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Pages From An Old Volume Of Life (Volume 8) (The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes)
Pages From An Old Volume Of Life - Volume 8 - The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Author:Holmes, Oliver Wendell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. THE INEVITABLE TRIAL.- It is our first impulse, upon this returning day of our nation's birth, to recall whatever is happiest and noblest in our past ... more »history, and to join our voices in celebrating the statesmen and the heroes, the men of thought and the men of action, to whom that history owes its existence. In other years this pleasing office may have been all that was required of the holiday speaker. But to-day, when the very life of the nation is threatened, when clouds are thick about us, and men's hearts are throbbing with passion, or failing with fear, it is the living question of the hour, and not the dead story of the past, which forces itself into all minds, and will find unrebuked debate in all assemblies. In periods of disturbance like the present, many persons who sincerely love their country and mean to do their duty to her disappoint the hopes and expectations of those who are actively working in her cause. They seem to have lost whatever moral force they may have once possessed, and to go drifting about from one profitless discontent to another, at a time when every citizen is called upon for cheerful, ready service. It is because their minds are bewildered, and they are no longer truly themselves. Show them the path of duty, An Oration delivered before the City Authorities of Boston, on the 4th of July, 1863. inspire them with hope for the future, lead them upwards from the turbid stream of events to the bright, translucent springs of eternal principles, strengthen their trust in humanity and their faith in God, and you may yet restore them to their manhood and their country. At all times, and especially on this anniversary of glorious recollections and kindly enthusiasms, we should try to judge the weak and wavering souls of our brothers fa...« less