a stand to look into the faces of but "twenty-four hundred men strong enough to be his companions." And on the 20th of December, he tells a voting and cowardly Congress: "Ten days more will put an end to this army." These are "black days." Where now are the hopes of America? Where are the committeemen who took the Declaration of Independence into Congress? Franklin has gone to France to work for the nation; Jefferson has refused to go with him, and is at home in Virginia safe with his slaves. But where is John Adams, who said that Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence? Where is the chief representative from New England, this "Colossus" of debate, this chief of the war committee? _Where is John Adams_ in this darkest hour of his country's trial? He has deserted her; he went home on the 13th of October after the first reverse, and is "brave in his home by the sea," but will not come back till four months are past, and Washington makes himself famous. The poor dupe to his passions. Lee he loved, Washington he hated; a patriot this, a traitor that. But where is the man who has on hand the _business of a world_? We shall see. In this midnight of the revolution he has been writing something. He has been in the army as a soldier, but has found time to write. It is his first crisis, and it runs thus: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation left with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." He produces one of his most masterly pieces. He appeals to Heaven, and prays for some Jersey maid, like Joan of Arc, to spirit up her countrymen. He deals the king and Lord Howe heavy blows, deftly laid on; and of the tory, he says: "Good God! what is he? Every tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of toryism." Having reviewed the enemies of the country he then "turns with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood and are determined to stand the matter out." ... "Let them call me rebel and welcome," says he, "I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man." In this he also pays a tribute to Washington, in which he says: "God has given him a mind that can flourish upon care." "The heart that feels not now is dead, the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back now." "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength by distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm will pursue his