glimmer in the sepulchers of the past. Rather let us hail those
ever-burning lights above in whose beams is the brightness of the
noon-day. As the cedars of Lebanon are higher than the grass of the
valley, as the heavens are higher than the earth, as man is higher than
the beasts of the field, as the angels are higher than man, as he that
ruleth his spirit is higher than he that taketh a city; so are the
virtues and glories and victories of peace higher than the virtues and
victories of war.

To this great work of world-wide peace let me summon you. Believe that
you can do it, and you can do it. Blessed are the peace-makers for they
are the children of God.

(_Loud clamor for recognition, the chair recognizing Patrick Henry
of Virginia._)

PATRICK HENRY. [16]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--We have done everything that could be done, to avert the
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne,
and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of
the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our
supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with
contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may
we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer
any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long
contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which
we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never
to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be
obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to
arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of
effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make proper use of t