they are to live; and, having expressed their will-whether it be for slavery or against slavery, is, in my judgment, absolutely immaterial-allow them to come in at a proper time, with a proper population and with reasonable boundaries and a rich dower, as one of the sister states of the republic.

REMARKS

AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EASTERN FEMALE

HIGH SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE.

YOUNG LADIES OF THE GRADUATING CLASS:

WHEN the devotee of the Ganges would seek the favor of her God, at eventide she commits to the current of the river a lighted lamp, and watches with beating heart its course and its fate. If it sinks she returns sorrowing, for her God is not with her; if it floats till lost in the distance and darkness, she returns rejoicing, for her offering is accepted.

You are those lamps which the people of Maryland have committed to the stream of time, their offering to that God who rules its current, to test his favor for this their highest sacrifice before him. If you shall fail, amid the temptations or the trials of life stray from the paths of truth and virtue, their offerings will stand condemned; but if, so long as life shall last, your lights shall shine on your fluctuating voyage, the examples of virtue, the guide of innocence, the illuminators of youth, then will the people of Maryland know that their sacrifice was well pleasing to the God of nations.

Before him they offer this their service in the cause of morals, light, and religion; and by its fruits they shall divine whether it be a true or false way which they have chosen to serve him.

To your conduct is committed this great religious service; at hands will the future demand it.

your

And you, FATHERS, MOTHERS, FRIENDS of these maidens, to whose bosoms the state now restores them, how do you receive them? tarnished or purified? dimmed or brightened? For these are the fruits of our "infidel" free-schools. These are fruits of that smattering education, that surface-culture, that varnish over poor material, whose only tendency is to beget vanity, to engen* Mr. Davis was invited to address the graduating class of young ladies at this Commencement.

der self-conceit, to turn the head with teaching above their station, to unfit them for the duties of the matron, and consign them to the life of the butterfly till they sink soiled into corruption! Then let the system be judged by these its fruits.

This is an American spectacle; the image of the national genius; the handiwork of the utilitarian republic.

Well, let England glory in her Crystal Palace and its industrial splendors. Let France boast the camps of Boulogne and the mir acles of her Cherbourg: we of this republic prefer to polish these diamonds.

They are from our mine. We first discovered that gold lies rather in the plains than on the mountains. We first explored the levels of creation for nature's richest treasures. We first discovered the hidden value of the common mind. We first proclaimed that the impartial hand of the Almighty had sown his precious pearls of reason and affection in every vale as well as on the hills, as he did his dew, it may be in darkness, yet awaiting only the rising sun to reveal each blade of grass, however lowly, flashing with its morning offering of beauty. We first saw that the beauty was all there, and that, though the sun touched the hills first and the vales last, he touched all in his course; and we are now displaying to the world the treasure we have found, some deep in the vales, which otherwise would never have been known.

And what say you for the culture-its breadth, its depth, its purity, its genuineness. Is it likely to promote the cause of knowledge, of patriotism, of domestic virtue, of holy religion in life and works?

If you have followed these exercises with as quick an ear, as appreciating a mind, as lively an interest as I have, you can now answer that question. The tree has shown its blossoms and its fruits-are the former only beautiful, and the latter bitter?

Surely these exercises have revealed a comprehensiveness and a thoroughness of instruction, a degree of attainment, and a modesty of bearing seldom combined. They who have traced before us here this evening, with steady hand, the succession of "historic cities" from buried Nineveh, through ruined Athens and the lone mother of dead empires, to the teeming abodes of our republican glory; or, treading the "starry path to the Temple of Truth,” have reviewed the great results of Herschel or of Franklin; or, alive to the glories of mechanical skill, have pointed out with ac

curacy what has been accomplished by their countrymen's enterprise; or have touched with caustic finger the enervating follies of the day with equal judgment and wit; or embodied in poetic numbers, with accuracy and ease, at once poetic thought and graceful pleasantry-are no smatterers in knowledge; and any lady in the land may well be proud of daughters who can write their native tongue with simplicity and grace characteristic of the compositions we have heard; and if the hand of the master may have purified them from occasional errors, the tone and cadence of the recital, the enunciation and pronunciation are at least their own, and the first were just and spirited, and as to the latter, if there was more than one word mispronounced, my ear was not quick enough to catch it.

Not only were Milton and Byron aptly quoted by some, but the tone and style of sentiment pervading the productions revealed the influence of such companionships.

Nor are knowledge and intellectual culture all, but these, the future matrons of the republic, even now give evidence of fitness for their high mission as prophets of patriotic inspiration to the young men of the land; for who did not hear in those glowing words on the "March of Mind" the tramp of patriotic hosts fired by their enthusiasm in defense of the republic? And when, with kindling eye and earnest voice, she devoted to execration the crav ens who should allow the fabric of our liberties to be torn asunder, did we not see in her all of that matron who bade her son, going forth to battle, return with his shield or upon it?

Nor did the sterner virtues exclude the womanly virtues; for what do we recognize as worthy of the woman in every station, from motherly tenderness and domestic duties up to their source in religious inspiration and trust in God, which was not comprised in that touching portraiture of "The True Woman," which fitly and beautifully closed this farewell to girlhood?

That outpouring of pious feeling expressed in words what the sacred anthems which every voice joined to swell had sent in music to the skies.

They were the infidelity inculcated by our public schools!!

They are infidel, because the clergy are excluded from inculcating sectarian dogmas, just as our republic is anarchy, because kings are not invited to teach us civil obedience!

The objection comes from no republican lips. It reveals a

profound ignorance of the foundations of our republic. They who utter it have yet many a fathom deep to penetrate ere they sound the depth of the American principle of the freedom of thought, the freedom of religion, the right of every citizen to unchecked freedom in forming his religious opinions, and the deep interest of the state in securing him not only freedom, but the means of enlightened judgment, and that greater, deeper, and holier faith in the sufficiency of every enlightened mind to read for himself in the Word of God the will of God, whose practice is religion.

We of America have our own peculiar mode of cultivating religion as well as of guiding the state, and that is freedom.

There are other methods which older nations have tried and still cling to, but we have discarded them; and they who assail our system would bring us back to those. It is well to know what they are.

There is one which assumes the supremacy of the spiritual over the civil power; asserts the right of the Church to define and of the state to enforce the true faith; prohibits free judgment, or punishes its errors as crimes.

This was the law of old Europe; the principle has never been abandoned; the perversity of modern times has greatly limited its enforcement. It is still the law of Italy, Spain, and Turkey.

There is another which professes toleration for all opinions, declares the state the patron of all the sects whose ministers it pays and controls as a part of the machinery of government, and seeks the quiet of the state in the stagnation of opinion and the hereditary descent of creeds.

This is the system of England and Prussia, and, since the Revolution, of France and Belgium. It is the boasted system of toleration.

There is a third system which asserts the right of each man to absolute freedom in belief and worship, which denies to the state and to the Church all power to coerce in matters of religion, which declares absolute freedom of thought the only security for religion.

It is not toleration, for that implies indulgence, a privilege which may be regulated or revoked. It is freedom of the individual in matters of religion.

It denies to the state all power over it except the necessary right to determine the limits of the domain of conscience and the state.