Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/41

WEBSTER youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of nation- al prosperity such as you could never have fore- seen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellow- ship of old soldiers, and to receive the over- flowings of a universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your de- clining years and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so often extended to give suc- cor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your coun- try, and what a praise you have added to free- dom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and grati- tude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind ! 31