The rocks and hills of New-England will remain till the last conflagration. But let the Sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of God be abandoned, the government and religious instruction of children neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to flow, and her glory will depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her, and the munition of rocks will no longer be her defense. The hand that overturns our laws and temples is the hand of death unbarring the gate of Pandemonium, and letting loose upon our land the crimes and miseries of hell. If the Most High should stand aloof, and cast not a single ingredient into our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative wo. But he will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open controversy with him, he will contend openly with us. And never, since the earth stood, has it been so fearful a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living God. -The day of vengeance is at hand; the day of judgment has come; the great earthquake which sinks Babylon is shaking the nations, and the waves of the mighty commotion are dashing upon every shore. Is this, then, a time to remove the foundations, when the earth itself is shaken? Is this a time to forfeit the protection of God, when the hearts of men are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are to come upon the earth? Is this a time to run upon his neck and the thick bosses of his buckler, when the nations are drinking blood, and fainting, and passing away in his wrath? Is this a time to throw away the shield of faith, when his arrows are drunk with the blood of the slain? to cut from the anchor of hope, when the clouds are collecting, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and thunders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in the heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, and every mountain, sea, and island, is fleeing in dismay from the face of an incensed God? 22. NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOR.-Wirt. The education, gentlemen, moral and intellectual, of every individual, must be, chiefly, his own work. Rely upon it, that the ancients were right-Quisque suæ fortunæ faber-both in morals and intellect, we give their final shape to our own characters, and thus become, emphatically, the architects of our own fortunes. How else could it happen, that young men, who have had precisely the same opportunities, should be continually presenting us with such different results, and rushing to such opposite destinies? Difference of talent will not solve it, because that difference is very often in favor of the disappointed candidate. You shall see issuing from the walls of the same college-nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same family— two young men, of whom the one shall be admitted to be a genius of high order, the other, scarcely above the point of mediocrity; yet you shall see the genius sinking and perishing in poverty, obscurity and wretchedness: while on the other hand, you shall observe the mediocre plodding his slow but sure way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step, and mounting, at length, to eminence and distinction, an ornament to his family, a blessing to his country. Now, whose work is this? Manifestly their own. They are the architects of their respective fortunes. The best seminary of learning that can open its portals to you, can do no more than to afford you the opportunity of instruction: but it must depend, at last, on yourselves, whether you will be instructed or not, or to what point you will push your instruction. And of this be assured-I speak, from observation, a certain truth: there is no excellence without great labor. It is the fiat of fate from which no power of genius can absolve you. Genius, unexerted, is like the poor moth that flutters around a candle till it scorches itself to death. If genius be desirable at all, it is only of that great and magnanimous kind, which, like the condor of South America, pitches from the summit of Chimborazo, above the clouds, and sustains itself, at pleasuse, in that empyreal region, with an energy rather invigorated than weakened by the effort. It is this capacity for high and long-continued exertion-this vigorous power of profound and searching investigation-this careering and wide-spreading comprehension of mind-and those long reaches of thought, that -Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, Where fathom line could never touch the ground, This is the prowess, and these the hardy achievements, which are to enrol your names among the great men of the earth. 23. RELIEF OF THE SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION.-Sprague. Sir, The present provision for the soldiers of the revolution is not sufficient. Even the act of 1818 was less compre hensive than it ought to have been. It should have embrace all, without any discrimination, except of services. But that act, partly by subsequent laws, and partly by illiberal rules of construction, has been narrowed far within its original scope. I am constrained to say, that in the practical execution of these laws, the whole beneficent spirit of our institutions seems to have been reversed. Instead of presuming every man to be upright and true, until the contrary appears, every applicant seems to be pre-supposed to be false and perjured. Instead of bestowing these hard-earned rewards with alacrity, they appear to have been refused, or yielded with reluctance; and to send away the way-worn veteran, bowed down with the infirmities of age, empty from your door, seems to have been deemed an act of merit. So rigid has been the construction and application of the existing law, that cases most strictly within its provisions, of meritorious service and abject poverty, have been excluded from its benefits. Yet gentlemen tell us, that this law, so administered, is too liberal; that it goes too far, and they would repeal it. They would take back even the little which they have given! And is this possible? Look abroad upon this wide extended land, upon its wealth, its happiness, its hopes; and then turn to the aged soldier, who gave you all, and see him descend in neglect and poverty to the tomb ? The time is short. A few years, and these remnants of a former age will no longer be seen. Then we shall indulge unavailing regrets for our present apathy: for, how can the ingenuous mind look upon the grave of an injured benefactor? How poignant the reflection, that the time for reparation and atonement has gone for ever! In what bitterness of soul shall we look back upon the infatuation which shall have cast aside an opportunity, which never can return, to give peace to our consciences! We shall then endeavor to stifle our convictions, by empty honors to their bones. We shall raise high the monument, and trumpet loud their deeds, but it will be all in vain. It cannot warm the hearts which shall have sunk cold and comfortless to the earth. This is no illusion. How often do we see, in our public gazettes, a pompous display of honors to the memory of some veteran patriot, who was suffered to linger out his latter days in unregarded penury! "How proud we can press to the funeral array Of him whom we shunned in his sickness and sorrow; 24. INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL GLORY.—Clay. We are asked, what have we gained by the war? I have shown that we have lost nothing in rights, territory, or honor; nothing for which we ought to have contended, according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of this country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war. What is our present situation? Respectability and character abroad, security and confidence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion of some, the full measure of retribution, our character and constitution are placed on a solid basis, never to be shaken. The glory acquired by our gallant tars, by our Jacksons and our Browns on the land—is that nothing? True, we had our vicissitudes: there were humiliating events which the patriot cannot review without deep regret—but the great account, when it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate from the proud pages of our history the brilliant achievements of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea, whom I cannot enumerate? Is there a man who could not desire a participation in the national glory acquired by the war? Yes, national glory, which, however the expression may be condemned by some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot. What do I mean by national glory? Glory such as Hull, Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insensible to their deeds to the value of them in animating the country in the hour of peril hereafter? Did the battle of Thermopyla preserve Greece but once? Whilst the Mississippi continues to bear the tributes of the Iron Mountains and the Alleghanies to her Delta and to the Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen in driving the presumptuous invader from our country's soil. Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown, afford them no pleasure? Every act of noble sacrifice to the country, every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation's in heritance. They awe foreign powers they arouse and animate our own people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment which ought to be cherished; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, and attempts to put it down, it will finally conduct this nation to that height to which God and nature have destined it 25. FRAUDS UPON THE REVENUE.—Hayne. Mr. President, The gentleman complains of frauds upon the revenue-and fraudulent invoices and smuggling-but it is his system which has produced these evils. Smuggling, from the very nature of things, must exist, when the duties exceed the risk and expense of the illicit intercourse. For a season, sir, the high moral sense of a young and uncorrupted people, may oppose some obstacle to these practices. No government on earth can prevent them. Napoleon, in the plenitude of his power, was unable to maintain his continental system. His prohibitions and restrictions were constantly violated with impunity. Yes sir, he who sported with kingdoms, who constructed thrones upon the ruins of empires, and appointed the officers of his household to fill them; whose armies were his customhouse officers, who drew his cordons around the nations which he conquered, was utterly unable to put down the great principles of free trade. It has been well said, sir, "that when all Europe was obedient to his nod-the smuggler disputed his commands, set at naught his edicts, laughed to scorn his power, and overthrew his policy." How is it with England, that seagirt isle, surrounded with a thousand ships, and thirty thousand guardians of her revenue? Sir, do we not all know that smug gling is there a profitable trade, and that the revenue laws of England are constantly violated with impunity? And how is it in Spain? A modern traveler asserts that there are a hundre thousand persons in that unhappy country who live by smuggling, and that there are thirty thousand others, paid by the government, to detect their practice, but who are in a league with the offenders; and as to the condition of things in our own country, the gentleman has told us a tale this day, which, if he be not himself deceived, shows what fearful progress these practices have already made. The time was when smuggling was absolutely unknown any where in this country, as it still is in the southern states. It is your protecting system which has introduced it. It is the natural consequence of high duties -the evil was foretold, and, as we predicted, it has come upon |