From “Speech on Sir Robert Walpole.”

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But let us hope for better things.  Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand.  Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation.  Let us trust to the influence of Washington’s example.  Let us hope that that fear of heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career.  Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced.  A hundred years hence other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it.  When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits to his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!  Daniel Webster.

From “The Character of Washington.”

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I am now talking of the invisible realities of another world, of inward religion, of the work of God upon a poor sinner’s heart.  I am now talking of a matter of great importance, my dear hearers; you are all concerned in it, your souls are concerned in it, your eternal salvation is concerned in it.  You may be all at peace, but perhaps the devil has lulled you asleep into a carnal lethargy and security, and will endeavor to keep you there till he get you to hell, and there you will be awakened; but it will be dreadful to be awakened and find yourselves so fearfully mistaken, when the great gulf is fixt, when you will be calling to all eternity for a drop of water to cool your tongue and shall not obtain it.  George Whitefield.

From “On the Method of Grace.”

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Why, sir, have I been so careful in bringing down with great particularity these distinctions?  Because in my judgment there are certain logical consequences following from them as necessarily as various corollaries from a problem in Euclid.  If we are at war, as I think, with a foreign country, to all intents and purposes, how can a man here stand up and say that he is on the side of that foreign country and not be an enemy to his country?  Benjamin Franklin Butler.

From “Character and Results of War.”

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