AGRICULTURE AND WAR. 2T 



that sorrow which will now and then overcome us, in spite of 

 our confidence, and our resolution, and our trust. The silent 

 spindle tells a tale of sorrow which the passing husbandman 

 must hear. The deserted wayside shop will be heard, as it 

 recounts the warlike deeds of those who but just now crowded, 

 a busy throng, within its happy walls. The weary traveller has 

 his tale of want. Upon the lonely wharves as on a dial-plate, 

 the motionless mast counts off the morning and evening hours 

 of its long days of idleness. The Flag of our Fathers, flying 

 from every hill-top and spire and gable, manifests continually, 

 as an oft-repeated emblem, the great trial before which an 

 industrious and patriotic people has paused in its pursuits. As 

 we labor in our fields, the national distress goes with us. For 

 ■who can forget the heroism of those who left their ploughs in 

 the furrow, to go forth and fight the battles of freedom ? Who 

 can forget the greatness and devotion of those who established 

 this civil fabric, which was their pride, and has been so long 

 our own ? Who can forget the glory of our nationality? Who 

 cj!n forget the ascending prayers that went to heaven at our 

 nation's birth, and are now renewed in the agony of an hour 

 which beclouds the sky lit up by Washington, and in which the 

 veil of our temple seems to be rent in twain ? Oh ! my friends, 

 the earth may smile, and the sun may shine, the flowers may 

 bloom, and golden seas of harvests wave, but we cannot forget 

 that we have a country in mortal throes, nor can we, if we 

 would, lose sight of the duties which press solemnly upon us, 

 as citizens engaged in the great business which alone can sustain 

 men in the trials of war. While other pursuits pause before 

 the storm, to us belong the sword as well as the ploughshare, 

 the spear as well as the pruning-hook, the support of our coun- 

 try in contest, its right arm in war, its substantial wealth in 

 times of peace. 



1 would not overestimate the position of agriculture, among 

 all the arts of life, in a crisis like that which is now upon us. 

 I do not overestimate it. In peace it founds nations, in war 

 supports them. " Romulus founded his state on agriculture 

 and war," says a distinguished German historian ; and centuries 

 of national grandeur bear witness to the power of the combina- 

 tion, for the purposes of growth and aggression. Egypt, clitf- 

 bounded on either hand, has cherished that precious soil which 



