The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1853-03-10
EBENSBURG, THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1853

In silent Hall, into the desolate seclusion of
which busy or inqnistive foot intrudes and
where the dust falling from the cornices might
steal a languid sound from the marble slab be-
meath, so deep the repose that dwells there, by
night and day-in this silent Hall, stands the
statue of HENRY GRATTAN-erected, as the in
scription in a foreign tongue with plaintive
modesty relates, ''by country not migrate
full"
Thus has passed away all that was perishable
of that day. Yes all that pershable--all
that had not been STEPPED in the living waters,
and with their virtue been made vital and invul-
nerable. Not the lessons which made that
day, more than the pageantry that illuminated
it, the briehteet in our annals
These remain-glewing with the spirit from
which they emanated, and clad with vesture
of beauty, which neither the moth nor the mil
dew. nor the worm shall deface. Elected by
singular event-addressed to certain descrip-
ton of men-the special element, moved by
which the Island, shackled as it was. swelled be-
yond the measure of her chains from her
bed in the ocean, and got nearer TO the Sun
they have an influence an adaptation, glory
serviceable and common to all generations, CON-
munities and epochs.
Those lessons of propriety, citizenship. cour-
age, and pure ambition. which quckened the
sense of wrong but did not intiame it with an
impure vengeance-which ennobed it into the
perception of great duty. and sanctified 1t with
q moral excellence, whilst they fed it with a
military ardor--those lessons which taught the
countrymen of Swift and Berkeley, of Plunket,
the Geraldines and Sarsfeld, that their country
should no longer he wretched colony, return
ing thanks to her Governor for his rapine. and
to her King for his oppressiOn--nor yet a squab-
bling secretary, perplexing her little wits and
firing her furious statutes with bigotry, sophis-
try, disabilities and death, to transmit to poster
ity insignihcance and war-but that she should
be an Industrious. liberal, and courageous ma
ton, exempt from the caprice or charity of any
other power on earth. nursing growing people,
moulding and multiplying opulent estate,
afraid not to look antiquity in the face, and copy
and excel the best features of the ancient COM
monweath, until she lift mankind nothing to
question. but everything to adnire-those les
sons of liberation, which in age of intolera-
ton. he addressed to the bigOts who, to use his
own terrible description, would make a monop
oily of God and exclusive principle of Omnip-
otence--tloud applause reminding them, and
all who would come after them, inheriting their
stupidity or their yiciousness, that it is the er-
ror of sects to value themselves more upon their
differences than upon their religion. andin those
differences to forget the essential principles of
the Gospel. whist they vanly Imagine they
have found the mystery of savaton-remnding
them and u.s. and all men, that what delayed
the happiness delayed the civlization-dlelayed
the freedom of Ireland. was the inculcatiOn of
doctrines the reverse of these-the perpetuation
of religious discord than which not all the other
causes of human misery-not ali the travel ma
chnery of the globe--not all the instruments of
civil rage and domestic murder-could roduce
SO foul a demon: for it privileged ever other
vice, and gave birth TO infdelity. Theselessons
vital with these immortal truths. yet remain to
us from out the wreck of that day: and in these
lessons. though he sleeps in the Abbey of West
minister HENRY GRATTAN, still lives!
The applause mt the conclusion was continued
loud and long and il some time before the
large hall was cleared.