burn each other's arsenals, destroy each other's property at large. We will bombard your towns, and you shall bombard ours, if you can. Let us ruin each other's commerce as much as possible, and that will be a considerable sum. Let our banks break, while we smite and slay one another; let our commercial houses smash right and left in the United States and the United Kingdom. Let us maim and mutilate one another; let us make of each other miserable objects, cripples, halt, and blind, adapted for the town's end, to beg for life. Come, let us render the wives of each other widows, and the mothers childless, and cause them to weep rivers of tears, amounting to an important quantity of "waterprivilege." The bowl of wrath, the devil's punch-bowl, filled high as possible, share we with one another. This, with shot and bayonets, will be good in your insides and in my inside, in the insides of all us brethren. Oh, how good it is! oh, how pleasant it is, for brethren to engage in internecine strife! What a glorious spectacle we Christian Anglo-Saxons, engaged in the work of mutual destruction, in the reciprocation of savage outrages, shall present to the despots and the fiends! How many dollars will you spend? How many pounds sterling shall we? How much capital shall we sink on either side, on land as well as in the sea? How much we shall have to show for it in corpses and wooden legs! Never ask what other return we may expect for the investment. So, then, American kinsmen, let us fight; let us murder and ruin each other. Let demagogues come hot from their conclave of evil spirits, "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," and do you be mad enough to be those mad dogs, and permit yourselves to be hounded upon us by them. MARK LEMON. 21. DEATH OR LIBERTY. Ex-President JOSEPH F. TUTTLE, of Wabash College, Indiana, contributes for this volume these notes of the thrilling address delivered at Cincinnati, in 1834, by Theodore D. Weld, when Mr. Weld was a student at Lane Seminary. President Tuttle, then a mere boy, was attracted to the meeting where Mr. Weld was mobbed for his views upon African slavery. Mr. Weld is the only survivor, since the death of Whittier, of a famous companionship of the early anti-slavery struggle. ONE day, in one of the West India Islands, the sons and daughters of the planters went upon a sailing excursion. The day was glorious, and the sea scarcely rippled into waves under the gentle wind that bore the vessel along like some white-winged bird. It was a day of festivity and mirth, of wine and the dance; and all went merry as a marriage bell. The gay youth, taken up with pleasure, took no note of signs of approaching storm. Suddenly they were awakened from their dreams by a peal of thunder, like a signal gun for battle. The sky grew dark; the wind moaned and sobbed as if in agony; the lightnings flashed, and the thunder crashed through the sky. All was consternation; and yet, just in sight, were their homes. Oh, if they were there! The calm is suddenly broken by the breath of the whirlwind which came swooping down like a bird of prey. And now the waves roll, and the vessel plunges wildly toward the reef of rocks, heedless of all efforts of the struggling helmsman. See it! How it flies toward the place of death! Every cheek is blanched in the presence of the King of Terrors! Look it is almost there! See the waves yonder, breaking into foam, and flinging their waters to the heavens. See the vessel as the mad waves drive it furiously along! Hearken! do you not hear the roar of the breakers mingled with the shrieks of the poor creatures on the vessel's deck? One moment more, and she is dashed upon the rocks. And now the waves, as if inspired with madness, rush upon it to tear it in pieces, and swallow up those young lives. See those sons and daughters clinging to the wreck, and shrieking for help! It is a scene of unspeakable terror. upon Meanwhile, on the shore yonder are gathered the parents whose children are thus stretching out their hands in supplication for help. Here are boats, but can they live in such a sea? And here are slaves, looking the terrible scene while their masters bid them man the boats and go to the rescue. And shall they go? And why shall they go? They look at their masters on the shore, and their young masters on the wreck. They look at the sea lashing and breaking on the shore in fury. Wherefore shall they go, as into the very jaws of death? They refuse. The masters entreat, and then command them to go. Nay, they use the dreadful whip to scourge them into obedience to that dreadful peril, but in vain! Not a slave will enter a boat. And must these children perish, without one single effort to save them? One motive remained untried. These slaves belonged to the class supposed to have no longing for freedom, and now it shall be known whether that be so or not. In this extremity the planters held a hurried consultation; and then one of their number, leaping upon a rock, waved his hat and shouted, "Liberty! Liberty! Liberty! to every slave that shall man the boats and go to the rescue." Those men, those slaves, started as we may suppose the dead will start at the sound of God's last trumpet. "Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!" Those black faces were suffused with a new joy. Those poor dumb hearts beat with the pulsations of a new hope. A moment's hesitation, as if to see whether that were a real sound, — whether their own ears did indeed hear that wondrous word "Liberty," and they started for the boats. upon One was manned and pushed out into the waves that broke the shore; but it was swamped, — every man perishing in the attempt. Another was manned, but quickly shared the same fate; and yet this double catastrophe did not terrify men who had heard the word "Liberty," and who might win it by this perilous venture. And thus they ventured their lives in the tremendous contest; and though many of them died in the attempt, they rescued the imperilled youth, less noble than themselves. And yet there are those who say that the slave does not love Liberty. THEODORE Dwight Weld. 22. PRESS ON! PRESS on! there's no such word as fail! Look onward, upward, Why shouldst thou faint? never fear! Heaven smiles above, Though storm and vapor intervene ; That sun shines on, whose name is Love, Press on! Surmount the rocky steeps, Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch; He wins who dares the hero's march. Be thou a hero! let thy might Tramp on eternal snows its way, Press on! If once or twice thy feet Slip back and stumble, harder try; Press on! If Fortune play thee false Makes up for follies past and gone; To weakness strength succeeds, and power From frailty springs. Press on! press on! Press bravely on, and reach the goal, And gain the prize, and wear the crown; Faint not for to the steadfast soul Come wealth and honor and renown. To thine own self be true, and keep Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil; Press on and thou shalt surely reap A heavenly harvest for thy toil. PARK BENJAMIN. |