UCSB LIBRARY DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT HANOVER, N. H, MAY 7, 1841, ON THE OCCASION OF THK DEATH OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. BY CHARLES B. HADDUCK, PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY, &C. IN DART. COLL. W I N 1) S O It , V T . PRINTED BY TRACY ANlgvERAiNCE. 1841. To THE REV. PROFESSOR HADDUCK : Dear Sir, At a meeting held in the College Chapel after the close of the services, yesterday, a vote was passed expressing the thanks of the audience for your Discourse, and a request that you would furnish a copy of the same for publication. The undersigned, having been appointed a committee to transmit to you this vote, would take leave to add their own earnest desire for your compliance with the request. Yours, respectfully, AMOS A. BREWSTER, JOHJN S. CRAM, AMOS T. AKERMAJV, WILLIAM BURJMS, R, E. LAJNE. Hanover, May 8, 1841. GENTLEMEN : If it be thought that any useful purpose may be answered by the publication of the Discourse delivered by me, yesterday, 1 shall cheerfully comply with the request of the Committee. Yours, respectfully, - CHARLES B. HADDUCK. AMOS A. BREWSTER,") JOHN S. CRAM, AMOS T. AKERMAN, ^Committee. WILLIAM BURNS, R. E. LANE, DISCOURSE. DEATH is the great event of life. It is the common and inevitable lot. No creature is exempt from it. Every organized being, even to the unconscious tribes of the vegetable world, returns, by an irresistible law, to the dust out of which it was made. But of all the dwellers upon the earth, man alone is per mitted to know this law ; to him only it is given to think upon this universal fate ; he alone anticipates his end. To other animals, the most sagacious and intelligent and endued with instincts, in some respects superior to reason itself, Death comes always unlocked for. The fear of it, and the idea of it, are the melancholy privilege of the most favored of God s earthly creatures. To him the event is never indifferent. To whatsoever living thing it comes, it wears a serious aspect, and awakens sad associations. He does not look even upon the dying year without depression. The fading flowers and falling leaves are the natural emblems of the gloom and sorrow of his inward life. To the least cultivated the cessation of our animal exis tence is matter of thoughtful contemplation. To the deepest read in the attributes and destinies of our race, it is a fearful and exciting mystery. The dissolution of this curious and wonderful fabric ; the separation of the thinking principle from all material organization; the closing up all known channels of intercourse with material things ; the sundering of the social ties ; the extinction of endearing and kind offices ; the termination of our earthly duties and responsi bilities ; and, more than all besides, the entrance of another intelligent moral being upon the scenes of an eternal state these are considerations, which give interest and moment to every human death. These are the reasons which draw us so irresistibly to the house of mourning, and attach such sacredness to the last offices we pay to the deceased. These are the causes, which spread its profound and mysterious expression over the face of the dead, and hallow the place where we lay them. It is for these reasons, that, on occasions like the present, we pause even from personal and party strife to indulge in humane sentiments and common sympathies. For these reasons Death hushes, for a moment at least, our noisy con tention for the unsubstantial objects of this life, and soothes the animosities, which have been engendered by mutual complaint and recrimination. He is something less than man, and more to be distrusted and despised than any man, who can look upon a fallen antagonist, even though he were a personal foe, without a tear, and insult, with impotent 5 revenge, the pale unconscious piece of earth that lies low before him. It is grateful to know, that the American people are not capable of this unnatural malignity. It is delightful to see, that the great stroke of Providence, which has bereft the nation of its Chief Magistrate, is felt as a national wound, lamented as a common calamity. It does relieve, somewhat, the fears of the friends of Democratic Liberty, to witness the spontaneous and full utterance of a common grief, on this occasion, by parties so lately irritated to frenzy by an acrimonious political contest. Dejected Patriotism will lift up her head again, and reassure herself, by these cheerful omens, that the public heart is still true, and that, in our fond estimation, it is something more to be an American than to be of any party, something higher and better to be a MAN than to be of any nation or tribe under heaven. Death ! mighty, mysterious event ! How little we know of it. It stands at our door ; it comes into our houses ; to our very beds; it takes away friend after friend from our bosoms and in our sight. Yet, how unfamiliar, to the last, the too, too frequent guest; how strange, even as at the first, those well remembered features ! End, at once, and beginning of life ! Period of final separation between all we love, or know, in this beautiful world and the untried, the wondrous future ! Point of fearful and amazing interest, to which converge all the incidents of life and the tendencies of nature ; and from which diverge the events and destinies of an endless being. Ah ! how many myriads of anxious men have pondered on the closing scene, and longed and prayed for one glance beyond. The Son of God hath brought the fact and the way of Life and Immortality to 6 light ; but the mystery of the great change is not explained by the Gospel. The same Revelation which assures us, that our affections and sensibilities are to be perpetuated in eternity, assures us, also, that " in Heaven they neither marry, nor are given in marriage ; but are as the angels of God, which are in Heaven." To death we cannot look forward with unconcern. No man can think of meeting it carelessly, or without prepara tion. Its import is too grave and weighty ; its consequences too lasting and momentous. One might wish, indeed, to shun the corporal pang the pain of dying the undescribed anguish of the last conflict. And we, sometimes, idly covet the fate of those whom death surprizes, and, by an unfelt blow, summons from the midst of life, without opportunity to suffer or to fear. But, upon second thought, who would not choose to be forewarned ? Who would consent to be precipitated upon eternal scenes ; to take no leave of life no deliberate farev/ell of the cheerful sun, and thoughtful moon, and patient earth ; to forego the last embrace of those we love the longing, lingering look of departing affection? Who would lose the opportunity of his latest hour for assur ing himself of peace with Heaven, and preparation for the limitless and awful future ? It is one of the great common mercies of Providence, that we are brought down to the grave by lingering disease. Wearisome days and nights of pain are appointed unto us in mercy. When one of the lowliest of men dies, there is a serious vacancy produced. The wound is deep, and long felt. The world is not interested in the change ; yet, how great the change is. The condition of a human family, the circle, with in which occur most of the events, that give happiness, or misery, to life, is forever and essentially altered. New rela tions are instituted ; new dependencies are thenceforth to be felt ; new responsibilities, to arise : new forms of character, to be assumed. Long cherished affections are ruptured; ac customed pursuits are laid aside ; settled purposes are broken off. To a whole household, life has become another thing ; the world is to be viewed by them in a new light, and lived in, with new feelings. The loss is sensible ; and it is irre parable. Friendship may administer its sympathies to the desolate bosom ; and they are sweet to the mourning heart. Providence may be gracious still ; our fields may smile, and our enterprises may prosper. But for violated love there is no reparation. The dead will return no more ; his place is not to be supplied. The victories of Death are permanent ; its monuments never decay, or moulder. Even when a great man dies, the most poignant grief is not public. The bitterest sighs are heaved, and the most scalding tears are shed in private. Even now, while a nation is clad in mourning for the hero and the statesman, and the parade and circumstance of public sorrow present an impos ing and engrossing spectacle to all eyes, there is a mansion, on the banks of the Ohio," where the names of General and President are not mentioned. The sorrows, that darken that house, are the sorrows which bereaved woman always feels ; the tears, that are shed there, are such as crushed affection every where sheds. It is nothing to her, who sits a widow, in that vacant home, that the warrior and the politician is called from the scene of his triumphs. It is little to her, that a new government is deprived of its head, a great people of a favorite Ruler. Her lamentation is for the husband of her youth and the father of her children. It is the bitterness of 8 her cup, that the vacant place at her table, and at her fireside, and on her couch of rest, will never, never more be filled ; that henceforth her way is to be solitary, and her heart lonely. To her life is ended before the time. Such is Death always. But when one of the gifted is taken away, it is a public calamity. A great man belongs to his people. He is a public possession part of a nation s cap ital, strength, and honor. A comprehensive intellect, a beau tiful imagination, superior activity and energy, sublime prin ciple, in which the heart of a nation may trust, magnanimity and enterprise capable of inspiring and sustaining popular enthusiasm, mind to dignify, adorn, and perpetuate what has a people so precious, so sacred ? What should a com munity so prize and cherish ? In whatever department of honorable industry such mind discovers itself, it is above all price. Be it in Philosophy, se cluding itself and wearying the hours in the study of truth ; or in Art, disciplining itself, and raising itself up, in the fond hope of realizing in marble, or on canvass, or in the more enduring forms of language, the features of beauty, which it has dimly conceived in its favored moments ; or, be it in Elo quence, or Policy, or action wherever more than ordinary intellect, or taste, or goodness, shews itself, there is some part of a nation s greatness ; there, one of the gems of its future crown. Without such mind it may possibly exist, may veg etate upon the earth ; but the frosts of the first winter will scorch every green thing, and the winds will blow it away. Nothing of all a people s treasures is imperishable but its great minds. Nothing but the genius and virtue of its noble sons can bind it to the family of illustrious nations, or link its history to the series of renowned ages. And when the men, 9 to whom it owes its place and its hopes, are removed by death, it is proper to mourn. The tears of a whole people are a fit tribute to departed greatness. The treasure was public ; the loss is public, too. And in proportion as it is great, it is, also, irreparable. A great man may make an age, may be himself the age. In the death of the late President Harrison we have not been called to lament the premature departure of a man of Genius, a discoverer in science, a national orator, or poet. Though raised to the highest civil office in the gift of a great people, he was not, perhaps, a disciplined and studied politician. With the exception of the ever green honors won by him in the late war with England and her savage allies, there is not, that I know, any passage of remarkable splendor in his career. Nor had he, probably, any single trait of character, so prominent and peculiar as to distinguish him ; much less, the age to which he belongs. His intellect was, undoubtedly, sound and clear : his education, the best which his native State afforded in his time, classical, sub stantial, and varied ; his military and civil history, marked by uniform good judgment and generosity. In a succession of difficult and responsible offices, through a long course of public service, he commanded entire confidence, and received the most unequivocal testimonials of enthusiastic approbation. He never lost a battle ; and never violated a trust. His policy \vas wise and liberal ; his exercise of power, beneficent and honorable. Though distinguished for energy and determination, decision and authority were so tempered in him, by justice and mildness, that it was common to hear him spoken of in public documents, as well as private conversation, as the " beloved Harrison." And yet, when compared, as his ultimate elevation leads us to compare him, with men of the very highest order of mind, we do not find him characterized by singular and splendid individual traits. He belongs rather to the order of the Good than of the Great the order of Perfection rather than of Genius the order of Washington and Alfred, men so proportioned, so balanced, so right, so uniform, so beautiful in their whole conformation and development, that we are almost equally at a loss, what, in particular, to complain of, or to ad mire. Genius is rare ; but not so rare as this happy equal develop ment. Caesar was mighty; but " Cocsar was ambitious." Alexander conquered the world ; but he died at a drunken feast. Elizabeth was great. In an age of excited intellect and chivalrous adventure, of heated political and religious controversy, the tumult of contending sects was hushed by a woman s voice, and, for fifty years, the boldest and most restless spirits of England, were led by a virgin hand. But Elizabeth has left us in doubt, which most to wonder at, the greatness of her power, or the littleness of her revenge. Bona parte was a man of Genius, of vast comprehension and high conception ; but the Emperor of France took from his bosom the most beautiful of women and the loveliest of wives, and sacrificed her on the altar of his Pride. Demosthenes was an orator and a statesman : but the deliverer of Athens, accept ed a bribe. Cicero was a Philosopher and a gifted man ; but , the child and eloquent friend of the Republic, he hesitated in his preference between contending tyrants, and died with the reputation of a coward. Bacon, the Father of Modern Science, is characterised by Pope as " The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 11 History is full of splendid greatness, striking demon strations of power, of heroism, of imagination, of reason, of generosity, of Patriotism. But a perfect man history hath not found. Those, who have come any wise near to our idea of true greatness, are exceeding rare. Bonaparte s test of greatness is said to have been, " What has the man done ?" If our lamented Chief Magistrate be tried by this standard, history will do him honor. He was born in Virginia in 1773 ; was educated at Hampden Sydney College ; and entered on the study of medicine. At the age of nineteen he received his first milita ry commission under Washington. He distinguished himself, as a soldier, in numerous Indian campaigns ; and particularly at Tippecanoe in 1811, and at the Thames in 1813, in which celebrated battles he led our troops to victory. At the age of twenty-three he was chosen a Delegate to Congress for the North-west Territory, including Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and upper Louisiana. At twenty-seven he was appointed Governor of that Territory. This office he held twelve years. In 1816 he was chosen a Repre sentative in Congress ; and in 1 824, a Senator of the United States. In 1828 he went as Minister to Columbia. He was also, repeatedly, Indian Commissioner. Thus from the age of nineteen to that of fifty-six he was in the public service, almost without interruption. In his military career, although, during the late war, he was engaged in more battles than any other General officer, he never suffered a defeat, and was never guilty of a tyran- ical, cruel, or ungenerous deed. A wounded British Officer, a prisoner in his camp, complained to him, that the Americans refused him a bed. " Ah ! said he, you shall have mine ;" 12 and immediately sent him his blanket, the only bed he had, and his saddle for a pillow. The same generous heart was manifested, after his elevation to power, in his treatment of a worn out son of the sea, with whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance some years before. The true hearted Tar, now old and reduced to poverty, called at the Pres ident s house, in Washington, and was known still, was urged to partake of the hospitalities of the splendid mansion ; was seen walking arm in arm with the Pres ident about his grounds ; and, when he left the kind seat of power, carried with him to the Collector of the Port of New York, a letter of recommendation, which imme diately procured for him the office of Inspector of the Customs. While in Congress, General Harrison had the liberality to devise, and the energy to carry through, the system, in reference to the sale of the public lands, by which those lands have since been sold to settlers in small farms of 640 or 320 acres, instead of 4000 acres ; and thus the poor and industrious emigrant relieved from the exactions of the capitalist and speculator. To this measure, in a great degree, has been ascribed the rapid settlement and growth of the whole Western country. As Governor of the North-west Territory, he exercised a more unlimited authority than any other individual has possessed under the Constitution. In him were vested, at once, the legislative, the judicial, and the military power, with advantages for the advancement of his own private interests, unequaled in the country. Yet, he laid down that authority, unenriched, and unstained by an unjust, selfish, or mean act. 13 As Indian Commissioner, he negotiated a great number of Treaties, highly advantageous to the United States, and without incurring the charge, or suspicion, of fraud, or oppression, or injustice, in his intercourse with the Indian tribes. Fifty-one millions of acres, including the richest mineral region in the Union, were procured by him, in a single Treaty. At a time of unexampled party excitement and party jealousy, he united in himself a more unanimous and cordial popular vote, than any other statesman of the age would, probably, have been able to command ; and came into power as independent, and as little shackled by obligations and promises, personal or local, as any President since Washington. In the heat of the late contest, no grave charge was seriously made against his personal character. The crime of being an old man was nearly all that was laid to him. And now that he is dead, there is almost no dissent from the general attestation of a bereaved people to the integrity of the Statesman, the valor of the Warrior, and the simplicity and nobleness of the man. There is one feature in the character of the illustrious man, whose loss we deplore, which has already attracted much public attention, and which can hardly fail to appear the more worthy of regard, the more it is considered. I refer to the moral and religious light, which invests his eminent intellectual and active qualities. The personal incidents, which his decease has already been the occasion of bringing before the country, all together, present, perhaps, the most remarkable instance of decided evangelical principle, which has dignified the office of Chief Magistrate of the United States. 14 On these facts, in his Biography, it is grateful and whole some to dwell. They teach, I may almost say, a new lesson to the American people. Most certainly, if not wholly new, the lesson they teach derives a peculiar value from the singular circumstances in which it has been taught. The example of sound principle and fearless piety in a period of inordinate personal ambition, of selfishness, and carelessness of right and responsibility, is useful and admira ble in exact proportion as it is difficult ; and the more useful and the more admirable, the higher the station, which it adorns. A more perfect acquaintance with the history of the man will, doubtless, discover additional materials for the full display of his religious character. Enough, however, is known to leave no doubt, that in his premature death, the Country has lost one of its best models of a Roman severity of manners and a Christian spirituality of mind. He was a believer in the inspiration and authority of the Bible. It was observed, that, during the pressure of public cares, at the commencement of his government, he neglected not to read a portion of the Scriptures daily. It has been asserted since his decease, that, for twenty years, this had been his invariable practice. On taking possession of the Executive Mansion, finding no copy of the Bible in the house, he immediately purchased one ; and remarked to some friend, that out of the first appropriation for the President s house, he would buy the best copy of the Bible he could find, and inscribe upon it, " To the President of the United States from the People of the United States." Before his election, and even up to the time of his leaving Cincinnati, he was a teacher in the Sabbath School, con- 15 nected with his place of worship. This school he sometimes assembled and addressed. After his removal to Washington, this anecdote is related of him. In his last out of door exer cise he is said to have been engaged in giving directions to his gardener about training some vines. The gardener sug gested the necessity of procuring an active watch dog to take care of the grapes, or the boys would come, while the family were at church, and steal them. "Better, said the General, employ an active Sabbath School Teacher. A dog may take care of the grapes ; but a good Sabbath School Teacher will take care of the grapes and the boys too." This illustrious man regarded the Holy Sabbath. He was, in the West, a constant attendant on Divine Worship. His house was open to the Christian Minister and Missionary. In the Capital he continued true to himself, and devoted the sacred day to its appropriate duties. A fact is related of him, in this respect, which places him, in simple Christian dignity by the side of Sir Matthew Hale and Sir William Jones ; and shows, that the heroic spirit, which won for him the martial laurels which crowned his brow, was not the inspiration of the tented field, or the impulse of a frenzied moment, but an inward principle, an original element of his nature. The first Sabbath after his removal to the Executive Mansion, it has been said, political men called upon him as usual. He remarked to his family, that " Sunday visiting must be broken up." On the following Lord s Day, some of the Foreign Ministers called : and he was denied to them. On the same day certain political friends came in. He sat for a while, and then, courteously addressing them, said. 16 " Gentlemen, I shall always be glad to see you, except upon the Sabbath day," and immediately retired to his private apartments, leaving them to be entertained by other members of his family. In the same independent spirit he said to a young officer, who appeared at his levee, evidently intoxi cated, " Sir, I am sorry to see you here, or any man in your condition." A few years before his decease an unusual interest was awakened on the subject of experimental religion, in his vicinity. He openly manifested his personal concern on the great and interesting subject ; and from that time added to the virtues of the warrior and the statesman, the higher titles of a soldier of the Cross and a citizen of Zion. He was to have united with one of the churches in Washington and partaken of the Holy Communion on the Sabbath following that on which he died. Happy, happy for him, when that blessed day dawned, to have been drinking of the fruit of the vine, new with Christ, in the kingdom of his Father. He had enjoyed the privilege of a religious education from a most pious mother. On a recent visit to the place of his birth, he pointed out to his friends, with evident delight, " his mother s room," the closet to which she used to retire for her private devotions, the very spot where she used to sit reading her Bible, and where she taught him, in childhood, to pray on his knees a practice from which he departed not when he was old. Of a piece with all these private incidents are the senti ments so distinctly and prominently expressed in the Inau gural Address. " However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectation of a magnanimous and 17 confiding people, I too well understand the infirmities of human nature and the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands, not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Al mighty power which has hitherto protected me, and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important, but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country." " I deem the present occasion sufficiently im portant and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a profound reverence for the Christian Religion, and a thorough conviction, that sound, moral, and religious liberty and a just sense of religious responsibility are essen tially connected with all true and lasting happiness: and to that Good Being, who has blessed us by the gifts of civil and religious freedom, who watched over and prospered the labors of our fathers, and has hitherto preserved to us institutions far exceeding in excellence those of any other people, let us unite in fervently commending every interest of our beloved country in all future time." Such was the man we mourn. Personal popularity raised him to the lofty eminence, which personal merit adorned and dignified. The circumstances of his death are of that class, which, sometimes, give to real history an air of romance and a pathos beyond the power of imagination itself to equal. The hero and politician had, twelve years before, retired from the scenes of public life to his quiet farm house on the Ohio, to repose, at last, from a life of hazard and responsi bility, longer and more eventful than falls to the lot of most men. There, without a dream of future honors, or a thought 18 of higher duties, he was personally tilling his humble acres, in a humble garb, by day, and resting, by night, in slum bers, which no care disturbed. By an unexpected turn of events, his name was mentioned among the candidates for the first office in his Country. As if there had been some magic in the sound, the Hero of Tippecano, the Farmer of North Bend, and the Good man of the West rose on the breath of popular enthusiasm, as on the bosom of a swelling sea, to the sublime height of power. Enthroned in the affections of millions, and robed in authority, he had just time to publish his principles of Administation, and collect his cabinet around him ; and, at the very moment of his triumph, while an expectant and confiding people were yet gazing on the new spectacle, touched by Death, he melted away, like a snow-flake in the sun. Within one brief month was he conducted by exulting multitudes, with paeans and floating banners, to the summit of earthly ambition, and, by the same multitudes, in weeds and tears, borne down to the lowly and dark house appointed for all the living. Power, Empire, Glory ! What are ye all ! O, there are moments, when the offices and honors of this world appear like the bright exhalations of a summer s morning as unsubstantial and as transient. And yet it is a noble life to live. There is a true greatness real and imperishable. The man dies. But there are greater objects than to live. It is not all of life to live. The fame of honorable deeds is a perennial beneficence. The consciousness of high and pure aims, the memory of worthy actions over these Death hath no power. To the mere politician a fall so sudden from so high an elevation must appear to be either an accident in a world of 19 chances, or a mystery in the inscrutable Providence of God. The considerate Christian will study to discover the design of heaven in the salutary influences of the event ; and will feel assured, that, more or less remotely, consequences are connected with it, which, could we foresee them, would constrain us to acknowledge, that the good man was as happy in the time of his death as he had been fortunate in the career of life like Agricola, " felix non tantum vitse claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis." There are periods in the history of nations, as well as individuals, when some startling moral phenomenon seems to be needed to arrest attention, and compel reflection. The public mind is, at times, infatuated and reckless in ambitious, or selfish pursuits ; the passions suffer no restraint. At such times a moral miracle is necessary to hush the troubled sea, and restore the disordered elements to their wonted action. Such, may we not hope, will be the effect of this signal interposition of heaven ? Never had party animosities been more virulent ; never was personal ambition more aspiring, or more general, in the country. The good man was beginning to weep at the public morals ; and the patriot, to sigh at the prospects of Liberty. In an instant, as it were, the favorite leader of a successful party, at the very moment of com mencing his administration, is arrested by Death. The shock may well cause the statesmen, who stood around him, to pause and estimate anew the objects, to which they aspire, and the ends, for which they live. Methinks, the great men, who, full of Professional and Civil honors, had just received their highest distinction from his hand, have been taught a lesson, too impressive to be soon forgotten. At the bed side of their dying chief, and in the tomb, to which, with 20 uncovered heads and reverent step, they bore his unconscious remains, how impotent must have seemed the mightiest intellect ; how empty and vain the proudest earthly distinc tions ; how precious, above all price, that Charity which " seeketh not its own," and which " never faileth." The great event must impress contending and exasperated partizans with the littleness of the interests, which divide and embitter them, in comparison with those higher and better interests, which belong to us all as men and as candi dates for other scenes in other states of being. It seems to me we do, already, see a milder and gentler tone in the public journals, and in the political intercourse of life. Let us fervently pray, that the admonition may be felt. Let us supplicate the God of our Fathers, that the beautiful chris- tian lessons, left, as a legacy, to his countrymen, by the lamented Harrison, may be listened to and cherished ; may be bound up in the same volume with the moral wisdom of Washington ; and make a part of the American Statesman s Manual. To young men, especially to young men, who have chosen for themselves the sphere of civil life, the history of the departed Statesman is full of instruction. The great lesson, which his life most strikingly enforces, expressed with something of Aphoristic brevity is this, " Do well, and wait." " Confidence, said the Earl of Chat ham, is a plant of slow growth." And so is the merit, by which confidence is won. The greatest of all mistakes, at the outset of life, is the mistake of presuming on the favor of mankind without earning it. To youth the world will pardon much. Its indiscretions and obliquities are over looked with surprising charity. But youth soon passes away; 21 and, with it, passes away, also, the lenity of judgement, the kind allowance, with which its errors and follies are regarded. The man is measured by a severer standard ; and awards are meted out to him on sterner principles, The high posts the permanent distinctions of life, its great prises, are all purchased by weary years of toil. It is true, in a country like ours, the patient cultivator of himself, the diligent student of the abstruser and less inviting principles of things, may be, sometimes, out run, and distanced, by nimbler, more bustling, and less scrupulous spirits. But let him consider, that, whilst the monarch of the forest is slowly maturing to his noble stature, generation after generation of the grasses and weeds, that shaded his infancy, wither and rot at his foot. In a quarter of a century many shining names grow dim ; many budding honors are blighted. But one man in a hundred lives to come to any thing. We are too anxious to reap before we sow. " The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain." The objects, which young men propose to themselves can hardly be too great ; but they may be too near. Impatience is the sin of youth. Unity and steadiness of pursuit are the true secret of ultimate success. It is, however, an animating thought, to the man of patient, iron industry, that, if its great rewards must all be earned, they are seldom withheld. The market seems sometimes overstocked; and a young man s spirit sinks within him, at the thought of having so many to contend with, and so little to be divided among them all. But the rarest thing in the world is character, the growth of per sonal pains and sacrifices, and trials. Every place and 22 every calling wants it. It is never seen begging bread. Any price will be paid for it. These principles are strongly enforced by the example of General Harrison. At a late period of life, unambitious, and retired from public observation he was sought out, and solicited to accept the first office in his country. A man was wanted to concentrate public sentiment, to inspire general confidence. The able statesmen, the great orators of the time, were all passed by ; and Cincinnatus was again called from the plough. That he had always done well whatever he had done, and aimed uniformly to perfect him self, was his title to office. The melancholly death of the President is not less instruc tive than his life. It is, in itself, a beautiful spectacle. It possesses a moral grandeur. "A Christian is the highest style of man." And, yet, a Christian statesman, a Christian prince, bearing the ensigns of power with the simplicity and meekness of a disciple of Jesus, is almost too rare, not to be singular, even in a Christian nation, and in a religious age. When such an one dies, full of honors, and of hopes that seek their objects, where he sought his principles, in God, how it raises our idea of life and of man. As there is nothing so painful to think of as a gifted intellect, a generous heart, which has dignified human honors, and enobled human offices, passing off from this scene of action, "with out God and without hope ;" so there is nothing so worthy of the earnest contemplation of young men, as that regen erate, and finished character, in which this intellectual being, the thoughts that wander through eternity" are all informed and sanctified by Faith and Hope and Chanty. To be a man is something to be the humblest of God s rational A 000609914 7 children. To be great among men, and capable of greatness beyond an angel s comprehension the heart leaps at the thought. And, next akin to greatness and goodness itself, is the feeling of reverence for the great and the good. Ven eration is, at once, an element and a means of true nobility. There is also, a lesson, worthy of profound regard, in the sentiments of our common nature, which such a death calls forth, as well as in the death itself. When a human creature is about to die, we feel, that the proper subject of his last thoughts is his own preparation for the great change. When a neighbor has expired, our first anxiety is to know, how he died ; the natural inquiry is, with what feelings he met the inevitable doom. These are the topics that engage the conversation of those who minis tered to him in his extremity, and of those who assemble to commit his remains, with decency and honor, to the grave. The last expressions of a deceased friend are treasured up, and repeated with never ceasing fondness. With the dying words of her son the bereaved mother daily opens afresh the fountain of her tears. These dying words are carried by careful messengers, with inviolable fidelity, over seas and continents, as priceless relics to surviving love. When the great heart of our revered chief magistrate ceased to beat, how spontaneously this natural, universal feeling burst forth. With what earnestness the ministers of State and the humblest citizens alike turned, in their bereavement, to the closing scene of the good man s life, to gather consolation and hope from the professions of that honest hour. How anxiously the Pulpit and the Press collected every fragment of his public documents, or his pri vate conversations, which could throw any new light on his UCSB LIBRARY religious principles, or the feelings with which he suffered and died. When his sacred remains were lying in state, composed for the final rites, which affection pays to the dead, there was laid on his coffin, by the side of the sword, which the Hero was wont to bear, the Bible which the Pres ident was accustomed to read. It was proper; it was natural. It is not improbable it may have been placed there by hands, to which the Holy Book is not familiar, under the influence of that instinctive feeling of propriety, which leads us all unconsciously, on such occasions, to be testimony to the great truths of our Religion. These truths are not written on parchment alone. They are engraved deep upon the human heart. The written word has a coun terpart in our own bosoms. " An undevout astronomer is mad :" and unchristian greatness is a solicism. Let the candidate for honor, let the young aspirant for venerable power, remember always, let him lay it down as a first truth, that HE ONLY is GREAT, WHO FEARS GOD AND KEEPS HIS COMMANDMENTS.