conviction, because it showed the mastery he possessed over himself and his subject without disclosing the means employed, and this resulted in his mastery of his listeners. He was a great student of oratory, and in his college days practised vocal and physical expression assiduously, as told by him in the following language: "I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising from a large palate, and when a boy I used to be laughed at for talking as if I had pudding in my mouth. When I went to Amherst I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of inflections by the voice, of gesture, posture, and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my voice on a word like 'justice.' I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark chalked out on the floor. Then we would go through all the gestures. It was drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a second nature. Now, I never know what movements I shall make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made them natural to me. The only method of acquiring effective elocution is by practice, of not less than an hour a day, until the student has his voice and himself thoroughly subdued and trained to right expression." He says this about the speaking voice: "The cultivated voice is like an orchestra. It ranges high, intermediate, or low, unconsciously to him who uses it, and men listen, unaware that they have been bewitched out of their weariness by the charms of a voice not artificial, but made by assiduous training, to be his second nature."

HIS great nation, filling all profitable lati

THIS

tudes, cradled between two oceans, with inexhaustible resources, with riches increasing in an unparalleled ratio, by agriculture, by manufactures, by commerce, with schools and churches, with books and newspapers thick as leaves in our forests, with institutions sprung from the people, and peculiarly adapted to their genius; a nation

not sluggish, but active, used to excitement, practised in political wisdom, and accustomed to selfgovernment, and all its vast outlying parts held together by a federal government, mild in temper, gentle in administration, and beneficent in results, seemed to have been formed for peace. All at once, in this hemisphere of happiness and hope, there came trooping clouds with fiery bolts, full of death and desolation. At a cannon shot upon this fort (Sumter), all the nation, as if they had been a trained army lying on their arms, awaiting a signal, rose up and began a war which, for awfulness, rises into the front rank of bad eminence. The front of the battle going with the sun, was twelve hundred miles long; and the depth, measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. In this vast area more than two million men, first and last, for four years, have, in skirmish, fight, and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts; while a coast and river line, not less than four thousand miles in length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artillery. The very industry of the country seemed to have been touched by some infernal wand, and, with one wheel, changed its front from peace to war. The anvils of the land beat like drums. As out of the ooze emerge monsters, so from our mines and foundries uprose new and

strange machines of war, ironclad. And thus, in a nation of peaceful habits, without external provocation, there arose such a storm of war as blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere.

RAISING THE FLAG

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Extract from an oration at the raising of the Old Flag" at Fort Sumter, April 14, 1865.

WE

E raise our fathers' banner that it may bring back better blessings than those of old; that it may cast out the devil of discord; that it may restore lawful government, and a prosperity purer and more enduring than that which it protected before; that it may win parted friends from their alienation; that it may inspire hope, and inaugurate universal liberty; that it may say to the sword, "Return to thy sheath"; and to the plough and sickle, "Go forth"; that it may heal all jealousies, unite all policies, inspire a new national life, compact our strength, purify our principles, ennoble our national ambitions, and make this people great and strong, not for aggression and quarrelsomeness, but for the peace of the world, giving to us the glorious prerogative

of leading all nations to juster laws, to more humane policies, to sincerer friendship, to rational, instituted civil liberty, and to universal Christian brotherhood. Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as of old the bow was painted on the cloud, and, with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it and make it a memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail.

ENGLAND AGAINST WAR

HENRY WARD BEECHER

I

HEAR a loud protest against war.

Ladies

and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman - there is a small band in our country and in yours I wish their number were quadrupled-who have borne a solemn and painful testimony against all wars under all circumstances; and although I differ with them on the subject of defensive warfare, yet when men that rebuked their own land, and all lands, now rebuke us, though I cannot accept their judgment, I bow with profound respect to their consistency. But excepting them, I regard this British horror of the American war as something wonderful. Why, it is a phenomenon in itself!

On what shore has not the prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people where your banner has not led your soldiers? And when the great resurrection reveille shall sound it will muster British soldiers from every clime and people under the whole heaven. Ah! but it is said this is a war against your own blood. How long is it since you poured soldiers into Canada, and let all your yards work night and day to avenge the taking of two men out of the Trent? Old England shocked at a war of principle! She gained her glories in such a war. Old England ashamed of a war of principle! Her national ensign symbolizes her history the cross

who

in a field of blood. And will you tell us inherit your blood, your ideas, and your pluck that we must not fight? The child must heed the parents until the parents get old and tell the child not to do the thing that in early life they whipped him for not doing. And then the child says father and mother are getting too old; they had better be taken away from their present home and come to live with us. Perhaps you think that the old island will do a little longer. Perhaps you think there is coal enough. Perhaps you think the stock is not quite run out yet; but whenever England comes to that state that she does not go to