EULOGY ON O'CONNELL. 137 divine as well as human laws, which has been our security in the past. There must be faith in something higher and better than ourselves. There must be a reverent acknowledgment of an Unseen but All-seeing, All-controlling Ruler of the Universe. His Word, His day, His house, His worship, must be sacred to our children as they have been to their fathers; and His blessing must never fail to be invoked upon our land and upon our liberties. The patriot voice which cried from the balcony of the old State House when the Declaration had been originally proclaimed, "Stability and perpetuity to American independence!" did not fail to add, "God save our American States!" I would prolong that ancestral prayer; and the sum of all I can say to the present or the future shall be: There is, there can be, no independence of God. In Him as a nation, no less than in Him as individuals, 66 we live and move and have our being." God save our American States! EULOGY ON O'CONNELL. WM. H. SEWARD. THERE is sad news from Genoa. An aged and weary pilgrim, who can travel no farther, passes beneath the gate of one of her ancient palaces, saying with pious resignation, as he enters its silent chambers, "Well, it is God's will that I shall never see Rome. I am disappointed, but I am ready to die." The "superb" though fading queen of the Mediterranean holds its anxious watch through ten long days over that majestic stranger's wasting frame. And now death is there; the liberator of Ireland has sunk to rest in the cradle of Columbus. Coincidence beautiful and most sublime! It was the very day set apart by the elder daughter of the Church for prayer and sacrifice throughout the world, for the children of the sacred isle, perishing by famine and pestilence, in their houses and in their native fields. The chimes rung out by pity for his countrymen were O'Connell's fitting knell. His soul went forth on clouds of incense that rose from altars of Christian charity, and the mournful anthems which recited the faith and the virtue and the endurance of Ireland were his becoming requiem. But has not O'Connell done more than enough for fame? On the lofty brow of Monticello, under a green old oak, is a block of granite, and underneath are the ashes of Jefferson. Read the epitaph; it is the sage's claim to immortality, "Author of the Dec. laration of Independence, and of the Statute for Religious Liberty." Stop now and write an epitaph for Daniel O'Connell: "He gave liberty of conscience to Europe, and renewed the revolutions of the kingdoms toward universal freedom, which began in America and had been arrested by the anarchy of France." Let the statesmen of the age read that epitaph and be humble! Let the kings and aristocracies of the earth read it and tremble! Who has ever accomplished so much for human freedom with means so feeble? Who but he has ever given liberty to a people by the mere utterance of his voice, without an army or navy or revenues, without a sword, a spear, or even a shield? Who but he ever subverted tyranny and saved the lives of the oppressed, yet spared the oppressor? Who but he ever detached from a venerable constitution a column of aristocracy, dashed it to the earth, yet left the ancient fabric stronger and more beautiful than before? Who but he has ever lifted up seven mill EULOGY ON O'CONNELL. 139 ions of people from the debasement of ages to the dignity of freedom, without exacting an ounce of gold or wasting the blood of one human heart? Whose voice yet lingers like O'Connell's in the ear of tyrants, making them sink with fear of change, and in the ear of the most degraded slaves on earth, awaking hopes of freedom? Who before him has brought the schismatics of two centuries together, conciliating them at the altar of universal liberty? Who but he ever brought Papal Rome and Protestant America to burn incense together? It was O'Connell's mission to teach mankind, that liberty was not estranged from Christianity, as was proclaimed by revolutionary France; that she was not divorced from law and public order; that she was not a demon, like Moloch, requiring to be propitiated with the blood of human sacrifice; that democracy is the daughter of peace, and like true religion, worketh by love. Come forward, then, ye nations who are trembling between the dangers of anarchy and the pressure of despotism, and hear a voice that addresses the Liberator of Ireland from the caverns of Silence where Prophecy is born: "To thee, now, sainted spirit, Remotest lands and unborn times shall turn, HOWARD, THE PRISONERS' FRIEND. H. HUMPHREY. WHY is it that the names of Howard and Thornton and Clarkson and Wilberforce will be held in everlasting remembrance? Is it not chiefly on account of their goodness, their Christianity, the overflowing and inexhaustible benevolence of their great minds? Such men feel that they were not born for themselves, nor for the narrow circle of their kindred and acquaintance, but for the world and for posterity. They delight in doing good on a great scale. Their talents, their property, their time, their knowledge, their experience, their influence, they hold in constant requisition for the benefit of the poor, the oppressed, and the perishing. You may trace them along the whole pathway of life, by the blessings which they scatter far and wide. They may be likened to a noble river, which carries gladness and fertility, from state to state, through all the length of that rejoicing valley which it was made to bless; or, to the summer showers which pour gladness and plenty over all the regions that they visit, till they melt away into the glorious refulgence of the setting sun. Such a man was Howard, the prisoners' friend. Christian philanthropy was the element in which he lived and moved, and out of which life would have been intolerable. It was to him that kings listened with astonishment, as if doubtful from what world of pure disinterestedness he had come. To him despair opened her dungeons, and plague and pestilence could summon no terrors to arrest his investigation. In his presence, crime, though girt with the iron pano TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 141 ply of desperation, stood amazed and rebuked. With him home was nothing, country was nothing, health was nothing, life was nothing. His first and last question was, "What is the utmost that I can do for degraded, depraved, bleeding humanity, in all her prison-houses?" And what wonders did he accomplish! What astonishing changes in the whole system of prison discipline may be traced back to his disclosures and suggestions! and how millions yet to be born will rise up and call him blessed! Away! all ye Cæsars and Napoleons, to your own dark and frightful domains of slaughter and misery! Ye can no more endure the light of such a godlike presence, than the eye already inflamed to torture by dissipation can look the sun in the face at noonday! TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. WENDELL PHILLIPS. If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you of Washington, I should take it from your hearts, you who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. But, I am to tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated him because he had beaten them in battle. Napoleon at the age of twenty-seven was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty. This man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell man |