The pale citizen, with some pain and shame, for he was no practised spokesman, was obliged to assent; but when he cast his eyes over the vast and breathless crowd, his own deep sympathy with their cause inspired and emboldened him.

A light broke from his eyes; his voice swelled into power; and his head, usually buried in his breast, became erect and commanding in its air.
"You see before you in the picture" (he began again) "a mighty and tempestuous sea: upon its waves you behold five ships; four of them are already wrecks,--their masts are broken, the waves are dashing through the rent planks, they are past all aid and hope: on each of these ships lies the corpse of a woman.

See you not, in the wan face and livid limbs, how faithfully the limner hath painted the hues and loathsomeness of death?
Below each of these ships is a word that applies the metaphor to truth.

Yonder, you see the name of Carthage; the other three are Troy, Jerusalem, and Babylon.

To these four is one common inscription.
'To exhaustion were we brought by injustice!' Turn now your eyes to the middle of the sea,--there you behold the fifth ship, tossed amidst the waves, her mast broken, her rudder gone, her sails shivered, but not yet a wreck like the rest, though she soon may be.