Volume 1 — THE SCHOLAR, THE JURIST, THE ARTIST, THE PHILANTHROPIST.

An Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, at their Anniversary, August 27, 1846.

Then I would say to the young disciple of Truth and Beauty, who would know how to satisfy the noble impulse of his heart, through every opposition of the century,—I would say, Give the world beneath your influence a direction towards the good, and the tranquil rhythm of time will bring its development.—Schiller.

In this Oration, as in that of the 4th of July, Mr. Sumner took advantage of the occasion to express himself freely, especially on the two great questions of Slavery and War. In the sensitive condition of public sentiment at that time, such an effort would have found small indulgence, if he had not placed himself behind four such names. While commemorating the dead, he was able to uphold living truth.

The acceptance of this Oration at the time is attested by the toast of John Quincy Adams at the dinner of the Society:—

"The memory of the Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist; and not the memory, but the long life of the kindred spirit who has this day embalmed them all."

This was followed by a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Sumner, dated at Quincy, August 29, 1846, containing the following passage:—

"It is a gratification to me to have the opportunity to repeat the thanks which I so cordially gave you at the close of your oration of last Thursday, and of which the sentiment offered by me at the dinner-table was but an additional pulsation from the same heart. I trust I may now congratulate you on the felicity, first of your selection of your subject, and secondly of its consummation in the delivery.... The pleasure with which I listened to your discourse was inspired far less by the success and all but universal acceptance and applause of the present moment than by the vista of the future which is opened to my view. Casting my eyes backward no farther than the 4th of July of last year, when you set all the vipers of Alecto a-hissing by proclaiming the Christian law of universal peace and love, and then casting them forward, perhaps not much farther, but beyond my own allotted time, I see you have a mission to perform. I look from Pisgah to the Promised Land; you must enter upon it.... To the motto on my seal [Alteri sæculo] add Delenda est servitus."

Similar testimony was offered by Edward Everett in a letter dated at Cambridge, September 5, 1846, where he thanks Mr. Sumner for his "most magnificent address,—an effort certainly of unsurpassed felicity and power,"—then in another letter dated at Cambridge, September 25th, where he writes: "I read it last evening with a renewal of the delight with which I heard it. Should you never do anything else, you have done enough for fame; but you are, as far as these public efforts are concerned, at the commencement of a career, destined, I trust, to last for long years, of ever-increasing usefulness and honor."

Mr. Prescott, under date of October 2d, writes:—

"The most happy conception has been carried out admirably, as if it were the most natural order of things, without the least constraint or violence. I don't know which of your sketches I like the best. I am inclined to think the Judge; for there you are on your own heather, and it is the tribute of a favorite pupil to his well-loved master, gushing warm from the heart. Yet they are all managed well; and the vivid touches of character and the richness of the illustration will repay the study, I should imagine, of any one familiar with the particular science you discuss."

Chancellor Kent, of New York, under date of October 6th, expresses himself as follows:—

"I had the pleasure to receive your Phi Beta Kappa Address, and I think it to be one of the most splendid productions in point of diction and eloquence that I have ever read. You brought a most fervent mind to the task, glowing with images of transcendent worth, and embellished with classical and literary allusions drawn from your memory and guided by your taste, with extraordinary force.... You have raised a noble monument to the four great men who have adorned your State, and I feel deeply humbled with a sense of my own miserable inferiority when I contemplate such exalted models."

These contemporary tokens of friendship and sympathy seem a proper part of this record.