Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study Part 4

From "Characteristics of the Age."

When that history comes to be written you know whose will be the central and prominent figure. You know that Mr. Gladstone will stand out before posterity as the greatest man of his time--remarkable not only for his extraordinary eloquence, for his great ability, for his stedfastness of purpose, for his constructive skill, but more, perhaps, than all these, for his personal character, and for the high tone that he has introduced into our polities and public fife. I sometimes think that great men are like great mountains, and that we do not appreciate their magnitude while we are close to them. You have to go to a distance to see which peak it is that towers above its fellows; and it may be that we shall have to put between us and Mr. Gladstone a s.p.a.ce of time before we shall see how much greater he has been than any of his compet.i.tors for fame and power. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.

From "On Liberal Aims."

Let us never despair of our country. Actual evils can be mitigated; bad tendencies can be turned aside; the burdens of government can be diminished; productive industry will be renewed; and frugality will repair the waste of our resources. Then shall the golden days of the republic once more return, and the people become prosperous and happy, SAMUEL JONES TILDEN.

From "Address on Administrative Reform."

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age to which his rigorous const.i.tution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence; killed, a.s.sa.s.sinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, but because of his fidelity to Union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us and will be precious forever.

FREDERICK DOUGLa.s.s.

From "Inauguration of the Freedmen's Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln."

Let this be an occasion of joy. Why should it not be so! Is not the heaven over your heads, which has so long been clothed in sackcloth, beginning to disclose its starry princ.i.p.alities and illumine your pathway? Do you not see the pitiless storm which, has so long been pouring its rage upon you breaking away, and a bow of promise as glorious as that which succeeded the ancient deluge spanning the sky--a token that to the end of time the billows of prejudice and oppression shall no more cover the earth to the destruction of your race; but seedtime and harvest shall never fail, and the laborer shall eat the fruit of his hands. Is not your cause developing like the spring? Yours has been a long and rigorous winter. The chill of contempt, the frost of adversity, the blast of persecution, the storm of oppression--all have been yours. There was no substance to be found--no prospect to delight the eye or inspire the drooping heart--no golden ray to dissipate the gloom. The waves of derision were stayed by no barrier, but made a clear breach over you. But now--thanks be to G.o.d! that dreary winter is rapidly hastening away. The sun of humanity is going steadily up from the horizon to its zenith, growing larger and brighter, and melting the frozen earth beneath, its powerful rays. The genial showers of repentance are softly falling upon the barren plain; the wilderness is budding like the rose; the voice of joy succeeds the cotes of we; and hope, like the lark, is soaring upward and warbling hymns at the gate of heaven. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

"From Words of Encouragement to the Opprest."

Listen to the voice of justice and of reason; it cries to us that human judgments are never certain enough to warrant society in giving death to a man convicted by other men liable to error. Had you imagined the most perfect judicial system; had you found the most upright and enlightened judges, there will always remain some room for error or prejudice. Why interdict to yourselves the means of reparation? Why condemn yourself to powerlessness to help opprest innocence? What good can come of the sterile regrets, these illusory reparations you grant to a vain shade, to insensible ashes? They are the sad testimonials of the barbarous temerity of your penal laws. To rob the man of the possibility of expiating his crime by his repentance or by acts of virtue; to close to him without mercy every return toward a proper life, and his own esteem; to hasten his descent, as it were, into the grave still covered with the recent blotch, of his crime, is in my eyes the most horrible refinement of cruelty. MAXIMILIEN MARIE ISIDORE ROBESPIERRE.

From "Against Capital Punishment."

And love, young men, love and venerate the ideal. The ideal is the word of G.o.d. High above every country, high above humanity, is the country of the spirit, the city of the soul, in which all are brethren who believe in the inviolability of thought and in the dignity of our immortal soul; and the baptism of this fraternity is martyrdom. From that high sphere spring the principles which alone can redeem the peoples. Arise for the sake of these, and not from impatience of suffering or dread of evil.

Anger, pride, ambition, and the desire of material prosperity, are common alike to the peoples and their oppressors, and even should you conquer with these to-day, you would fall again to-morrow; but principles belong to the peoples alone, and their oppressors can find no arms to oppose them. Adore enthusiasm, the dreams of the virgin soul, and the visions of early youth, for they are a perfume of paradise which the soul retains in issuing from the hands of its Creator. Respect, above all things, your conscience; have upon your lips the truth implanted by G.o.d in your hearts, and, while laboring in harmony, even with those who differ from you, in all that tends to the emanc.i.p.ation of our soil, yet ever bear your own banner erect and boldly promulgate your own faith. GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.

From "To the Young Men of Italy."

Even if we conquer the South, as conquer we must, unless chastened by visible misfortunes in the North, our triumph breeding unbounded conceit, we plunge the deeper in the vortex of voluptuous prosperity, our country forgotten by the people, its honors and dignities the sport and plunder of every knave and fool that can court or bribe the mob, the national debt repudiated, justice purchased in her temples as laws now are in the Legislature, the life and property of no man safe, the last relics of public virtue destroyed, anarchy will reign amid universal ruin. DANIEL DOUGHERTY.

From "Address on the Perils of the Republic."

To conclude "How are the mighty fallen!" Fallen before the desolating hand of death. Alas, the ruins of the tomb! The ruins of the tomb are an emblem of the ruins of the world; when not an individual, but a universe, already marred by sin and hastening to dissolution, shall agonize and die! Directing your thoughts from the one, fix them for a moment on the other. Antic.i.p.ate the concluding scene, the final catastrophe of nature, when the sign of the Son of man shall he seen in heaven; when the Son of man Himself shall appear in the glory of his Father, and send forth judgment unto victory. The fiery desolation envelops towns, palaces, and fortresses; the heavens pa.s.s away! the earth melts! and all those magnificent productions of art which ages heaped on ages have reared up are in one awful day reduced to ashes.

ELIPHALET NOTT.

From the sermon "On the Death of Alexander Hamilton."

"Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's n.o.blest offspring is the last."

This extraordinary prophecy may be considered only as the result of long foresight and uncommon sagacity; of a foresight and sagacity stimulated, nevertheless, by excited feeling and high enthusiasm. So clear a vision of what America would become was not founded on square miles, or on existing numbers, or on any common laws of statistics. It was an intuitive glance into futurity; it was a grand conception, which they have hitherto so hopelessly mismanaged, you must expect to go on from had to worse; you must expect to lose the little prestige which you retain; you must expect to find in other portions of the world the results of the lower consideration that you occupy in the eyes of mankind; you must expect to be drawn, on, degree by degree, step by step, under the cover of plausible excuses, under the cover of highly philanthropic sentiments, to irreparable disasters, and to disgrace that it will be impossible to efface. LORD SALISBURY.

From "Speech on the Abandonment of General Gordon."

You will pardon me, gentlemen, if I say I think that we have need of a more rigorous scholastic rule; such an asceticism, I mean, as only the hardihood and devotion of the scholar himself can enforce. We live in the sun and on the surface--a thin, plausible, superficial existence, and talk of muse and prophet, of art and creation. But out of our shallow and frivolous way of life, how can greatness ever grow? Come now, let us go and be dumb. Let us sit with our hands on our mouths, a long, austere, Pythagorean l.u.s.trum. Let us live in corners and do ch.o.r.es, and suffer, and weep, and drudge, with eyes and hearts that love the Lord. Silence, seclusion, austerity, may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, and so living bring up out of secular darkness the sublimities of the moral const.i.tution. How mean to go blazing, a gaudy b.u.t.terfly, in fas.h.i.+onable or political saloons, the fool of society, the fool of notoriety, a topic for newspapers, a piece of the street, and forfeiting the real prerogative of the russet coat, the privacy, and the true and warm heart of the citizen! EMERSON.

From "Literary Ethics."

Sir, we are a.s.sembled to commemorate the establishment of great public principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distinguished dead. The occasion is too severe for eulogy to the living. But, sir, your interesting relation to this country, the peculiar circ.u.mstances which surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration.

WEBSTER.

From "Laying the Cornerstone of Bunker Hill Monument."

All experience teaches that the requirements and impartial practise of the principles of civil and religious liberty can not speedily be acquired by the inhabitants, left to their own way, under a protectorate by this nation. The experience of this nation in governing and endeavoring to civilize the Indians teaches this. For about a century this nation exercised a protectorate over the tribes and allowed the natives of the country to manage their tribal and other relations in their own way. The advancement in civilization, was very slow and hardly perceptible. During the comparatively few years that Congress has by direct legislation controlled their relations to each other and to the reservations the advancement in civilization has been tenfold more rapid. This is in accord with all experience. The un-taught can not become acquainted with the difficult problems of government and of individual rights and their due enforcement without skilful guides.

JONATHAN ROSS.

From "The Nation's Relation to Its Island Possessions."

My friend, will you hear me to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you?

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Will you not think well of such a Savior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him with all your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid down His life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for Him? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not be willing to take it up for Him? Oh have we not reason to think well of Him? Do you think it is right and n.o.ble to lift up your voice against such, a Savior? Do you think it just to cry "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Oh, may G.o.d help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinking well of His only-begotten Son.

DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY.

From "What Think Ye of Christ?"

Life has been often styled an ocean and our progress through it a voyage. The ocean is tempestuous and billowy, overspread by a cloudy sky, and fraught beneath with shelves and quick-sands. The voyage is eventful beyond comprehension, and at the same time full of uncertainty and replete with danger. Every adventurer needs to be well prepared for whatever may befall him, and well secured against the manifold hazards of losing his course, sinking in the abyss, or of being wrecked against the sh.o.r.e. TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

From Sermon, "The Sovereignty of G.o.d."

I shall endeavor to clear away from the question all that ma.s.s of dissertation and learning displayed in arguments which have been fetched from speculative men who have written upon the subject of government, or from ancient records, as being little to the purpose. I shall insist that these records are no proofs of our present const.i.tution. A n.o.ble lord has taken up his argument from the settlement of the const.i.tution at the revolution; I shall take up my argument from the const.i.tution as it is now. MANSFIELD.

From "The Right of England to Tax America."