ing effort, be remedied. The story was
this. A certain district of country was infested by a wild beast. The
nuisance was intolerable. The inhabitants rallied, and hunted it day and
night, until they drove it into a deep den. There, with dogs, guns,
straw, fire, and sulpher, they attacked the common enemy; but all in
vain. The hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return. The
smoke of blazing straw had no effect; nor had the fumes of burnt
brimstone. The ferocious animal would not quit its retirement. And now
the shadows of evening gathered around them. The clock struck nine, and
ten. And should they lose their prey? They must, unless some one should
be so daring as to descend into this den of monsters and destroy the
enemy. One man offered to go; but his neighbors remonstrated against the
perilous enterprise. Perilous indeed it was; but live so they could not,
and stripping off his coat and waistcoat and having a long rope fastened
round his legs, by which he might be pulled back, he entered with a
flaming torch in his hand, head foremost. The most terrifying darkness
appeared in front of the dim circle afforded by his light. It was still
as the house of death. But proceeding onwards with unparalleled courage,
he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the ferocious beast, who was
sitting at the extremity of the cavern. For a moment he retreated; but
again descended with his musket. The beast howled, rolled its eyes,
snapped its teeth, and threatened him with instant death, when he
levelled, fired, and brought it forth dead, to the view of his trembling
and exulting neighbors.

Little did I then think that I should one day see the country rallied on
the same spot, to hunt a more terrible monster, whose destruction will
require Putnam courage.

The old enemy, gentlemen, which your fathers hunted about these hills
and dales, was visible to the eye, and could be reached with powder and
ball; but the enemy whom you assault is, like the foe of human bliss
which entered the garden of Eden, invisible, and therefore not to be
described, and not to be destroyed by force of arms. That enemy did,
indeed, to effect his purpose, assume the form of a serpent; and ours
has been said, as belonging to the same family, to have occasionally the
same aspect. A gentleman in Missouri has recently described a dreadful
worm which, he says, infests that country. "It is of a dead lead color,
and generally lives near a spring, and bites the