This is the cause which has been so fervently commended to us from the dying lips of a Douglas, and by the matchless living voices of a Holt and an Everett.

This is the cause in which the heroic Anderson, lifting his banner upon the wings of prayer, and looking to the guidance and guardianship of the God in whom he trusted, went through that fiery furnace unharmed, and came forth, not indeed without the smell of fire and smoke upon his garments, but with an undimmed and undying lustre of piety and patriotism on his brow.

This is the cause in which the lamented Lyon bequeathed all that he had of earthly treasure to his country, and then laid down a life in her defence, whose value no millions could

measure.

This is the cause in which the veteran chief of our armies, crowned with the laurels which Washington alone had worn before him, and renouncing all inferior allegiance at the loss of fortune and of friends, has tasked, and is still tasking to the utmost, the energies of a soul whose patriotism no age could chill.

This is the cause to which the young and noble McClellan, under whose lead it is your privilege to serve, has brought that matchless combination of sagacity and science, of endurance, modesty, caution, and courage, which have made him the Hope of the hour, the bright particular Star of our immediate destiny. And this, finally, is the cause which has obliterated, as no other cause could have done, all divisions and distinctions of party, nationality, and creed; which has appealed alike to Republican, Democrat, and Union Whig, to native citizen and to adopted citizen; and in which not the sons of Massachusetts or of New England or of the North alone, not the dwellers on the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna only, but so many of those, also, on the Potomac and the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri, on all the lakes, and in all the vast Mesopotamia of the mighty West, yes, and strangers from beyond the seas, Irish and Scotch, German, Italian, and French, the common emigrant and those who have stood nearest to a throne, brave and devoted men from almost every nation under heaven, men who have measured the value of our country to the world by a nobler stand

ard than the cotton crop, and who realize that other and more momentous destinies are at stake upon our struggle than such as can be wrought upon any mere material looms and shuttles, allall are seen rallying beneath a common flag, and exclaiming with one heart and voice, "The American Union, it must be, and shall be, preserved."

And we owe it, sir, to the memory of our fathers, we owe it to the hopes of our children, we owe it to the cause of free institutions and of good government of every sort throughout the world, to make the effort, cost what it may of treasure or of blood, and, with God's help, to accomplish the result.

Nay, we owe it to our misguided and deluded brethren of the South, for I will not forget that they are our brothers still, and I will call them by no harsher name, we owe it even to them, to arrest them, if it be possible, in their suicidal career; to save them from their worst enemy, themselves; and to hold them back from that vortex of anarchy and chaos which is yawning at their feet, and into which, in their desperate efforts to drag us down, they are only certain of plunging themselves and engulfing all that is dear to them.

Would to Heaven, this day, that there were any other mode of accomplishing, or even attempting, this end, but the stern appeal to battle! But from the hour of that ungodly and unmanly assault upon the little garrison at Sumter they have left us no alternative. They have laid upon us a necessity to defend our country, — and woe, woe unto us if we fail to meet that necessity as men and as patriots!

I congratulate you, Colonel Wilson, with all my heart, on the success of your own efforts in this great work of National defence. Returning from the discharge of your laborious and responsible duties as Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs in the Senate of the United States, you have thrown out a recruiting signal for a regiment; and lo! two regiments have responded to your call; yes, and with Sharpshooters and Light Artillery enough in addition to make up the measure of no ordinary brigade. And though one of your regiments is not yet quite ready for the field, it will follow you in a few days, and you will march to the capital as the virtual leader of them all.

Sir, I must detain you no longer. I have said enough, and more than enough, to manifest the spirit in which this flag is now committed to your charge. It is the National ensign, pure and simple; dearer to all our hearts at this moment, as we lift it to the gale, and see no other sign of hope upon the storm-cloud which rolls and rattles above it, save that which is reflected from its own radiant hues; dearer, a thousand-fold dearer to us all, than ever it was before, while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It will speak for itself, far more eloquently than I can speak for it.

Behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe is articulate. There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and every perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency.

Behold it! Listen to it! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of victories, and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and among the dead; and of him, the first and greatest of them all, around whose consecrated ashes this unnatural and abhorrent strife has so long been raging, "the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not." But before all and above all other associations and memories, whether of glorious men, or glorious deeds, or glorious places, its voice is ever of Union and liberty, of the Constitution and the laws.

Behold it! Listen to it! Let it tell the story of its birth to these gallant volunteers as they march beneath its folds by day, or repose beneath its sentinel stars by night. Let it recall to them the strange, eventful history of its rise and progress; let it rehearse to them the wondrous tale of its trials and its triumphs, in peace as well as in war; and, whatever else may happen to it or to them, it will never be surrendered to rebels; never be igno miniously struck to treason; nor ever be prostituted to any unworthy and unchristian purpose of revenge, depredation, or rapine.

And may a merciful God cover the head of each one of its brave de enders in the hour of battle!

TRIBUTE TO HON. WILLIAM APPLETON.

REMARKS MADE AT A MEETING OF CITIZENS AT THE MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE, BOSTON, FEBRUARY 18, 1862.

In the absence of Mr Everett, who, to his own regret not less than to the regret of us all, is prevented by severe indisposition from being with us this morning, I am here, my friends, at short notice, and with less preparation than I could have desired for such a service, to second the resolutions which have just been read, and to pay my humble tribute to the memory of the excellent man whose loss will be so deeply felt in this community.

I shall attempt no elaborate eulogy. He does not need it. He would not have desired it. He was not a man of many words himself; and, in view of what has already been so well said by others, I may be pardoned for summing up his character, his services, and his claims upon our respect and gratitude, with something of the same directness and brevity which would have characterized any similar tribute of his own.

Our lamented friend was a person of many marked peculiarities, both physical and mental. No one, I think, could have observed his slender form and sunken cheek, at any time within a half-century past, without wondering how he had escaped an early doom, or certainly without supposing that he must always have been destined to lead the life of an invalid. He has told me himself, that more than forty years ago, he embarked from one of yonder wharves on a voyage to the Mediterranean, without an expectation on the part of his friends that he could live to return. home. But within that seemingly feeble frame there was an indomitable will; there was a cheerful and courageous spirit, and a mind of extraordinary activity.

Descended from an ancient and honorable stock, whose memorials are abundant in Old England and in New England, - the son of a worthy Massachusetts clergyman, he enjoyed, in his boyhood, the unspeakable advantages of a good school education and of a religious home. But his tastes were not for literary pursuits, and he never entered on a collegiate course. Nature had plainly endowed him with qualities peculiarly adapted to a practical, business life, and he was not slow in finding it out. He was a man of quick and keen perception; reaching results by a sort of intuition or instinct, which others would have attained by long processes of thought and study. He was a man of prompt and firm decision; relying upon his own impressions, obedient to his own convictions, not troubled with many doubts on any subject, and rarely leaning upon the counsels of others. He was a man of marvellous despatch and energy in the execution of his plans and purposes; impatient of delay in accomplishing whatever his judgment had once approved as right and best under the circumstances before him. Whatever his hands found to do, he literally "did it with all his might."

Entering early upon mercantile pursuits with these natural adaptations, and refusing to yield to a condition of physical infirmity which would have forced so many others into retirement before they had reached their maturity, he persevered in his chosen calling, with unabated activity, until within a short period of his death at the advanced age of seventy-five years. From first to last, the most signal success attended him in almost all his business transactions. He amassed a great fortune, and he was by no means indifferent to its increase. He never disguised the satisfaction with which he saw it grow and roll up under his careful and skilful management.

But happily for him, and happily for the community in which he lived, his acknowledged love of wealth, and his unsurpassed sagacity in acquiring it, not only never obtained the mastery over his higher and nobler attributes, but served rather to secure a wider scope for their development and exercise. He ever cherished and cultivated, not out of any mere philanthropic or sentimental impulse, and still less out of any unworthy ostentation, but as a matter of Christian principle and conscientious