one of the first victims in this cause--'My sons, scorn to be
slaves!'--but it cries with a still more moving eloquence--'My sons,
forget not your fathers!'"


_John Quincy Adams_

John Quincy Adams, in his speech on "The Life and Character of
Lafayette," gives us a fine example of elevated and serious-minded
utterance. The following extract from this speech can be studied with
profit. Particularly note the use of sustained sentences, and the happy
collocation of words. The concluding paragraph should be closely
examined as a study in impressive climax.

"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not
done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to
stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the
men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all
ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon, from the
creation of the world to this day, the mighty dead of every age and
every clime,--and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one
be found who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take
precedence of Lafayette?

"There have doubtless been in all ages men whose discoveries or
inventions in the world of matter, or of mind, have opened new avenues
to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his
means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer
approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his
hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.