Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/320

 296 SKETCHES OF THE

red of a character so extraordinary as to deserve par- ticular notice. The question of adoption or rejection was now approaching. The decision was still uncer- tain, and every mind and every heart was filled with anxiety. Mr. Henry partook most deeply of this feel- ing; and while engaged, as it were, in his last effort, availed himself of the strong sensation which he knew to pervade the house, and made an appeal to it which, in point of sublimity, has never been surpassed in any age or country of the world. After describing, in accents which spoke to the soul, and to which every other bosom deeply responded, the awful immensity of the question to the present and future generations, and the throbbing apprehensions with which he looked to the issue, he passed from the house and from the earth, and looking, as he said, " beyond that horizon which binds mortal eyes,^^ he pointed — with a counte- nance and action that made the blood run back upon the aching heart — to those celestial beings, who were hovering over the scene, and waiting with anxiety, for a decision which involved the happiness or misery of more than half the human race. To those beings — with the same thriUing look and action — he 'had just addressed an invocation, that made every nerve shudder with supernatural horror — when lo! a storm, at that instant arose, which shook the whole building, and the spirits whom he had called, seemed to have come at his bidding. Nor did his eloquence, or the storm, immediately cease — but, availing himself of the incident, with a mas- ter's art, he seemed to mix in the fight of his agtherial auxiliaries, and " rising on the wings of the tempest, to seize upon the artillery of Heaven, and direct its fiercest thunders against the heads of his adversaries. '^ The scene became insupportable; and the house rose, with-

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