fore front of battle when the Rights of Humanity are in danger, and you shall rejoice again and forever in their triumph. Read and ponder what was so nobly said by one of the heathen of the old world, and be ashamed, yea, weep for your country and your kind, if the Christianity of America has fallen below the paganism of Rome. Seneca says,-- “Virtue covets danger; and whatever may be her aim, she never stops to consider how much she may suffer, since her sufferings are a part of her glory. Military men glory in their scars. With exultation they point us to their blood flowing in an honorable cause. Though they who return _unharmed_ from the field of battle may have done as many and as noble deeds, yet it is the _wounded_ soldier who receives double honors. God provides for those whom he would make most honorable, by furnishing them with opportunities for achieving valiant and noble deeds. Hence he strews difficulties along their path. It is in the storm you see who is worthy to be a pilot; and in battle, who is the soldier.... How can I know with what constancy and endurance one will bear up against reproach and obloquy and popular odium, if he has grown old amidst the applauses of the world, if he has never encountered misfortune, and has been followed by the indiscriminating favor of men?... Be not affrighted, I beseech you, at the dangers which were intended by the immortal gods only as stimulants to exertion. The season of calamity is virtue’s opportunity. _They_, rather, are to be esteemed wretched, who lie torpid in luxurious ease, whom a sluggish calm detains on the great voyage, like vessels that lie weltering on a sea without a gale. Whom God approves and loves, he exercises, and tries them again and again, and thus inures them to hardship; but those whom he designs to enervate, he spares and indulges and saves them from impending ills.... The _bravest_ of the army are they whom the commander selects for the most perilous service. The general details his choicest men to send on secret expeditions by night, or to explore an unknown way, or to dislodge a garrison from their entrenchments. No man chosen for such an enterprise is ever heard to say, ‘_My commander has wronged and dishonored me_,’ but rather, ‘_He has known well whom to choose._’ Such, too, is the language of those who are required to suffer what would make the timid and the ignoble weep. We stand honored in the divine regards when the great experiment, _how much human nature can endure for a virtuous cause_, is tried in ourselves.... As teachers deal with their scholars, so God deals with good men. He demands most of those in whom he has most confidence.” WEST NEWTON, October, 1851. CONTENTS. PAGE LETTER ACCEPTING THE NOMINATION FOR THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS, 1