7.  But whatever may be our fate, be assured—­be assured that this Declaration will stand.  It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both.  Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven.  We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day.  When we are in our graves, our children will honor it.  They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations.  On its annual return they will shed tears,—­copious, gushing tears; not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy.

8.  Sir, before God I believe the hour is come.  My judgment approves the measure, and my whole heart is in it.  All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration.  It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall by my dying sentiment; independence now, and independence forever.

Definitions.—­1.  Rec-on-cil-i-a’tion, renewal of friendship.  Col’league (pro. kol’leg), an associate in some civil office.  Pro-scribed’, doomed to destruction, put out of the protection of the law.  Pre-des’tined, decreed beforehand.  Clem’en-cy, mercy, indulgence.

Notes.—­Mr. Webster, in a speech upon the life and character of John Adams, imagines some one opposed to the Declaration of Independence to have stated his fears and objections before Congress while deliberating on that subject.  He then supposes Mr. Adams to have replied in the language above.

1.  The quotation is from “Hamlet,” Act V, Scene 2.

You, sir, who sit in that chair.  This was addressed to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress.  Our venerable colleague refers to Samuel Adams.  After the battles of Concord and Lexington, Governor Gage offered pardon to all the rebels who would lay down their arms, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

LXV.  THE RISING.

Thomas Buchanan Read (b. 1822, d. 1872) was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  In 1839 he entered a sculptor’s studio in Cincinnati, where he gained reputation as a portrait painter.  He afterwards went to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and, in 1850, to Italy.  He divided his time between Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Rome, in the latter years of his life.  Some or his poems are marked by vigor and strength, while others are distinguished by smoothness and delicacy.  The following selection is abridged from “The Wagoner of the Alleghanies.”

1.  Out of the North the wild news came,
   Far flashing on its wings of flame,
   Swift as the boreal light which flies
   At midnight through the startled skies.