McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 34

There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow, serenely high, And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod: They have left unstained what there they found,-- Freedom to worship G.o.d.

NOTE.--The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, Ma.s.s, Dec. 11th (Old Style), 1620. The rock on which they first stepped, is in Water Street of the village, and is covered by a handsome granite canopy, surmounted by a colossal statue of Faith.

LIX. NECESSITY OF EDUCATION. (228)

We must educate! We must educate! or we must perish by our own prosperity.

If we do not, short will be our race from the cradle to the grave. If, in our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious inst.i.tutions, they will never overtake us; or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage.

But what will become of the West if her prosperity rushes up to such a majesty of power, while those great inst.i.tutions linger which are necessary to form the mind, and the conscience, and the heart of the vast world? It must not be permitted. And yet what is done must be done quickly; for population will not wait, and commerce will not cast anchor, and manufactures will not shut off the steam, nor shut down the gate, and agriculture, pushed by millions of freemen on their fertile soil, will not withhold her corrupting abundance.

And let no man at the East quiet himself, and dream of liberty, whatever may become of the West. Our alliance of blood, and political inst.i.tutions, and common interests, is such, that we can not stand aloof in the hour of her calamity, should it ever come. Her destiny is our destiny; and the day that her gallant ship goes down, our little boat sinks in the vortex!

The great experiment is now making, and from its extent and rapid filling up, is making in the West, whether the perpetuity of our republican inst.i.tutions can be reconciled with universal suffrage. Without the education of the head and heart of the nation, they can not be; and the question to be decided is, can the nation, or the vast balance power of it, be so imbued with intelligence and virtue as to bring out, in laws and their administration, a perpetual self-preserving energy. We know that the work is a vast one, and of great difficulty; and yet we believe it can be done.

I am aware that our ablest patriots are looking out on the deep, vexed with storms, with great forebodings and failings of heart, for fear of the things that are coming upon us; and I perceive a spirit of impatience rising, and distrust in respect to the perpetuity of our republic; and I am sure that these fears are well founded, and am glad that they exist. It is the star of hope in our dark horizon. Fear is what we need, as the ship needs wind on a rocking sea, after a storm, to prevent foundering. But when our fear and our efforts shall correspond with our danger, the danger is past.

For it is not the impossibility of self-preservation which threatens us; nor is it the unwillingness of the nation to pay the price of the preservation, as she has paid the price of the purchase of our liberties.

It is inattention and inconsideration, protracted till the crisis is past, and the things which belong to our peace are hid from our eyes. And blessed be G.o.d, that the tokens of a national waking up, the harbinger of G.o.d's mercy, are multiplying upon us!

We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that G.o.d had brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the a.n.a.logy of his providence, and abandon his work.

And though there now be clouds, and the sea roaring, and men's hearts failing, we believe there is light behind the cloud, and that the imminence of our danger is intended, under the guidance of Heaven, to call forth and apply a holy, fraternal fellowship between the East and the West, which shall secure our preservation, and make the prosperity of our nation durable as time, and as abundant as the waves of the sea.

I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our great experiment of self-government, our destruction will be as signal as the birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and the provocation offered to beneficent Heaven. The descent of desolation will correspond with the past elevation.

No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions extort.

It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free inst.i.tutions have given us more bone, sinew, and vitality. May G.o.d hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils! live forever--one and undivided!

--Lyman Beecher.

LX. RIDING ON A SNOWPLOW. (231)

Benjamin Franklin Taylor, 1822-1887, was born at Lowville, New York, and graduated at Madison University, of which his father was president. Here he remained as resident graduate for about five years. His "Attractions of Language" was published in 1845. For many years Mr. Taylor was literary editor of the "Chicago Journal." He wrote considerably for the magazines, and was the author of many well-known fugitive pieces, both in prose and verse. He also published several books, of which "January and June,"

"Pictures in Camp and Field," "The World on Wheels," "Old-time Pictures and Sheaves of Rhyme," "Between the Gates," and "Songs of Yesterday," are the best known. In his later years, Mr. Taylor achieved some reputation as a lecturer. His writings are marked by an exuberant fancy.

Did you ever ride on a snowplow? Not the pet and pony of a thing that is attached to the front of an engine, sometimes, like a pilot; but a great two-storied monster of strong timbers, that runs upon wheels of its own, and that boys run after and stare at as they would after and at an elephant. You are snow-bound at Buffalo. The Lake Sh.o.r.e Line is piled with drifts like a surf. Two pa.s.senger trains have been half-buried for twelve hours somewhere in snowy Chautauqua. The storm howls like a congregation of Arctic bears. But the superintendent at Buffalo is determined to release his castaways, and clear the road to Erie. He permits you to be a pa.s.senger on the great snowplow; and there it is, all ready to drive.

Harnessed behind it, is a tandem team of three engines. It does not occur to you that you are going to ride on a steam drill, and so you get aboard.

It is a s.p.a.cious and timbered room, with one large bull's eye window,--an overgrown lens. The thing is a sort of Cyclops. There are ropes, and chains, and a windla.s.s. There is a bell by which the engineer of the first engine can signal the plowman, and a cord whereby the plowman can talk back. There are two sweeps, or arms, worked by machinery, on the sides.

You ask their use, and the superintendent replies, "When, in a violent shock, there is danger of the monster's upsetting, an arm is put out, on one side or the other, to keep the thing from turning a complete somersault." You get one idea, and an inkling of another. So you take out your Accident Policy for three thousand dollars, and examine it. It never mentions battles, nor duels, nor snowplows. It names "public conveyances."

Is a snowplow a public conveyance? You are inclined to think it is neither that nor any other kind that you should trust yourself to, but it is too late for consideration.

You roll out of Buffalo in the teeth of the wind, and the world is turned to snow. All goes merrily. The machine strikes little drifts, and they scurry away in a cloud. The three engines breathe easily; but by and by the earth seems broken into great billows of dazzling white. The sun comes out of a cloud, and touches it up till it out-silvers Potosi. Houses lie in the trough of the sea everywhere, and it requires little imagination to think they are pitching and tossing before your eyes. A great breaker rises right in the way. The monster, with you in it, works its way up and feels of it. It is packed like a ledge of marble. Three whistles! The machine backs away and keeps backing, as a gymnast runs astern to get sea room and momentum for a big jump; as a giant swings aloft a heavy sledge, that it may come down with a heavy blow.

One whistle! You have come to a halt. Three pairs of whistles one after the other! and then, putting on all steam, you make for the drift. The superintendent locks the door, you do not quite understand why, and in a second the battle begins. The machine rocks and creaks in all its joints.

There comes a tremendous shock. The cabin is as dark as midnight. The clouds of flying snow put out the day. The labored breathing of the locomotives behind you, the clouds of smoke and steam that wrap you up as in a mantle, the noonday eclipse of the sun, the surging of the ship, the rattling of chains, the creak of timbers as if the craft were aground and the sea getting out of its bed to whelm you altogether, the doubt as to what will come,--all combine to make a scene of strange excitement for a landlubber.

You have made some impression on the breaker, and again the machine backs for a fair start, and then another plunge, and shock, and twilight. And so, from deep cut to deep cut, as if the season had packed all his winter clothes upon the track, until the stalled trains are reached and pa.s.sed; and then, with alternate storm and calm, and halt and shock, till the way is cleared to Erie.

It is Sunday afternoon, and Erie--"Mad Anthony Wayne's" old headquarters--has donned its Sunday clothes, and turned out by hundreds to see the great plow come in,--its first voyage over the line. The locomotives set up a crazy scream, and you draw slowly into the depot. The door opened at last, you clamber down, and gaze up at the uneasy house in which you have been living. It looks as if an avalanche had tumbled down upon it,--white as an Alpine shoulder. Your first thought is grat.i.tude that you have made a landing alive. Your second, a resolution that, if again you ride a hammer, it will not be when three engines have hold of the handle!

NOTES.--Chautauqua is the most western county in the state of New York; it borders on Lake Erie.

The Cyclops are described in Grecian mythology as giants having only one eye, which was circular, and placed in the middle of the forehead.

Cerro de Potosi is a mountain in Bolivia, South America, celebrated for its mineral wealth. More than five thousand mines have been opened in it; the product is chiefly silver.

"Mad Anthony Wayne" (b. 1745, d. 1796), so called from his bravery and apparent recklessness, was a famous American officer during the Revolution. In 1794 be conducted a successful campaign against the Indians of the Northwest, making his headquarters at Erie, Pa.

LXI. THE QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND Ca.s.sIUS. (234)

Cas. That you have wronged me doth appear in this: You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella For taking bribes here of the Sardians; Wherein my letters, praying on his side, Because I knew the man, were slighted off.

Bru. You wronged yourself to write in such a case.

Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet That every nice offense should bear his comment.

Bru. Yet let me tell you, Ca.s.sius, you yourself Are much condemned to have an itching palm, To sell and mart your offices for gold To undeservers.

Cas. I an itching palm!

You know that you are Brutus that speak this, Or, by the G.o.ds, this speech were else your last.

Bru. The name of Ca.s.sius honors this corruption, And chastis.e.m.e.nt doth therefore hide his head.

Cas. Chastis.e.m.e.nt!

Bru. Remember March, the ides of March remember!

Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?

What villain touched his body, that did stab, And not for justice? What! shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers; shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty s.p.a.ce of our large honors For so much trash as may be graspe'd thus?

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bay not me; I'll not endure it: you forget yourself, To hedge me in; I am a soldier, I, Older in practice, abler than yourself To make conditions.

Bru. Go to; you are not, Ca.s.sius.

Cas. I am.

Bru. I say you are not.

Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself: Have mind upon your health; tempt me no further.

Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.