consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Life.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

Born of love and hope, of ecstasy and pain, of agony and fear, of tears and joy-dowered with the wealth of two united hearts-held in happy arms, with lips upon life's drifted front, blue-veined and fair, where perfect peace finds perfect form-rocked by willing feet and wooed to shadowy shores of sleep by siren mother singing soft and low-looking with wonder's wide and startled eyes at common things of life and day-taught by want and wish and contact with the things that touch the dimpled flesh of babes-lured by light and flame and charmed by color's wondrous robes, learning the use of hands and feet and by the love of mimicry beguiled to utter speech-releasing prisoned thoughts from crabbed and curious marks on soiled and tattered leaves-puzzling the brain with crooked numbers and their changing, tangled worth and so through years of alternating day and night, until the captive grows familiar with the chains and walls and limitations of a life.

And time runs on in sun and shade, until the one of all this world is wooed and won, and all the lore of love is taught and learned again. Again a home is built, with the fair chamber where faint dreams, like cool and shadowy vales, divide the billowed hours of love. Again the miracle of birth -the pain and joy, the kiss of welcome and the cradle song, drowning the drowsy prattle of a babe.

And then sense of obligation and of wrong-pity for those who toil and weep-tears for the imprisoned and despised— love for the generous dead, and in the heart the rapture of a high resolve.

And then ambition, with its lust of pelf and place and power, longing to put upon its breast distinction's worthless badge. Then keener thoughts of men and eyes that see behind the smiling mask of craft-flattered no more by the obstreperous cringe of gain and greed-knowing the uselessness of hoarded gold and honor bought from those who charge the usury of self-respect-of power that only bends a coward's knees and forces from the lips of fear the lies of praise. Knowing at last the unstudied gesture of esteem, the reverend eyes made rich with honest thoughts and holding high above all other things-high as hope's great throbbing star about the darkness of the dead-the love of wife and Ichild and friend.

Then locks of gray and growing love of other days and half-remembered things-then holding withered hands of those who first held his, while over dim and loving eyes death softly presses down the lids of rest.

And so, locking in marriage vows his children's hands, and crossing others on the breasts of peace, with daughters' babes upon his knees, the white hair mingling with the gold, he journeys on from day to day to the horizon where the dusk is waiting for that night-sitting by the holy hearth of home, as the last embers change from red to gray, he falls asleep

within the arms of her he worshiped and adored, feeling upon his pallid lips love's last and holiest kiss.

PAUSE AND THOUGHT EMPHASIS.

[Frequently there is desired for a thought an importance more than the normal pause gives to it. This increase of emphasis can be obtained by an increase of pause. By this pause the speaker in spirit says: "Let this sink into your minds.'' In the following an increase of pause deepens the impression of absurdity: "It is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but easy in his leg; it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in his head."""]

Bacon's Philosophy.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

It seems to have been taken for granted that if Shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas, Lord Bacon must have been. It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest philosopher of his time. And yet in reading his works we find that there was in his mind a strange mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes pains to tell us, and to write it down for the benefit of posterity that "snow is colder than water, because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver is the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of spirit."

He stated that he hardly believed that you could contract air by putting opium on top of the weather-glass, and gave the following reason: "I conceive that opium and the like make spirits fly rather by malignity than by cold." The great philosopher gave the following recipe for staunching blood: "Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a capon, new ripped and bleeding. This will staunch the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking and drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it meeteth with, and so itself going back." The philosopher also records this important fact: "Divers

witches among heathen and Christians have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth, their imagination with high and foul vapors."

Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he was a biologist, as appears from the following: "As for living creatures, it is certain that their vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy and flamy matter, and although air and flame being free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that hath some fixing, will." Now and then the inventor of induction reasons by analogy. He says: "As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated by nitre or salt, will turn water into ice, so it may be it will turn wood or stiff clay into stone.” Bacon seems to have been a believer in the transmutation of metals, and solemnly gives a formula for turning silver or copper into gold. He also believed in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived at such a height in entomology that he informed the world that "insects have no blood."

It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as evidence of this he recorded the wonderful fact that "tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses weight"; that "bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though they eat nothing"; that "tortoises have no bones"; that "there is a kind of stone, if ground and put in the water where cattle drink, the cows will give more milk”; that “it is hard to cure a hurt in a Frenchman's head, but easy in his leg; that it is hard to cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in his head"; that "wounds made with brass weapons are easier to cure than those made with iron”; that "lead will multiply and increase, as in statues buried in the ground"; and that "the rainbow touching anything causeth a sweet smell."

PAUSE AND SILENT REPLY.

[While not wishing that the reply be oral, a speaker frequently asks his audience a question which he expects them to think over and silently answer. Where this is desired there must be increase

of the normal pause.

Ex. (Sydney Smith): "Has your system of exclusion made Ireland rich? Has it made Ireland loyal? Has it made Ireland free?'']

Secession.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

SECESSION! Peaceable Secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish-I beg everybody's pardon-as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these states, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without producing the crush of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live here-covering this whole country-is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun-disappear almost unobserved, and die off? No, sir! no, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the states; but, sir, I see it as plainly as I see the sun in heaven—I see that disruption must produce such a war as I will not describe in its twofold characters.

Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary separation with alimony on the one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is