and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you
plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to
spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does
not ask our leave to germinate.

The momentary charge at Balaclava, in obedience to a blundering
command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly
enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and
for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years,
against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher
command, is as much more memorable than that, as an intelligent
and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that
that will go unsung?

"Served him right,"--"A dangerous man,"--"He is undoubtedly insane."
So they proceed to live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable
lives, reading their Plutarch a little, but chiefly pausing at that
feat of Putnam, who was let down into a wolf's den; and in this
wise they nourish themselves for brave and patriotic deeds some
time or other. The Tract Society could afford to print that story
of Putnam. You might open the district schools with the reading of
it, for there is nothing about Slavery or the Church in it; unless
it occurs to the reader that some pastors are wolves in sheep's
clothing. "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions"
even, might dare to protest against that wolf. I have heard of
boards, and of American boards, but it chances that I never heard
of this particular lumber till lately. And yet I hear of Northern
men, and women, and children, by families, buying a "life membership"
in such societies as these. A life-membership in the grave! You
can get buried cheaper than that.