Section 2. At least, sir, let the star of Massachusetts be the last | which shall be seen to fall from heaven, and to plunge | into the utter darkness of disunion. Let her shrink back, let her hold others back, if she can; at any rate | let her keep herself back from this gulf, full, at once, of fire and | of blackness; yes, sir, as far as human foresight can scan, or human imagination fathom, full of the fire and the blood of civil war, and of the thick darkness of general political disgrace, ignominy* and ruin. Though the worst happen | that can happen, and though we be not able to prevent the catastrophe,† yet, let her maintain her own integrity, her own high honor, her own unwavering fidelity, so that | with respect and decency, though with a broken and a bleeding heart, she may pay the last tribute to a glorious, departed, free constitution. FORTY-SEVENTH LESSON. THE MONUMENT ON BUNKER'S HILL.-Webster. We know that the record of illustrious actions | is most safely deposited | in the universal remembrance | of mankind We know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surface | could still contain but part of that, which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges herself | with making known to all future times. We know that no inscription, on entablatures‡ | less broad than the earth itself, can carry information of the events we commemorate | where it has not already gone; and that no structure | which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge among men, can prolong the memorial.§ But our object is, by this edifice, to show our deep sense of the value and importance of the achievements | of our ances * Ignominy, disgrace, infamy. Catastrophe, calamity, disaster. Entabluture, a part of a column. § Memorial, something to preserve the remembrance tors; and by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a similar regard, to the principles of the revolution. Human beings are composed not of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor misapplied, which is appropriated to the purpose | of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper springs of feeling | in the heart. Section 2. Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work | to the spirit of national independence, and we wish | that the light of peace may rest upon it for ever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of the unmeasured benefit | which has been conferred on our land, and of the happy influences, which have been produced, by the same events, on the general interests of mankind. We come, as Americans, to mark a spot, which must be for ever dear to us, and our posterity. We wish | that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eyes hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished | where the first great battle of the revolution | was fought. We wish, that this structure | may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event | to every class and every age. We wish, that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection | from maternal lips, and that weary and withered age | may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections | which it suggests. We wish, that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of its toil. We wish, that, in those days of disaster, which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come on us also, desponding patriotism | may turn its eyes hither, and be assured that the foundations of our national power | still stand strong. We wish, that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish finally, that the last object on the sight of him | who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden him | who revisits it, may be something | which shall remind him of the liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise, till it meet the sun in nis coming; let the earliest light of morning gild it, and parting day linger and play upon its summit. FORTY-EIGHTH LESSON. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.-Everett. Section 1. SOME organization and preparation | had been made; but from the nature of the case, with scarce any effect | on the events of that day. It may be doubted, whether there was an efficient* order given | the whole day | to any body of men | as large as a regiment. It was the people, in their first capacity, as citizens and as freemen, starting from their beds at midnight, from their firesides and their fields, to take their own cause | in their own hands. Such a spectacle is the height of the moral sublime; when the want of everything | is fully made up | by the spirit of the cause; and the soul within | stands in place of discipline, organization, resources. In the prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling splendor of their array, there is something revolting | to the reflecting mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate, the mercenary, the depraved; and iron slavery, by the name of subordination | merges the free will ❘ of one hundred thousand men | in the unqualified despotism of one; the humanity, mercy, and remorse | which scarce ever desert the individual bosom, are sounds without a meaning to that fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army. Section 2. It is hard to say who are most to be commiserated, the wretched people | on whom it is let loose, or the still more wretched people whose substance has been sucked out to nourish it | into strength and fury. But in the efforts of the people, of the people struggling for their rights, moving, not in organized, disciplined masses, but in their spontaneous§ action, man for man, and heart for heart,-though I like not war * Efficient, producing effect. Mercenary, hired Commiserated, pitied. [ nor any of its works,-there is something g.orious. They can then move forward without orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming lines of battle, without intrenchments* to cover, or walls to shield them. No dissolute camp has worn off | from the feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home, where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars; no long service in the ranks of the conqueror has turned the veteran's heart into marble; their valor springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a life, knit by no pledges to the life of others; but in the strength | and spirit of the cause alone, they act, they contend, they bleed. In this they conquer. The people always conquer. They always must conquer. Section 3. Armies may be defeated; kings | may be overthrown, anc new dynastiest | imposed by foreign arms | on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not | in what language | the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name | the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people | never invade; and when they rise against the invader, are never subdued. If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills | are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket | their palisado;‡ and nature,—God,—is their ally. Now he overwhelms the host of their enemies | beneath his drifting mountains of sand; now | he buries them beneath an atmosphere of falling snows; he lets loose his tempests | on their fleets; he puts a folly into their councils, a madness into the hearts of their leaders; and he never gave, and never will give, a full and final triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free. * Intrenchments, fortifications made with trenches or ditches. † Dynasties, governments. Palisado, fortification FORTY-NINTH LESSON. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.Haynes. Section 1. It has been usual, on occasions like the present, to give a history of the wrongs endured by our fathers. But, my friends, we have prouder, and more ennobling recollections, connected with our revolution. They are to be found in the spirit displayed by our fathers, when all their petitions had been slighted, their remonstrances despised, and their appeals to the generous sympathies of their brethren | utterly disregarded. Yes, my friends, theirs was that pure and lofty spirit of devoted patriotism, which never quailed beneath oppression, which braved all dangers, trampled upon difficulties, and in "the times which tried men's souls," taught them to be faithful to their principles, and to their country-true; and which induced them | in the very spirit of that Brutus (whose mantle has fallen, in our own day, upon the shoulders of one so worthy to wear it) to swear on the altar of liberty-to give themselves up wholly | to their country. There is one characteristic, however, of the American revolution, which, constituting, as it does, its living principle, its proud distinction, and its crowning glory-cannot be passed over in silence. It is this-that our revolution had its origin, not so much in the weight of actual oppression, as in the great principle-the sacred duty, of resistance to the exer cise of unauthorized power Section 2. Other nations have been driven to rebellion | by the iron hand of despotism, the insupportable weight of oppression, which leaving men nothing worth living for, has taken away the fear of death itself, and caused them to rush | upon the spears of their enemies, or to break their chains upon the heads of their oppressors. But it was a tax of three-pence a pound upon tea, imposed without right, which was considered by our ancestors as a burden too grievous to be borne. And why? Because they were men "who felt oppression's lightest finger as a mountain weight," and, in the fine language of that just |