l^ THE president's ADDRESS. 



the mould upon our presumption and the silent tomb imposed its 

 law on our pert loquacity. 



" In Eno'land we have not yet been completely embowelled of our 

 natural eutrails — we still feel mthin us and we cherish and cultivate 

 those inbred sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the acting 

 monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all Uberal and manly 

 morals. We have not yet been drawn and trussed in order that we 

 may be filled hke stuffed birds in a museum with chaff and rags, and 

 paltry, blurred shreds of paper about the rights of man. We 

 preserve the whole of our feelings still native and entire, unsophisti- 

 cated by pedantry and infidehty. We have real hearts of flesh and 

 blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God, we look up with honor to 

 Kings, with affection to Parliaments, with duty to magistrates, with 

 reverence to priests. Why? Because whan such ideas are brought 

 before our eyes, it is natural to be affected, because all other feelings 

 are false and spurious and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our 

 primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty, and by teaching 

 us a servile, licentious, and abandoned insolence to be our low sport 

 for a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving 

 of, slavery throughout the whole course of our lives." 



The ring of the true metal sounds through these almost prophetic 

 words, I need hardly name the writer as Edmund Burke. We can 

 have no fear for the result of any contest into which the lust of con- 

 quest or outrages in our national honor may plunge us. " An unjust 

 war is the greatest of iniquities — a just and defensive war the last and 

 greatest appeal to the God of truth." 



And now let these very discursive remarks draw to a close, not in 

 mine own weak words, but in the lofty strains of one of our truest 

 Poets, when he told his countrymen, threatenened with invasion : — 



It is not to be thought of— that the flood 

 Of British freedom, which to the open sea 

 Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 

 Hath flowed with pomp of waters unwithstood— 

 Boused though it be full often to a mood 

 Which spurns the check of salutary hands— 

 That this most famous stream in bogs and sands 

 Should perish— and to evil and to good 

 Be lost for ever. — lu our halls is hung 

 Armoury of the invincible knights of old; 

 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 

 That Shakspeare spake, the faith and morals hold 

 That Milton held. In everything we are sprung 

 From Earth's first blood, have titles manifold ! 



