INTELLECTUAL MOTIVE POWER.

Motion is the law of living nature. Inaction is the symbol of death, if it be not death itself. The hugest engines, with strength and capacity sufficient to drive the mightiest ships across the stormy deep, are utterly useless without motive power. Energy is the motive power of intellectual capacity. It is the propelling force; and as in physics, momentum is resolvable into quantity of matter and velocity, so in metaphysics, the extent of human accomplishment may be resolvable in the degree of intellectual endowment and the energy with which it is directed. A small body driven by a great force will produce a result equal to, if not greater than, that of a much larger body moved by a considerably less force. So it is with minds. And hence we often see men of comparatively small capacity, by greater energy alone, leave and justly leave their superiors in natural gifts far behind them in the race for honors, distinction and preferment.

This is perhaps the most striking characteristic of those great minds and intellects which never fail to impress their names, their views, their ideas and their opinions, indelibly upon the history of the times in which they live. Men of this class are those pioneers of thought who sometimes, even in advance of the age, are known and marked in history as originators and discoverers, or those who overturn old orders and systems and build up new ones. To this class belong Columbus, Luther, Cromwell, Watt, Fulton, Franklin and Washington. It was to this same class that General Andrew Jackson belonged. He not only had a clear conception of what he

wanted, but also a will and a purpose and energy in execution. Likewise it is in this same class of men that Henry Clay will be assigned a place. Mr. Clay's achievements, which will render his name as lasting as the history of his country, were the result of nothing so much as that element of character which I have denominated energy. Thrown upon life at an early age, without any means or resources, save his natural powers and abilities, and without the advantages of anything beyond a common school education, he had nothing to rely upon but himself, and nothing upon which to place a hope but his own exertions. But, fired with a high and noble ambition, he resolved, young as he was, and cheerless as was his prospects, to meet and surmount every embarrassment and obstacle by which he was surrounded. His aims and objects were high and worthy. They were not to secure laurels won on the battle-field, but those wreaths which adorn the brow of the wise, the firm, the sagacious and far-seeing statesman. The honor and glory of his life was

"The applause of listening senates to command,

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land

And read his history in a nation's eyes.”

One word in conclusion. It is the reply of Cardinal Richelieu upon a memorable occasion as we have it in the play. At one of the most critical points in the fortunes of the Cardinal, as well as of France, it became a matter of the utmost importance that a particular paper should be obtained by him to be presented to the King. The Cardinal was prime minister. A conspiracy had been formed on the part of some of the nobles, not only

against him, but against the throne itself. These nobles had succeeded, as part of their plan, in alienating the king from his minister. The paper contained the positive evidence of the conspiracy. His own fate and his sovereign's depended upon his getting immediate possession of the paper. He was a man of energy and had never been thwarted or unsuccessful in any enterprise. For years he had ruled France with almost absolute sway. At this juncture, when nothing could save his fortune but the paper in question, Richelieu called to his assistance a young man of spirit and courage and enjoined upon him the arduous and difficult task of securing the packet. But the young man, being only impressed with the importance of his mission and providing in his mind for the various contingencies which might arise, says: "If I fail-" Richelieu, not allowing the sentence to be finished, and stopping the utterance of a possibility of a doubt touching his success, replies:

Fail! Fail!

In the lexicon of youth which Fate reserves

For a bright manhood there's no such word as—fail.

-Alexander H. Stephens.

[Extract from an address delivered before the literary societies of Emory College in 1852.]

TOOMBS.

In the morning, at high noon, and even beyond the meridian of his manhood, he was intellectually the peer of the most gifted, and towered Atlas-like above the common range. His genius was conspicuous. His pow

ers of oratory were over-mastering. His mental operations were quick as lightning, and, like the lightning, they were dazzling in their brilliancy and resistless in their play.

Remarkable were his conversational gifts, and most searching his analyses of character and event. In hospitality he was generous, and in his domestic relations tender and true. The highest flights of fancy, the profoundest depths of pathos, the broadest range of biting sarcasm and withering invective, generalizations of the boldest character, and arguments the most logical, were equally at his command. As a lawyer he was powerful, as an advocate well-nigh resistless. He was a close student, and deeply versed in the laws, statecraft, and political history of this commonwealth and nation. In all his gladiatorial combats, whether at the bar, upon the hustings, or in legislative halls, we recall no instance in which he met his overmatch. Even during his years of decadence there were occasions when the almost extinct volcano glowed again with its wonted. fires-when the ivy-mantled keep of the crumbling castle resumed its pristine defiance with deep-toned culverin and ponderous mace-when, amid the colossal fragments of the tottering temple, men recognized the unsubdued spirit of Samson Agonistes.-Col. Chas. C. Jones, Jr.

[Extract from an address on Robert Toombs delivered in 1886.]

ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS.

And what, my fellow citizens, can I add to the manifest lesson of the hour or say in the immediate presence of the dead? In the attempt, even feebly, to recount the

virtues of this distinguished Georgian, I find myself, in the language of the eloquent Bossuet, when pronouncing his splendid eulogy upon the Prince of Conde, overwhelmed by the greatness of the theme and the needlessness of the task. Is there a hamlet within the wide borders of this land in which his name is not a household word? Beats there a heart in this vast audience that bears not willing testimony to his amiable qualities, sterling worth and conspicuous ability? Everywhere are his noble characteristics, his labors, and his achievements rehearsed. In extolling them we can give no information even to strangers; and, although I may remind you of them, anything I could now say would be anticipated by your thoughts, and I should suffer the reproach of falling far below them.

While it is true that

"The tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony,"

more potent by far are the lessons inculcated by consistent lives and the legacies bequeathed by deathless examples. Some men there are-would to God their name was legion!-whose walk and conversation are sermons, and whose characters are in themselves divine songs. Our Governor, in yielding up his spirit, made no sign, uttered no last injunction, expressed no final wish; but he lived ever mindful of death, and so ordered his affairs that when summoned to enter upon the iter tenebricosum, he went forth unfalteringly, with his lamp trimmed and burning.

It is a brave thing thus to die in harness, and, without pause in the energetic, conscientious performance of the