tempt. We may be assured, gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to commend and commemorate them. The voluntary outpouring of public feeling, made to-day, from the North to the South, and from the East to the West, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the cities1 and in the villages, in the public temples and in the family circles, among all ages and sexes, gladdened voices today bespeak grateful hearts and a freshened recollection of the virtues of the Father of his Country.

And it will be so, in all time to come, so long as public virtue is itself an object of regard. The ingenuous 2 youth of America will hold up to themselves the bright model of Washington's example, and study to be what they behold; they will contemplate his character till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to their delighted vision, as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on the plains of Babylon,3 gazed at the stars till they saw them form into clusters and constellations overpowering at length the eyes of the beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights.

5

Gentlemen, we are at the point of a century from the birth of Washington; and what a century it has been! During its course, the human mind has seemed to pro

1 In the cities, etc. Period, or loose sentence?

2 ingenuous. See Glossary. 8 earliest astronomers. ylon. Recall historical facts.

. Bab

4 clusters and constellations. Note the fine alliteration. Is there any distinction of meaning between these two words?

5 century. See Glossary.

ceed with a sort of geometric velocity,1 accomplishing, for human intelligence and human freedom, more than had been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the New World. A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been the theater on which a great part of that change has been wrought,2 and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders, and of both he is the chief.

If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before his birth, be true; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the grandest exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made on this theater of the Western world; if it be true that, —

"The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last," 3.

how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately opened, how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, but by the introduction of just such a character as our Washington?

It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington, that having been intrusted, in revolutionary times,

1 geometric velocity. Explain. 3 The four... the last. Three Find out the distinction between lines from a very remarkable poem geometrical and arithmetical pro- by Bishop Berkeley (1684–1753). gression. The pupil will do well to find the

2 wrought. What synonym in poem, and also to ascertain somethis same sentence?

thing regarding Berkeley.

with the supreme military command, and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for wisdom and valor, he should be placed at the head of the first government in which an attempt was to be made, on a large scale, to rear the fabric of social order on the basis of a written constitution, and of a pure representative principle. A government was to be established, without a throne, without an aristocracy, without castes,1 orders, or privileges; and this government, instead of being a democracy, existing and acting within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over a vast country, of different climates, interests, and habits, and of various communions 3 of our common Christian faith. The experiment certainly was entirely new. A popular government of this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of representation, or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity for ever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this high career,5 he was fitted for it by wisdom, by

1 castes. Define.

4

2 walls of a single city. Athens and early Rome.

4 popular government=democAs racy.

. 5 Destined.. career. Of what

8 communions. Give a synonym. | word is this phrase an adjunct?

virtue, by patriotism, by discretion, by whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man. In entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment and the premature extinction of all hope of success would have been certain, had it not been that there did exist throughout the country, in a most extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the helm.

I remarked, gentlemen, that the whole world was and is interested in the result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment the career which this government is running is among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? Do we deceive1 ourselves, or is it true that at this moment that love of liberty, and that understanding of its true principles, which are flying over the whole earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and truly of American origin?

Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation 2 from heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power;

1 Do we deceive, etc. Note the impressive effect of the repetition of the form of expression in the previous sentence. The interrogative form is here a rhetorical mode of implying a strong assertion.

2 emanation. See Webster.

8 that this spirit, etc. Of what is this clause an object? What other clauses are objects of the same verb?

4 health. See Glossary.

that its benignity is as great as its strength; that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful,1 admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the contemplation of theorists,2 or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington.

Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun,3 for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal⭑ or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? what other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?5

6

The principles of Washington's administration are

1 fearful. Meaning here?

2 theorists, persons of merely speculative views.

8 whole circle... sun. Explain. 4 weal. See Glossary.

5 If this . . . world? Change these figurative expressions into literal terms.

6 Washington's administration. When?