of all, they assume to dispense the means of Heaven's free and universal salvation. (Applause.) But here that silly enfantillage, that miserable sophism, that selfish and odious assumption has passed away: and the Swiss, like the American, acknowledges but one absolute authority, the authority of God over his conscience and heart, and but one absolute right, the right of all men to an equal love and an exact justice. (Cheers). The Swiss has done some thing to evince his fidelity to these frontal principles: and so has the American. Both have sealed their faith in their blood. For long centuries here, the struggle for freedom has gone on: and though it has been less long with us it has not been less intense. If not our entire history, the last ten years of it, have shown where we stand. We have not shrunk from our principles. Though a bitter, a painful, pay a terrible cup was presented to us, we drained it to the dregs. Five hundred thousands slain, and a million of hearts made desolate, tell the world what liberty is to us, what estimate we set on union. Dearer than life, dearer than father or mother, dearer than sweetheart or wife, is that free, popular, constitutional existence, which distinguishes us from others and makes us what we are. (Cheers.) Thank God, that others are at last beginning to discover, not only the greatness of our means but the grandeur of our end. Europe estimates more truly to day than ever before the measure and strength of that stupendous experiment, experiment no longer, which we have undertaken in the western world. It is beginning to see, in spite of the boasts of a factitious and pedantic Cæsarism, which has no force whatever save that which it insidiously sucks from the egg of democracy, - - that popular government is not only the most progressive, the most beneficent, the most just, the most beneficent and progressive because the most just, but that it is also, externally as well as internally, the strongest government! No other government could have coped with the difficulties that ours has overcome, could have survived the perils that ours has surmounted. No other government, after the experience of the late years, will willingly dash itself against the Republic, as she sits, solitary and secure, but peaceful and mighty, beyond the seas. (Applause.) But, whatever Europe may feel or think we Americans can now apply with some little alteration to the whole. country, the beautiful eulogy, which Webster once confined to the state of Massachusett. She needs no encomium: there « she is; behold her, and judge for yourself. The Past at least is secure. There is her history, the world knows it by heart. There is Concord and Lexington and Bunker-Hill,» to which we add now, Chattanooga, Gettysburg, and the Five-Forks, and there they will remain forever! The bones of her sons, fallen in the last great struggle for the Union, now lie mingled with the soil of every State and there they will lie forever. Where political liberty raised its first voice, where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. But, should it be destined to meet with reverses, should folly and madness threaten it, should party strife and blind ambition hawk at and tear it, should fanaticism, under the guise of philanthropy, combine with the banded tyrannies of the old world to overwhelm it, it will stretch forth its arms, with whatever vigor they may still retain, over the friends who gather around it, and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its own glory and on the very spot of its origin! (Cheers.) Third toast.« The day we celebrate, the eightyninth anniversary of American Independance; for ever dear to the hearts, for ever hallowed in the memories of all lovers of national integrity and individual freedom. » - Music: The Star spangled banner. This was responded to by Rev. Dr Ames of Lancaster Mass, whose eloquent speech, however, unfortunately, was not reported. - Fourth toast. « Civil and Religious liberty, the purpose of Divine Providence towards all the nations.Eternal honour to its martyrs, its defenders and its advocates in every land. »> Music Air Suisse des Montagnes (Buch.). In announcing this toast the President said he was quite sure he should give great pleasure to every American present, when he introduced, as its respondent, one whose name was known and esteemed in all our country; whose published works lay side by side of the Holy Bible and Bunyon's Dream throughout the length and breadth of our land—namely, Dr Merle d'Aubigné of this city of Geneva (Cheers). Dr Merle d'Aubigné's Speech. Mr President, The toast you give me to propose, is on civil and religious liberty. I should wish, in order to do honour to it, to be able, in this, my native country, to speak my native tongue, the tongue of my fathers. But I must speak English. There is a contradiction, Sir, in your request; you ask me to speak about liberty and you make me a slave. When I speak English, I am bound, I am in irons, I am a slave; nevertheless, I will endeavour, even though enchained, to give expression to my thoughts. Civil and religious liberty! Ladies and gentlemen, there is need, great need of it. With the exception of two or three oases, the desert is everywhere. It is wanted in paganism, it is wanted in Islamism, it is wanted in Christendom, and it is even deficient in some protestant countries. But civil and religious liberty is the purpose of Divine Providence towards all nations, and after the darkness of the middle ages, began the great emancipations of humanity. The will of God was the triumph of that great cause; he raised up heroes, he crowned martyrs, and according to his usual mode of action, the accomplishing of great designs by small means, He made use of this little republic, to be one of the chief instruments of His marvellous plan. We have had heroes and martyrs of liberty and mar tyrs are more than heroes, for they give their life to the cause they defend. At a distance of some few yards from the place where we are now assembled, on the edge of this majestic river which flows before our windows, at about this season of the year, 1519, Philibert Berthelier who had raised the people of this city against the encroachments of the prince-bishop of Geneva, and of the Duke of Savoy, was imprisoned in the tower of Cæsar: « Ask forgiveness, said to him the ducal officers, and submit yourself to the prince, else you will die. » Berthelier answered nothing, but he rose and wrote on the wall of his prison: Non moriar, sed vivam et narrabo opera Domini. The next day, the Duke and the bishop put all their army under arms; Berthelier was led to the narrow strip of land that lies between the tower and the river, and there the executioner struck off his head. Sir, Berthelier's name and glory, still live, and after three hundred years, we honour him, as one of the founders of modern liberty. After him God raised up another hero. He was not a soldier like Berthelier, but a lawyer. Levrier the first judge of the town, when the Duke endeavoured to act as master, rose up in the Council and said: « The Duke is here a vassal and not a sovereign. » The learned judge was traitrously seized, coming out of the cathedral, tied to a horse, carried to the castle of Bonne, at the feet of the Alps, about six miles from this, a place you could almost see from these windows. He was taken at midnight to the court of the fortress: By God's grace, he said, I die for the liberty of my country » and his head rolled in the castle's « |