him. Let him rather rejoice that he may be superior to the influence of its opinion, and all the more god-like when he rests on his own strength alone.

Young man! you are entering upon the stage of action at a most interesting period of the world's history; the great battle is now being fought, whose general result will determine whether freedom and the rights of man shall be respected, or whether the world is ever to remain shrouded by the night-shade of despotism. The materials which are to produce a yet more general eruption have been long in the process of collection; the preparation is now nearly complete; when it is quite made and a few more sparks of burning democratic truth are applied, the explosion which will then ensue will, we trust, hurl tyranny to the dust and blot her name and nature from the world. The slumbering volcano has already given unequivocal symptoms of the coming outbreak. Revolution succeeding revolution has convulsed Christendom-yes, and Heathendom.

First in this grand fifth act contest, our own beloved land arose in her youthful strength, and, as the rejoicing lion rousing from slumber shakes off the trembling dew-drops from his mane, shook off a foreign yoke too galling to be longer borne. That stroke jarred the crown on many a royal brow. It was but the first thunderbolt of the coming storm which is still blackening in vengeance over the heads of those who have dared to defy its fury. Liberty, wandering homeless o'er the groaning earth, found here, in our young native land, the hardy Puritan, the devoted Patriot, the virtuous Man, struggling against the usurpations of a foreign power. Here she found a welcome home and a genial clime. She endowed the American arms with invincibility in a just cause, and said to the nascent nation, "Be great and free!" A mighty people hung entranced

on the sweet accents of her lips, and having declared itself independent, nobly swore by life, fortune, and sacred honor, to maintain that declaration or perish in the attempt. It was maintained; and a brilliant example was thus set before the world, which has excited universal admiration, which has inspired and will continue to inspire the spirit of emulation.

Doubtless, the successful termination of the American revolutionary struggle was one cause that, co-operating with many others, served to prepare the French nation for the commencement of its regeneration; a revolution in its incidents, its causes, and its developed and developing effects, affording the most interesting of historical themes; for during its progress, the public mind of a great and enlightened people, a people too the most volatile and excitable in character of any that the world has ever seen, was wrought to the extreme pitch of excitement, and then set at work by demagogic dictators under all this head of passion, unregulated by any balance-wheel of cold iron. The result was that almost every individual in France had his own peculiar and original system of society, of government, of religion. Of course, by far the greater number of these systems were mere abortions, never receiving any active being; and such as did obtain a limited experiment, were successively thrust out of life before they had half learned to walk with even a moderately firm step. As has been said on another subject, "Everything was attempted, much accomplished, nothing perfected." A man cannot run one thousand miles sooner than he can walk it and a nation cannot permanently revolutionize its governmeut by violent sooner than by gradual means. Civilization in France, in Europe, and throughout the world, has been advanced by the French revolution; but France could not step from the monarchy of Louis XVI. and the religion of Rome to the republicanism of St. Just and the atheism of D'Holbach in the last ten years of the eighteenth century, more easily than we as a nation could adopt to-morrow the socialism of Charles Fourier, the dietetics of Sylvester Graham and the religion of Joe Smith.

To attempt the production of a great effect in a short time and by small means is quackery, and quackery cannot succeed. "A lie can't live," says Carlyle, and truly. Robert Hall thought the shadow moved back at Waterloo, on the dial-face which marks the advancing ages. The termination of the republic in the military despotism of Napoleon; the attempt of that most wonderful of men to establish a new dynasty instead of carrying to its ultimate the universal political reform, whose only hope came to rest in him--an attempt which Channing has justly remarked upon as exhibiting the great, almost the only weakness of his truly heroic character; his intellectual subjection to the social ideas of former less enlightened ages; the overthrow of a throne which had grown up by the people's permission, because it was reared and filled by their idol; and the Bourbon restoration by the combined arms of old friendly monarchies-all this did look like counter-marching. But the tide-waves break and flow back for a moment, while the general movement is still onward, and each thundering billow dashes farther upon the barren sand. So the Napoleonic wave recoiled from Waterloo, but the grand European democratic tide was even then rushing forward, undiscouraged by the batteries of Wellington; and since 1815, many heavy surges have angrily plowed into the sand banks of feudalism. The republic has come back without its reign of terror, and its presiding Bonaparte exhibits no ability, had he the inclination, to follow up the steps of an imperial throne.

The Eternal City has vomited forth a wearer of the triple crown, certainly much more congenial with the spirit of this age than any successor of the braggart who, "afar off;" followed the brave prophet of the people. Hungary too is clamorous for a recognition of her rights, and Kossuth may after some future Austerlitz, assert them at the trembling gates of Vienna. The northern autocrat scowls at the deluge of popular light, generating popular power, that comes bounding up against the walls of his great national prison-house, already, with so loud a voice that serfs can almost hear, and is making strong his arm to resist its progress. How successfully, Borodino with no after Moscow conflagrations, yet will tell. All these things are clearly indicative of advancement with occasional retrogressions. We are not to hope, with the juvenile independence orator, that all the world is but just behind, following close in our tracks; but we may, indeed we can but expect some improvement in the great science of government as well as in all others, and in our own country too, as well

as elsewhere, as mankind grows older and more experien-
ced. And in these mighty revolutions, my brother, you
have something to do. There are only just so many lev-
ers and the world is to be turned over, and "every thing
seems to cry loudly to every man-Do something! do it!
do it!" Marching humanity requires from you assistance:
conscience commands its rendition. You are called upon
by every feeling of benevolence to commisserate the sad
condition of your fellow-men, and to exert yourself for
their relief.
You are called upon, by the highest princi-

ple of honor, to strive to remove the foul stains which

1

have so long disgraced our common nature. You are called upon, by a sense of justice, to discharge a debt that you owe the race. Loudly does every noble sentiment of our manhood call to you, "Arise and let your light shine before men."

Our fathers, from their hallowed graves, by their examples beg us hear old laboring Franklin speaks aloud: Obey that call! Rouse all the latent energies of the mind you possess rather that you are! Shake off the rust of indolence and stand erect in the image of your eternal Sire! Looking with brave glance into the involving night of intellectual and moral gloom, you too may say, "Let there be light!" and there will be light.