deavor to cherish in you those principles, without which, even in the humblest sphere, we cannot hope to see you useful or happy. You see then, on what my best anticipations as to the spirit of sacred eloquence here are suspended. Could I determine how far the spirit of genuine devotion prevails in your hearts; could I see how far personal ambition is supplanted by the love of Christ and of one another; could I inspect each closet, and take the temperature of each man's piety from day to day ;then I should be satisfied what progress to look for in that eloquence, which God will approve, and employ for the advancement of his own cause. O could our fathers, Norris, Abbot, and Spring attend your rhetorical exercises, and among the catalogue of your names, could they fix on one who aims to become an eloquent preacher, while he neglects to commune with his own heart, and with his God, in secret, with what eyes think you, would they look on such a son of their Seminary! How especially could his motives bear the inspection of that eye, which as a flame of fire searches every heart!

OBSTACLES TO THE CULTIVATION OF ELOQUENCE.-CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY FAVORABLE TO IT.

Among the general principles which I propose to discuss, it is proper to consider some things which have been supposed to be, and others which really are, unfavorable to the cultivation of eloquence.

The first of these is climate.

There is a very common opinion that the atmosphere of northern latitudes, must be unfavorable to that earnestness which is the soul of oratory. The correctness of this opinion, as it has an important bearing on this subject, in respect to a large part of our own country, ought not to be admitted without examination. It were idle to deny that there is any connexion, between climate and intellectual temperament. We do not look for great mental efforts of any sort, amid the intense frosts of a polar sky, or the suffocating blaze of a vertical sun. But that climate which is favorable to vigor of body and mind; which is adapted to promote long life; and to produce a high tone of intellectual and moral excitement, cannot be unfavorable to eloquence. The same causes that produce great poets, and admirals, and generals; the same causes in short, that produce great men, by expanding and elevating the mind to high effort, must be adapted to produce great orators. If we reckon climate among these causes, as certainly we must, then the above opinion, so far at least, as our own climate is concerned, is certainly groundless. It would be injustice to our country, to say

that her sons are wanting in energy. Look at the daring enterprise on the ocean and the land, which qualifies them to attempt the most difficult achievements. In an age presenting all the objects to which the action of mind can be applied, and demanding all the vigor and versatility of which it is susceptible, see them become distinguished artisans, merchants, statesmen; and then ask if such men are not capable of all the spirit, all the enthusiasm which eloquence demands. Whatever deficiency exists then on this subject, it must be ascribed not to our climate, but to other causes.

What, moreover, is the testimony of facts? That city which guided the destinies of the ancient world, and, with her four millions of inhabitants, was herself guided by the eloquence of one man, has had no such man among all her generations of modern ages. The glory of eternal Rome, amid the mouldering monuments of her magnificence is her name, and the memory of what she was. Yet she stands in the same latitude as when she was mistress of the world; and this latitude is the same with a trifling difference, with that of the present capital of New England. The eloquence of Pericles and Phocion seems still to echo in our ears, like the sound of thunder dying away in the distant horizon. Yet the descendants of these men occupying the same ground, and breathing the same air, are literally servants of barbarians.* Such facts are not to be explained by any unfavorable change in the climate of these countries; on the contrary the climate is unquestionably warmer now than formerly, and consequently, if the opinion we are examining is correct, is more favorable to the highest efforts of eloquence. The winter at Rome, for centuries after it was built, had often great severity. The freezing of the Tiber is mentioned by Juvenal as a common event. He characterizes a superstitious woman, as breaking the ice of that river that she might perform her ablutions. Many passages of Horace suppose the streets of Rome to be full of ice and snow."

* Written before the recent Greek revolution.

Rivers which are never frozen in modern times, were crossed by the Roman armies on solid bridges of ice. At present, it would be as strange for the Tyber to be frozen as the Nile." Why does not modern Rome produce orators? The answer is to be found, not in the influence of climate, but in a combination of causes, resulting in a state of society, that has stifled the noblest powers of the mind, and made dwarfs of those whose forefathers were giants. And why, I ask again, if the fire of genius is to be graduated according to parallels of latitude, why have not India and Africa produced orators of the first distinction? Has the inspiration of eloquence in those countries, been checked by the influence of a frosty atmosphere? Talent of every kind, as hitherto exhibited in the affairs of our globe, has been chiefly confined to countries within its northern temperate zone; because such have been the arrangements of Providence, that here have existed the most powerful causes to produce vigor of intellect, and ardor of emotion. And certainly it is reasonable to suppose that, for a century to come, these causes will not be found to operate in any other country more strongly than in our

own.

It seemed proper to bestow so much attention on this topic as to place it in its just light; because if orators, like tropical fruits, can be produced only in warm climates, it is in vain to look for them in northern latitudes. However common this opinion may have been, it deserves to be contradicted; because it is at variance with philosophy and fact; and because it tends to discourage manly effort, where such effort promises most of all to be successful.

Should it be still demanded, are not the most vigorous powers of imagination unquestionably found in hot climates rather than cold?'-I answer, they are found, not in the extremes of either. Let facts decide. The father of poetry' flourished in about the same latitude, that divides the territory of the United States midway from north to south. The second great poet that the world has produced, lived in nearly the same latitude with ourselves; and the third, considerably farther

north. If the comparison were extended to distinguished poets of a lower rank, it would probably appear that scarcely one tenth of these, have lived in countries as far south as the native region of Homer. Without farther remark then, we may dismiss the objection arising from our climate, as destitute of solid foundation.

But a second obstacle to the cultivation of eloquence, and one to which we must attach very serious importance, arises from the character of modern literature.

I have had occasion to revert often to one grand principle, namely, that eloquence will be most cultivated where it has most influence. Accordingly we find that among ancient nations, with whom not common business merely, but the concerns of states, of philosophy, of religion, all depended on oral address, the gift of speaking was studied with great assiduity. Knowledge was chiefly acquired by the ear. But for several centuries past, the eye has been the main organ of instruction, and the influence which one mind exerts over others, has been principally through the medium of the pen and the press, that is, in respect to objects of chief interest with the great public. Among the ancients, common people had no access to books. The philosopher, the statesman, the general, could not sit down coolly in the closet, and commit to the press and to the post his reasonings or his remonstrances, to be read by thousands at their leisure. A public assembly must be convened, to hear the orator's arguments from his own lips; and that with all the increase of excitement, which results from the social sympathies of such an assembly. In this way even written history, was made public; as we are assured that of Herodotus was recited at the Olympic games. These causes operated powerfully to produce orators. When it was given out that Demosthenes was to speak, a vast concourse flocked together, from the extremities of Greece. Suppose now, that the art of printing had existed there; and that every man in Greece might have had opportunity to read that oration, at home; you see the impulse that summoned the population of a country together,