and a quarter of a
million like him were faithful unto death is no republic that can live
at ease hereafter on the interest of what they have won. Democracy is
still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only
bulwark, and neither laws nor monuments, neither battleships nor public
libraries, nor great newspapers nor booming stocks; neither mechanical
invention nor political adroitness, nor churches nor universities nor
civil service examinations can save us from degeneration if the inner
mystery be lost. That mystery, as once the secret and the glory of our
English-speaking race, consists in nothing but two common habits, two
inveterate habits carried into public life,--habits so homely that they
lend themselves to no rhetorical expression, yet habits more precious,
perhaps, than any that the human race has gained. They can never be
too often pointed out or praised. One of them is the habit of trained
and disciplined good temper towards the opposite party when it fairly
wins its innings. It was by breaking away from this habit that the
Slave States nearly wrecked our Nation. The other is that of fierce
and merciless resentment toward every man or set of men who break the
public peace. By holding to this habit the free States saved her life.

O my countrymen, Southern and Northern, brothers hereafter, masters,
slaves, and enemies no more, let us see to it that both of those
heirlooms are preserved. So may our ransomed country, like the city of
the promise, lie forever foursquare under Heaven, and the ways of all
the nations be lit up by its light.

[1] Oration at the Exercises in the Boston Music Hall, May 31, 1897,
upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument.

[2] G. W. James: "The Assault upon Fort Wagner," in _War Papers read
before the Commandery of the State of Wisconsin, Military Order of the
Loyal Legion of the United States_. Milwaukee, 1891.

IV

FRANCIS BOOTT[1]

How often does it happen here in New England that we come away from a
funeral with a feeling that the service has been insufficient. If it
be purely ritual, the individuality of the departed friend seems to
play too small a part in it. If the minister conducts it in his own
fashion, it is apt to be too thin and monotonous, and if he were not an
intimate friend, too remote and official. We miss direct discourse of
simple human affection about the person, which we find so often in
those lay speeches at the grave o