new field opened up before him by the Chief Justice. His mind became more enlarged and liberal from contact with the lofty types to which he had been introduced. There was an unspeakable charm in the life of this whole-souled student, pursuing the even tenor of his way. He resolved to strengthen the sunken piers, and erect a massive foundation destined for a bridge over which all races might travel with safety. His studies, like Circe's cup, bewitched him, and "his soul, like a star, dwelt apart." From this his world of thought he banished all the pleasures of idleness, and, possessed with a feeling of inspiration, he seemed to become for the time being one of that illustrious company of martyrs, statesmen, philosophers, patriots, and soldiers, to the study of whose grand teachings and deeds the Chief Justice had kindly recommended him. He spent many hours, days, and months in examining their luminous treatment of civil liberty. In his mind's eye he saw, from day to day, these mighty warriors of American liberty, as they seemed to sweep along through the dim vista of the past. They grew as familiar to him as the images of living men.
He realized the fact that their priceless stores of knowledge and experience had been bequeathed to the world as a precious heirloom; that, as a wise parent in his will divides his property among his children, so our divinely-inspired forefathers had by the Constitution entailed civil liberty not only upon those then in being, but in perpetuity upon countless millions yet unborn; and that their sons, who, inheriting under the Constitution, in their day had enjoyed the royal patrimony of freedom, being charged with the sacred constitutional obligation of preserving and transmitting it to their posterity, had left three codicils, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which, sealed in blood, had been intended to secure to all mankind, as lawful heirs and children of one Father, that noble birthright and heritage. Throughout all his labors the one beautiful countenance, which had so early impressed him when unveiled by the side of the sea, alone attracted the gaze of the ambitious student; and, as he sat in the solitude of study and reflection, he desired and sought only the glorious manifestations of that truth which her noble image portrays.
