do no injustice to the other noble achievements of the war, which have reflected such honor on both arms of the service, and have entitled the armies and the navy of the United States, their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the richest rewards which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter page than that which relates the battles of Gettysburg. THE BURIAL OF JOHN BROWN. WENDELL PHILLIPS. WHAT lesson shall those lips teach us? Before that still, calm brow let us take a new baptism. How can we stand here without a fresh and utter consecration? These tears! how shall we dare even to offer consolation? Only lips fresh from such a vow have the right to mingle their words with your tears. We envy you your nearer place to these martyred children of God. I do not believe slavery will go down in blood. Ours is the age of thought. Hearts are stronger than swords. The last fortnight! How sublime its lesson! the Christian one of conscience of truth. Virginia is weak, because each man's heart said amen to John Brown. His words they are stronger even than his rifles. These crushed a state. Those have changed the thoughts of millions, and will yet crush slavery. Men said, “Would he had died in arms!" God ordered better, and granted to him and the slave those noble prison hours — that single hour of death; granted him a higher than a soldier's place, that of teacher; the echoes of his rifles have died away in the hills- a million hearts guard his words. AMERICA. SIDNEY LANIER. EXTRACT FROM THE CENTENNIAL CANTATA. Now praise to God's oft-granted grace! How long, good angel, O how long? Long as thine art shall love true love, Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. CARL SCHURZ. EXTRACTS. AT last the Emancipation Proclamation came. A shout of triumph went up from every liberty-loving heart. Once more the friends of freedom in each hemisphere joined in a common sympathy. Once more the cause of the American people became the cause of liberty, the world over. Once more our struggle was identified with the noblest aspirations of the human race. Once more our reverses found a response of sorrow in the great heart of mankind, and our victories aroused a jubilant acclaim which rolled around the globe. Do you remember the touching address of the workingmen of Manchester? While the instincts of despotism everywhere conspired against us; while the aristocracy of Great Britain covered us with their sneering contempt; while the laboring men in England began to suffer by the stopping of the cotton supply, and the nobility and the princes of industry told them that their misery was our fault, the great heart of the poor man rose in its magnificence, and the English laborer stretched his hard hand across the Atlantic to grasp that of our President, and he said: All hail, Liberator! Although want and misery may knock at my doors, mind it not. I may suffer, but be you firm! Let the slave be free, let the dignity of human nature be vindicated, let universal liberty triumph! All hail, American people! We are your brothers! SHERIDAN'S RIDE. THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. Up from the south at break of day, And wider still those billows of war But there is a road from Winchester town, And there, through the flash of the morning light, He stretched away with the utmost speed; Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering South, Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, Under his spurning feet the road And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace-ire, The first that the General saw were the groups Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops; What was done-what to do a glance told him both, He dashed down the lines 'mid a storm of hurrahs, By the flash of his eye and his nostril's play |