Mr.Sexton was equal to the occasion.

He spoke slowly, and there was a hush in the House to catch his every syllable, for his words were the harbingers of fate.

As he spoke so would be decided one of the most momentous and indeed tragical of human issues.

He spoke, I say, slowly--but at the same time it was evident that he had his mind well fixed on the end which he wished to reach.

Nothing adds so much to the effectiveness of oratory as the sense that the man who is addressing you, is thinking at the very moment he is speaking.