Augustus Choate Hamlin.
Bangor, September, 1866.
MARTYRIA.
| “They never fail who die In a great cause. * * * * They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct The world at last to freedom.” Byron. |
I.
History weighs the social institutions of men in the scale of Humanity. Time, slowly but surely, accumulates the evidence which relates to their materials. It calmly but firmly unveils the statues which men erect as their principles, and with “that retributive justice which God has implanted in our very acts, as a conscience more sacred than the fatalism of the ancients,” lays bare the secret springs of action which have prompted the deeds of heroism or baseness, of virtue or crime.