od of his race did flow. Well, had
history nothing else to teach us, than that all what the wisdom of man
did conceive, and all that his energy has executed through the
innumerable days of the past, and all that we take to be glorious in
nations and happy to men, cannot so much do as to ensure a future even
to such a flourishing commonwealth as yours; then weaker hearts may well
ask, What good is it to warn us of a fatality which we cannot escape;
what good is it to hold up the mournful monuments of a national
mortality to sadden our heart, if all that is human must share that
common doom? Let us do as we can, and so far as we can, and let the
future bring what it may. But that would be the speech of one having no
faith in the all-watching Eye, and regarding the eternal laws of the
universe not as an emanation of a bountiful Providence, but of a blind
fatality, which plays at hazard with the destinies of men. I never will
share such blasphemy. Misfortune came over me, and came over my house,
and came over my guiltless nation; still I never have lost my trust in
the Father of all. I have lived the days when the people of my oppressed
country went along weeping over the immense misfortune that they cannot
pray, seeing the downfall of the most just cause and the outrageous
triumph of the most criminal of all crimes on earth; and they went along
not able to pray, and weeping that they are not able to pray. I
shuddered at the terrible tidings in the desolation of my exile; but I
could pray, and sent the consolation home, that I do not despair; that I
believe in God, and trust to His bountiful providence, and ask them who
of them dares despair when I do not? I was in exile, as I am now, but
arrogant despots were debating about my blood, my infant children in
prison, my wife, the faithful companion of my sorrows and my cares,
hunted like a noble deer, and my sisters in the tyrant's fangs, red with
the blood of my nation, and the heart of my aged mother breaking, about
the shattered fortunes of her house, and all of them at last homeless
wanderers, cast to the winds, like the yellow leaves of a fallen tree;
and my fatherland, my dear, beloved fatherland, half murdered, half in
chains, and humanity nearly all oppressed, and those who are not yet
oppressed looking with compassion at our sad fate, but taking it for
wise policy not to help, and the sky of freedom dark on our horizon, and
darkening fast over all, and nowhere a ray of