4. The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us,-a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often, and dwell on too long, can not be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can perform their part well, until they understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling of self-importance; but it is, that we may judge justly of our situation and of our duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our position and our character among the nations of the earth.

5. It can not be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened and an unquenchable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been before altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, fellowcitizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upholden them.

6. Let us contemplate, then, this connection which binds the posterity of others to our own; and let us manfully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. +Auspicious + omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our firmament now shines brightly upon our path. Washington is in the clear, upper sky. Adams, Jefferson, and other stars have joined the American constellation; they circle round their center, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life; and, at its close, devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the divine + benignity.

WEBSTER.

LESSON CCXXIV.

IMPORTANCE OF THE UNION.

and

1. MR. PRESIDENT: I am conscious of having detained you the senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my

heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I can not, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, without expressing once more, my deep conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than the union of the states, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public happiness.

2. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. It is to that union, we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union, that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered +finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proof of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not out-run its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

3. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of the government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the union might best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people, when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

4. While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the vail. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant, that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states +dissevered, discordant, +belligerent; our land rent with civil +feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

5. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored through

+

out the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and union afterward; but every where, spread all over, in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and on every wind, and under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart-Liberty AND Union, now and forever; one and inseparable!

WEBSTER.

LESSON CCXXV.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

+

1. WHEN Freedom, from her mountain hight,
+ Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes,
The milky baldrick of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.
2. Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear 'st aloft thy +regal form,
To hear the tempest trumping loud,
And see the lightning-lances driven,

When strides the warrior of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven;
Child of the sun! to thee 't is given
To guard the banner of the free,
Tothover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows in the cloud of war,
The harbinger of victory.

3. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly
The sign of hope and triumph high.
When speaks the signal-trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on,
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has +dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy meteor glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance;
And when the cannon's mouthings loud,
Heave, in wild wreaths, the battle shroud,
And gory sabers rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
There, shall thy victor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall sink below
Each gallant arm, that strikes beneath
That awful messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave.
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back,
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
The dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile, to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

5. Flag of the free heart's only home!
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin + dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner waving o'er us?

J. R. DRAKE.

LESSON CCXXVI.

THE EAGLE."

1. BIRD of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,
Where the wide storms their banners fling,
And the tempest-clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain-top;
Thy fields, the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.

2. Thou art perched aloft, on the + beetling crag,
And the waves are white below,

And on, with a haste that can not lag,
They rush in an endless flow,

Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight,
To lands beyond the sea,

And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.

3. Lord of the boundless realm of air,
In thy imperial name,

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare
The dangerous path of fame.

Beneath the shade of thy golden wings,
The Roman legions bore,

From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,
Their pride to the polar shore.*

4. For thee they fought, for thee they fell,
And their oath on thee was laid;

To thee the clarions raised their swell,
And the dying warrior prayed.

Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,
The image of pride and power,

Till the gathered rage of a thousand years,
Burst forth in one awful hour.¿

5. And then, a deluge of wrath it came,
And the nations shook with dread;

And it swept the earth, till its fields were flame,
And piled with the mingled dead.
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood,
With the low and crouching slave;
And together lay in a shroud of blood,
The coward and the brave.

6. And where was then thy fearless flight?
"O'er the dark and mysterious sea,
To the land that caught the setting light,
The cradle of Liberty.

There, on the silent and lonely shore,

For ages I watched alone,

And the world, in its darkness, asked no more
Where the glorious bird had flown.

7. "But then, came a bold and hardy few,
And they breasted the unknown wave;
I saw from far the wandering crew,
And I knew they were high and brave.
I wheeled around the welcome bark,
As it sought the desolate shore,
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark,
My quivering +pinions bore.

The Roman standard was the image of an eagle. The soldiers swore by it,

and the loss of it was considered a disgrace.

? Alluding to the destruction of Rome by the northern barbarians.