From “On Removing Troops from Boston.”  For aught I know the next flash of electric fire that simmers along the ocean cable may tell us that Paris, with every fiber quivering with the agony of impotent despair, writhes beneath the conquering heel of her loathed invader.  Ere another moon shall wax and wane the brightest star in the galaxy of nations may fall from the zenith of her glory never to rise again.  Ere the modest violets of early spring shall ope their beauteous eyes the genius of civilization may chant the wailing requiem of the proudest nationality the world has ever seen, as she shatters her withered and tear-moistened lilies o’er the bloody tomb of butchered France.  James Proctor Knott.

From Speech on “Duluth.”

* * * * *

Among her noblest children his native city will cherish him, and gratefully recall the unbending Puritan soul that dwelt in a form so gracious and urbane.  The plain house in which he lived—­severely plain, because the welfare of the suffering and the slave were preferred to books and pictures and every fair device of art; the house to which the north star led the trembling fugitive, and which the unfortunate and friendless knew; the radiant figure passing swiftly through the streets, plain as the house from which it came, regal with royalty beyond that of kings; the ceaseless charity untold; the strong sustaining heart of private friendship; the eloquence which, like the song of Orpheus, will fade from living memory into a doubtful tale; that great scene of his youth in Faneuil Hall; the surrender of ambition; the mighty agitation and the mighty triumph with which his name is forever blended; the consecration of a life hidden with God in sympathy with man—­these, all these, will live among your immortal traditions, heroic even in your heroic story.  But not yours alone!  As years go by, and only the large outlines of lofty American characters and careers remain, the wide republic will confess the benediction of a life like this, and gladly own that if with perfect faith and hope assured America would still stand and “bid the distant generations hail,” the inspiration of her national life must be the sublime moral courage, the all-embracing humanity, the spotless integrity, the absolutely unselfish, devotion of great powers to great public ends, which were the glory of Wendell Phillips.  George William Curtis.

From “Eulogy of Wendell Phillips.”

* * * * *

No, it is something else than circumstances which makes us do God’s will, just as it is something else than miracle which makes us believe His word.  Miracle and circumstances do their part.  They assist the heart; they make the task of the will easier; they do not compel obedience.  He who has made us free respects our freedom even when we use it against Himself—­even when we resist His own must gracious and gentle pressure and choose to disbelieve