"But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence, that such a one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it; and will you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head and blush in his presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, and say to yourself "I have not these things, it is true; but it is because I have not sought, because I have not desired them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot; I am content and satisfied." The characteristic mark of a great and noble mind is to choose some high and worthy object, and pursue that object through life. Mrs. Barbauld. XIV. THE PATRIOT'S SWORD VINDICATED. But my Lord, I dissented from the resolutions before us, for other reasons. I dissented from them, because I felt that my giving them my assent, I should have pledged myself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force in all countries, at all times, and under every circumstance. This I could not do. For, my Lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in the vindication of national rights. There are times, when arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But, as the honorable member for Kilkenny has observed, force must be used against force. The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof against a bullet The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with. But it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone prevail against battalioned despotism. Then, my Lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say that the King of Heaven--the Lord of Hosts! the God of Battles!--bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril. From that evening, on which, in the valley of Bethulia, he nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken tyrant in his tent, down to our day in which he has blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian priest, his almighty hand hath ever been stretched forth from his Throne of Light, to consecrate the flag of freedom--to bless the patriot's sword! Be it in the defense, or be it in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if, my Lord, it has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial flowers to deck the freeman's brow.