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has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable, from Assaye to Waterloo, the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled to the shock of war before? What desperate valor climbed the steeps and filled the moats at Badajos? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory,—Vimeira, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and, last of all, the greatest

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.Tell me,- for you were there, I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast; tell me, for you must needs remember, on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science, when her legions, incited by the voice and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset, tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the " aliens " blenched? And when, at length, the moment for the last and decided movement had arrived, and the valor which had so long been wisely checked was, at last, let loose,—when, with words familiar but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault, - tell me if Catholic Ireland with less heroic valor than the natives of this your own glorious country precipitated herself upon the foe? The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland, flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill mòrning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together; -in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate; and shall we be told as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out?

R. L. Sheil.

OF

LXXIV.

THE ILIAD AND THE BIBLE.

F all the books with which, since the invention of writing, this world has been deluged, very few have produced any perceptible effect on the mass of human character. By far the greater part have been, even by their contemporaries, unnoticed and unknown. Not many a one has made its little mark upon that generation that produced it, though it sunk with that generation to utter forgetfulness. But, after the ceaseless toil of six thousand years, how few have been the works, the adamantine basis of whose reputation has stood unhurt amid the fluctuations of time, and whose impression can be traced through successive centuries, on the history of our species!

When, however, such a work appears, its effects are absolutely incalculable; and such a work, you are aware, is the Iliad of Homer. Who can estimate the results produced by the incomparable efforts of a single mind?. Who can tell what Greece owes to this first-born of song? Her breathing marbles, her solemn temples, her unrivalled eloquence, and her matchless verse, all point us to that transcendent genius, who, by the very splendor of his own effulgence, woke the human intellect from the slumber of ages. It was Homer who gave laws to the artist; it was Homer who inspired the poet; it was Homer who thundered in the Senate; and, more than all, it was Homer who was sung by the people; and hence a nation was cast into the mould of one mighty mind, and the land of the Iliad became the region of taste, the birthplace of the arts.

But, considered simply as an intellectual production, who will compare the poems of Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and pathos which shall vie with the narrative of Moses, or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the Proverbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade away before the conceptions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John? But I cannot pursue this comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dictated the Iliad, and to those other mighty intellects on whom the light of the holy oracles never shined.

If, then, so great results have flowed from this one effort of a single mind, what may we not expect from the combined efforts of several, at least his equals in power over the human heart? If that one genius, though groping in the thick darkness of absurd idolatry, wrought so glorious a transformation in the character of his countrymen, what may we not look for from the universal dissemination of those writings on whose authors was poured the full splendor of eternal truth? If unassisted human nature, spell-bound by a childish mythology, have done so much, what may we not hope for from the supernatural efforts of preeminent genius, which spake as it was moved by the Holy Ghost? Dr. Wayland.

LXXV.

ON ADMITTING CALIFORNIA TO THE UNION.

A YEAR ago, California was a mere military dependency of

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our own. To-day, she is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself. No wonder if we are perplexed with everchanging embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the ever-augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!

SHALL CALIFORNIA BE RECEIVED? For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer yes. Let California come in. Every new State, whether she come from the east or the west- every new State, coming from whatever part of the continent she may, is always welcome. But, California, that comes from the clime where the west dies away into the rising east, California, that bounds at once the empire and the continent, California, the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome.

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The question now arises, shall this one great people, having a common origin, a common language, a common religion, common sentiments, interests, sympathies, and hopes, remain one political state, one nation, one republic; or shall it be broken into two

conflicting, and, probably, hostile nations or republics? Shall the American people, then, be divided? Before deciding on this question, let us consider our position, our power, and capabilities.

The world contains no seat of empire so magnificent as this; which, embracing all the varying climates of the temperate zone, and traversed by wide expanding lakes and long branching rivers, offers supplies on the Atlantic shores to the overcrowded nations of Europe, and, on the Pacific coast, intercepts the commerce of the Indies. The nation thus situated, and enjoying forest, mineral, and agricultural resources unequalled, if endowed, also, with moral energies adequate to the achievement of great enterprises, and favored with a government adapted to their, character and condition, must command the empire of the seas, which, alone, is real empire.

We think we may claim to have inherited physical and intellectual vigor, courage, invention, and enterprise; and the systems of education prevailing among us, open to all the stores of human science and art. The Old World and the Past were allotted by Providence to the pupilage of mankind. The New World and the Future seem to have been appointed for the maturity of mankind, with the development of self-government, operating in obedience to reason and judgment.

We may, then, reasonably hope for greatness, felicity, and renown, excelling any hitherto attained by any nation, if, standing firmly on the continent, we lose not our grasp on either ocean. Whether a destiny so magnificent would be only partially defeated, or whether it would be altogether lost by a relaxation of the grasp, surpasses our wisdom to determine, and happily it is not important to be determined. It is enough, if we agree, that expectations so grand, yet so reasonable and so just, ought not in any degree to be disappointed. And now, it seems to me, that the perpetual unity of the empire hangs on the decision of this day and this hour.

California is already a State, a complete and fully appointed State. She never again can be less than that. She never again can be a province or a colony; nor can she be made to shrink or shrivel into the proportions of a federal dependent territory. California, then, henceforth and forever, must be, what she is now, a State.

The question whether she shall be one of the United States of America, has depended on her and on us. Her election has been made. Our consent alone remains suspended; and that consent must be pronounced now or never. W. H. Seward.

MR.

LXXVI.

A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC.

R. PRESIDENT, I go for a national highway from the Mississippi to the Pacific. And I go against all schemes of individuals or of companies, and especially those who come here and ask of the Congress of the United States to give themselves and their assigns the means of making a road, and taxing the people for the use of it. If they should make it, they

are to tax us for the use of it tax the people eight or ten millions a year for using a road which their own money built. A fine scheme, that! But they would never build it, neither themselves nor their assigns. It would all end in stock-jobbing. I repudiate the whole idea, sir. I go for a national highway no stock-jobbing.

We find all the localities of the country precisely such as a national central road would require. The Bay of San Francisco, the finest in the world, is in the centre of the western coast of North America; it is central, and without a rival. It will accommodate the commerce of that coast, both north and south, up to the frozen regions, down to the torrid zone. It is central in that respect. The commerce of the broad Pacific Ocean will centre there. The commerce of Asia will centre there. Follow the same latitude across the country, and it strikes the centre of the valley of the Mississippi. It strikes the Mississippi near the confluence of all the great waters which concentrate in the valley of the Mississippi. It comes to the centre of the valley; - it comes to St. Louis. Follow the prolongation of that central line. and you find it cutting the heart of the great States between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio a part of Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, — they are all traversed or touched by that great central line.

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We own the country, from sea to sea, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and upon a breadth equal to the length of the

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