32 ORATION. “We thanked you when you gave our brother a commission. We thank you more to-day.” And in all this devotion to the right we see an omen of victory. Even in the prodigality which is the tasteless and accursed fashion of this day there is ground of hope. I wonder that men and women can enjoy the vulgar luxury which is the madness of the hour. I wonder that they can endure it, while their dearest friends are dying in the field, and their best hopes are all endangered. But I see in it proofs of untouched resources, of almost boundless wealth ; and I have faith that, when danger is imminent, all these resources will be consecrated to the service of the country. I find grounds of hope even in the .strange atrocities with which this Rebellion has been stained. I would do justice to the courage of our enemies. Language can hardly do justice to their cruelty. As I read of the captives at Fort Pillow, butchered, burned alive, then buried so hastily that the hands of the dead appeared on the surface of the earth, which refused to hide the crime, I thought of those “ poor hands ” of which Burke spoke so pathetically, — powerless here, but mighty when stretched towards the heavens for justice. We are told that in the Revolution the murder of one woman by the Indian allies of England, mourned and condemned by the British General, had power to arouse States and to array armies on our side. It enabled the heroic Stark to turn back the
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