The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon!—What was the Rubicon?—The boundary of Cæsar's province. From what did it separate his province? From his country. Was that country a desert? No: it was cultivated and fertile; rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity! Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! Friendship was its inhabitant!—Love was its inhabitant!—Domestic affection was its inhabitant!—Liberty was its inhabitant!—All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was Cæsar, that stood upon the brink of that stream?—A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No wonder that he paused! No wonder if, in his imagination, wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water; and heard groans instead of murmurs. No wonder if some Gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot.—But, no!—he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged!—He crossed!—and Rome was free no more. J. S. Knowles.

XLVI.

GUSTAVUS VASA TO THE DALECARLIANS.

Swedes! countrymen! behold at last, after a thousand dangers past, your chief, Gustavus, here! Long have I sighed 'mid foreign lands; long have I roamed in foreign lands; at length, 'mid Swedish hearts and hands, I grasp a Swedish spear! Yet, looking forth, although I see none but the fearless and the free, sad thoughts the sight inspires; for where, I think, on Swedish ground, save where these mountains frown around, can that best heritage be found—the freedom of our sires? Yes, Sweden pines beneath the yoke; the galling chain our fathers broke is round our country now! On perjured craft and ruthless guilt his power a tyrant Dane has built, and Sweden's crown, all blood-bespilt, rests on a foreign brow. On you your country turns her eyes—on you, on you, for aid relies, scions of noblest stem! The foremost place in rolls of fame, by right your fearless fathers claim; yours is the glory of their name,—'t is yours to equal them. As rushing down, when winter reigns, resistless to the shaking plains, the torrent tears its way, and all that bars its onward course sweeps to the sea with headlong force, so swept your sires the Dane and Norse;—can ye do less than they? Rise! Reässert your ancient pride, and down the hills a living tide of fiery valor pour. Let but the storm of battle lower, back to his den the foe will cower;—then, then shall Freedom's glorious hour strike for our land once more! What! silent motionless, ye stand? Gleams not an eye? Moves not a hand? Think ye to fly your fate? Or till some better cause be given, wait ye?—Then wait! till, banished, driven, ye fear to meet the face of Heaven;—till ye are slaughtered, wait. But no! your kindling hearts gainsay the thought. Hark! hear that bloodhound's bay! Yon blazing village see! Rise, countrymen! Awake! Defy the haughty Dane! Your battlecry be Freedom! We will do or die! On! Death or victory!

XLVII.

NOBILITY OF LABOR.

I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It is Heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down for ages. Let it then be built up again; here, if anywhere, on these shores of a new world, of a new civilization But how, I may be asked, is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do indeed toil; but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as in some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as escape from it. They fulfil the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so he is not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy work-shop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature; it is impiety to Heaven; it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat toil—either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, the only true nobility. O. Dewey.

XLVIII.

SALATHIEL TO TITUS.

Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, as I may in the next be an exile or a slave: I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of man. I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet, not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning the cause of the City of Holiness.