The American Union SpeakerPhilbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
General
The American Union Speaker
Philbrick, John D. (John Dudley)
Recitations
Of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to allow us to
cultivate, there is not one which breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a
heavenlier aspect than education. It is a, companion which no misfortune
can depress, no clime destroy no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave; at
home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in
society an ornament; it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a
grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave!
A reasoning savage, vascillating between the dignity of an intelligence
derived from God, and the degradation of passion participated with brutes;
and in the accident of their alternate ascendency, shuddering at the
terrors of a hereafter, or embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What
is this wondrous world of his residence?
"A mighty maze, and all without a plan:"
a dark, and desolate, and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament, or
order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the
transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape
lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the
heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle
of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its
mysteries resolved! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which
debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education.
Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before the hesitating
constantly, if man follow but its precepts, purely it will not only lead
him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of
Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of
ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and the splendors
of philosophy. What erected the little State of Athens into a powerful
Commonwealth, placing in her hand the sceptre of legislation, and wreathing
round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? What extended
Rome, the heart of banditti, into universal empire? What animated Sparta
with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered Nature
herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public
virtue, and a proverb of national independence? What but those wise public
institutions which strengthened their minds with early application,
informed their infancy with the principles of actions, and sent them into
the world too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be
shaken by its whirlwinds?
C. Phillips.
LXV.
CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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