The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1863-11-20
AN ELOQUENT SPEECH.

/
ing eloquent description of the scenes attending
the wrestling of Magma Charta from King John
the Abraham Lincoln Of his time:
The traveller who visits that island meadow
in the river Thames, near Windsor, now used as
race-course, and still known as Runnymede,
does not go there to see the horses run, but be-
cause that meadow marks an era in the progress
of human freedom. There, six hundred and
forty-four years ago, on the morning of the 18th
of August, the iron-clad barons met King John
and wrested from him the same rights which
have been violated by Abraham Lincoln, and
ostracised by the indemnity bill of the last Con-
gress. (Cheers.) These rights were written IN
I Latin of that day. s'Nulus liber homo capi-
tar'' it began. Dead language, but vital with
liberty-which Chatham said was with all the
classics. tft... ...a II
''No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned
or deprived of his own free household, or of his
liberties, or of his own free custom, or outlaw
ed, or banished, or injured in any manner, nor
will we pass sentence upon him, unless by the
legal Judgment of his peers or by the law OF the
land" (Cheers.)
7 This was the germ of civil freedom, which
tile pigmies of to-day are endoavoring to uproot
now that it has grown from the acorn to the
oak As another Judge Thomas, OF Massa'
chusetts) has so finely expressed it, ''from the
gray of that morning streamed the rays, which
uplifting with the hours coursing with the
years, and keeping pace with the centuries have
encirced the whole earth with the glorious hight
of English iberty-the liberty for which our
fathers planted these commonwealth IN the
wilderness for which they went through the
baptism of blood and fire in the, Revolution
which they imbedded and hoped to make i'm immor-
| tai in the Constitution without which the
Constitution would not be worth the parchment
on which it is written" (Cheers.) AS if to
make this great charter sacred for ever IN the
Anglo-Saxon memory; to connect it with the
hottest emotions of religion, and TO sanction IL
| by the hopes and the terrors OF the unseen
world, the Catholic Hierarchy of that day
! long before Protestanism arose-before the lie
| formation--before we had the transcendental
| flight of our Puritan preachers -(laughter)-
this Catholic Hierarchy, then the fifend OF the
oppressed and the people were convoked. iTA
few days after the unwilling King signed the
charter. | would like to make picture In
yopr eve of that GREAT convocation;. They met
| in Westminster Abbey, the mausoleumt oI the
dead royalty and genius of Britain. Here was
the King upon his throne, sceptered and crown
ed. impurpled in his robes of office; near him
were the lords temporal in their scarlet gowns !;
ON his right were the gentlemen OF England
representing the COmmons-the people OF the
realm, and within the altar were the Lords a.
nointed, clad in all the pomp of their pontiiical
apparel In the midst stood Stephen Langden,
the Prmate of England, Archbishop OF Can
terbury. The great organ rolls its music AMIDST
the Gothic arches the air, sutfused with a dim
religious light from the stained windows
tremb,s with the thrilling symphony divine, y
and the choir sing re DcMn Madamus-prase
to God for the great charter Of human freedom!
Censors swing and the incense rises, an offering
to the God of Justice And in that impressive
presence the Archbishop arises, and, gathering
upon his brow and in his voice the terrors OF the
invisible and eternal world, he sequesters and ex-
cludes, and from the body of our Lord Jesus
Christ, from the company of the Saintsin Heav-
en- and the good on earth, he forever excom-
municates and accurses every one who should
dare violate that great charter of Anglo-Saxon
freedoml (Cheers.) Think you, men. OF New
York. these curses are not living yet? "A. Mas
: sachusetts senator has said that your honored
Governor is now being dragged at the chariot
of a Federal executive, usurping the right OF
the people and violating the great charter, as
etern:ze,I in our traditions, our history, and our
Constitution. But the people OF this country
are meeting as of old-not in any Gothic min
ster, not in the presence of the great hierarchs,
nor with ceremony of Church and State, not to
the music of organ and choir or the rising IN
: cense Of praise, nor amidst the illumination oi
Primates; but under the great sky of heaven,
| from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and they
! too are sequcstering and excluding, excommunl'
:. eating and accursing--and from the body OF the
| | Just God in Heaven, and from the company oi
the good and patriotic everywhere Abraham
Lincoln Immense cheeringl- land the minions
of his power who have dared in this age and
land to violate these sacred rights of personal
and constitutional liberty. Great cheers)
Tie Nine Months Holuateers.--The Secretary
of War has decided against the claims of nine
months volunteers to national ,bouniies; but
the heirs of nine months man who dies or is
killed in the service are entitled to the United
States bounty Of 500, besides the pay due tc
, the soldier at the date Of his decease. The
widows and mothers of nine months soldiers
are also entitled to pensions under act of Con.
gress. approved July IA, 1862 oral4 sin
es-'I wish I had your head,' said a lady
one day to a gentleman who had solved for hel
} knotty point ''And I wish had your heart,
was his reply -eWell," said she, ''since your
, I head and my heart can agree, l don't see why