“To bend the silver bow with tender skill,
While, void of pain, the silent arrows kill.”[6]
Gladly from these do I turn to another character, yet happily spared to Massachusetts, whose heart beats strong with the best blood of the Revolution, and with the best sentiments by which that blood was enriched. The only child of one of the authors of American Liberty, for many years the able and courageous Representative of Boston on the floor of Congress, where his speeches were the masterpieces of the time, distinguished throughout a long career by the grateful trust of his fellow-citizens, happy in all the possessions of a well-spent life, and surrounded by “honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,” with an old age which is second youth, Josiah Quincy, still erect under the burden of eighty-four winters, puts himself at the head of our great battle,—and never before, in the ardor of youth, or the maturity of manhood, did he show himself so grandly conspicuous, and add so much to the heroic wealth of our history. His undaunted soul, lifted already to glimpses of another life, may shame the feebler spirits of a later generation. There is one other personage, at a distant period, who, with precisely the same burden of winters, asserted the same supremacy of powers. It is the celebrated Dandolo, Doge of Venice, at the age of eighty-four, of whom the historian Gibbon has said, in words strictly applicable to our own Quincy: “He shone, in the last period of human life, as one of the most illustrious characters of the times: under the weight of years he retained a sound understanding and a manly courage, the spirit of an hero and the wisdom of a patriot.”[7] This old man carried the Venetian Republic over to the Crusaders, and exposed his person freely to all the perils of war, so that the historian describes him, in words again applicable to our day, saying: “In the midst of the conflict, the Doge, a venerable and conspicuous form, stood aloft, in complete armor, on the prow of his galley,” while “the great standard of St. Mark was displayed before him.”[8] Before the form of our venerable head is displayed the standard of a greater republic than Venice, thrilling with its sight greater multitudes than ever gazed on the standard of St. Mark, while a sublimer cause is ours than the cause of the Crusaders; for our task is not to ransom an empty sepulchre, but to rescue the Saviour himself, in the bodies of his innumerable children,—not to dislodge the Infidel from a distant foreign soil, but to displace him from the very Jerusalem of our Liberties.
May it please your Excellency, I forbear to proceed further. With thanks for this welcome, accept also my new vows of duty. In all simplicity let me say that I seek nothing but the triumph of Truth. To this I offer my best efforts, careless of office or honor. Show me that I am wrong, and I stop at once; but in the complete conviction of right I shall persevere against all temptations, against all odds, against all perils, against all threats,—knowing well, that, whatever may be my fate, the Right will surely prevail. Terrestrial place is determined by celestial observation. Only by watching the stars can the mariner safely pursue his course; and it is only by obeying those lofty principles which are above men and human passion that we can make our way safely through the duties of life. In such obedience I hope to live, while, as a servant of Massachusetts, I avoid no labor, shrink from no exposure, and complain of no hardship.
The cavalcade then moved rapidly away, escorting Mr. Sumner to his home in Hancock Street.
On arriving there, he was again welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm by a large crowd assembled in the street and on the sidewalks, the windows being filled on both sides up and down the street. The crowd cheered vociferously for Mr. Sumner, his mother, the Governor, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Hon. N. P. Banks, and Hon. Anson Burlingame. Mr. Sumner and his mother appeared at the window and bowed their acknowledgments, which called forth general and enthusiastic plaudits. The multitude then, giving three parting cheers for the distinguished Senator, separated, and the ceremonies of reception terminated.
Many of the business firms closed their stores during the afternoon. The paper agreeing to do so was headed by A. & A. Lawrence & Co., Gardner Brewer & Co., Parker, Wilder, & Co., Denny, Rice, & Gardner, Wilkinson, Stetson, & Co., Blake, Bigelow, & Co., Pierce Brothers & Flanders, &c.