Excerpt from Oration Written for the Fourth of July, 1865 These words were addressed by the Saviour to Nicodemus, a ruler of the J ews, and declare the means by which the stains of a corrupted human nature may be washed away, and man rendered capable of enjoying that state of blessed ness and peace for which he was created. Nations, like individuals, are conceived in wickedness and born in transgression and sin or if perchance one is founded in justice and planted in Eden, the serpent is sure to gain admittance and seduce it from its allegiance by means of the poison with which the first great copperhead infected the human race. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.