182 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Sometimes to them nations are more indebted for keeping alive or 

 rekindling the fires npon the unused altars, than to the orator and 

 the statesman. Such poets enter thousands of homes which are never 

 reached by the words of the orator, and there, while the children 

 and parents merely think of the images of beauty or taste the 

 draughts of refreshment given them from these cups of gold, lo ! 

 they are drinking in that which quickens patriotic life, and causes to 

 germinate the seeds whose ripened fruit is political purity and broad 

 patriotism. Great apostles thus, with us, are such men as James 

 Russell Lowell, and Emerson, and Whittier ; their living thoughts 

 fertilize broad acres of human hearts with high moral quickening. 



Here too we may name as an unquestionable fertilizer of 

 patriotism whatever shall arouse and firmly' plant in the citizen a 

 clear, calm realization of the sacredness and responsibility of 

 citizenship, and the power there is in each vote of a freeman 

 directed by a conscientious will. 



Again, an honest and outspoken demand b3' individuals and 

 communities for honest statesmanship is an immensely powerful 

 fertilizer for producing honest statesmen. Under such influences, 

 \rith an atmosphere around them of moral earnestness, are statesmen 

 born. Let individuals and communities fail to furnish in the 

 political field the stimulating effect upon public men of this out- 

 spoken demand for a pure and broad political action, and the crop 

 of politicians (so to speak) will be dwarfed, — no forms noble and 

 majestic among them. Though, meantime, no one may doubt but 

 that with " raw material," — intellect, heart and will, — a country 

 may at that ver}- time be abundantly supplied, only waiting to have 

 it brought out into noble activity. 



Great thoughts, great deeds, great men nurture this sentiment. 

 Great utterances of wise statesmen in the halls of council, nurture 

 this sentiment, — their own native eloquence glorified by the 

 majesty of the cause they are pleading, bound in with some great 

 national interest, — Burke, Chatham, Calhoun, Cla}', "Webster, — 

 the}' are still uttering their burning words. 



The scenes of great struggles in behalf of some holy principle, 

 nurture this sentiment. Speak the simple word " Marathon," and 

 in an instant ten thousand Greeks would spring to arms, and seize 

 spear and shield, as if a trumpet blew. Name Thermopylae to a 

 Spartan, though generations removed, and his cheek would glow, 

 bis heart be all afire, and he would lay his hand anew upon the 



