Standard Selections: A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions from Best Authors for Use in Class Room and on the Platform
General
Standard Selections: A Collection and Adaptation of Superior Productions from Best Authors for Use in Class Room and on the Platform
Recitations
At this very moment, then, there are millions in the United States who
personally have been citizens of this country. They found a home in the
far West, they subdued the wilderness, they met with plenty there and
became a great people. There may be men in England who dislike democracy
and who hate a republic. But of this I am certain that only
misrepresentation the most gross or calumny the most wicked can sever
the tie which unites the great mass of the people of this country with
their friends and relatives beyond the Atlantic.
Now whether the Union will be restored I know not. But this I think I
know, that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of
freemen in the North will be thirty or even fifty millions, a population
equal to that of this kingdom. When that time comes I pray that it may
not be said amongst them that, in the darkest hour of their country's
trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness
and saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. As for me I
have but this to say, if all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak
for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South and which
tends to generous thoughts and generous words and generous deeds between
the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their
origin are alike entitled to the English name.
AMERICA'S RELATION TO MISSIONS
JAMES B. ANGELL
The government which breaks treaties with respect to missionaries and
takes no steps to protect them will easily yield to the temptation to
infringe on the rights of other citizens. Is it not possible that
because our government has allowed outrages against our missionaries to
go on since 1883 in Turkey,--highway robbery, brutal assault,
destruction of buildings,--without any demonstration beyond peaceful and
patient argument, the Ottoman government is now proceeding in so
highhanded a manner to prevent by false allegations the importation of
our flour and our pork? A nation which allows one class of citizens, who
are of the purest character and most unselfish spirit, to be insulted
and outraged with impunity in a foreign land must not be surprised if
other classes of its citizens are also imposed upon and wronged in that
land, wherever selfish interests are invoked against them.
Careful observation will show that our large mercantile interests are
likely to be imperiled by our neglect to insist on the rights which
citizens of any honorable calling are entitled to under treaties of
international law. A display of force does not necessarily mean war. It
is certainly an emphatic mode of making a demand. It often insures a
prompt settlement of difficulties, which, if allowed to drag on and
accumulate, would end in war. Therefore, wisely and opportunely made, a
proper demonstration in support of a just demand may obviate the
ultimate necessity of war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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