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smallest injury or injustice. But I do not, affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern, that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

In some

5. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. respects it has hardly a prěcědent any where; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

6. An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of a murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in one example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye, emitting livid fires of malice.

7. Let him draw, rather, a decōrous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose rather than in action; not 60 much an example of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal nature-a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his character.

8. The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances-now clearly in evidencespread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen

on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof: a healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet-the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace.

9. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer; and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death!

10. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard !

11. To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse. He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder-no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and

he is safe!

12. Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds every thing, as in the splendor of noon-such secrets of guilt are never safe from

a Here, by the aid of the historical present-representing things as happening now, in the presence of the judge and jury-the figure of VISION is used with great effect. (See page 236.) Although most of the description is in the narrative style, yet the transition from the past to the present in those passages which admit it, has the effect of painting the scene to the eyes of the hearers with all the vividness of the reality.

detection even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery.

13. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to every man, every thing, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.

14. Meantime the guilty soul can not keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man.

15. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no assistance or sympathy either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts.

16. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from within begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide-and suicide is confession.

[The Argument, which embraces nine tenths of the entire speech, is here wholly omitted.

The following are the closing remarks of Mr. Webster in his address to the jury. They will compare favorably with those of the public prosecutor in the case of Robert Emmet. See page 294.]

II. CLOSING REMARKS.

1. Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner's life; but then it is to save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. 2. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You can not presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless we would all judge him in mercy. Toward him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but toward him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

3. With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we can not either face, or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings. of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the seaa, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery.

4. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are with us. We can not escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, they will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty-to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.

a Here Mr. Webster makes a beautiful application of the language of the Psalmist. "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."-Psalm cxxxix.

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LESSON CXXVI.

NATURE OF THE SUBJECT.

[Analysis.-1. Dignity and importance of the subjects to which the preacher of the Gospel devotes himself. What they admit.-2. Importance of eloquence here. What is required in the eloquence of the pulpit.-3. Sincerity and goodness required in the preacher.-4. Advantages of the preacher.-5. The difficulties with which they are attended.-6. The preacher's vocation antithetically compared with that of other popular speakers.-7. Peculiarity of the position of the preacher.-8. The demands of good men upon him.-9. The different advantages of different kinds of public speaking.-10. In regard to the subject. A remark of Bruyeré.]

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1. THERE is no other department of knowledge in which mankind ought to be so deeply interested as in that which relates to the Creator and Ruler of the universe, his attributes, government, and laws, the origin and nature of man, and his final destiny. The subjects, therefore, to which the preacher of the Gospel devotes himself, far exceed, in dignity and importance, those which engage the attention of the

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