is it then to hold the Christian world, and that for centuries? Are men fed with chaff and

husks? The authors we reckon great, whose word is in the newspaper, and the market-place, whose articulate breath now sways the nation's mind, — will soon pass away, giving place to other great men of a season, who in their turn shall follow them to eminence and then to oblivion. Some thousand "famous writers come up in this century, to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles its tens of centuries passed by. Has the human race gone mad? Time sits as a refiner of metal; the dross is piled in forgotten heaps, but the pure gold is reserved for use, passes into the ages, and is current a thousand years hence as well as to-day. It is only real merit that can long pass for such. Tinsel will rust in the storms of life. False weights are soon detected there. It is only a heart that can speak, deep and true, to a heart; a mind to a mind; a soul to a soul; wisdom to the wise, and religion to the pious. There must then be in the Bible, mind, conscience, heart and soul, wisdom and religion. Were it otherwise, how could millions find it in their lawgiver, friend, and prophet? Some of the greatest of human institutions seem built on the Bible; such things will not stand on heaps of chaff but on mountains of rocks.

T. Parker.

CCLXXXV.

THE PERPETUITY OF THE UNION.

GIVE up the Union? NEVER! The Union shall endure,

and its praises shall be heard when its friends and its foes, those who support, and those who assail, those who bare their bosoms in its defence, and those who aim their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust together. Its name shall be heard with veneration amid the roar of the Pacific's waves, away upon the river of the North and East where liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest and wave in the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the manufactories