wheat-field an astonishment even to a Western New York farmer. It is indeed a singular fortune which ours has been that every decade of years has revealed beneath our feet some new surprise of mineral wealth; the iron everywhere; the anthracite of Pennsylvania; the copper of Lake Superior; the gold of California; the bituminous coal of the western coal fields; the petroleum which now illuminates the world; and finally, the silver which has deluged and deranged the trade of the Orient. Let us not be slow to remember that such natural advantages impose obligations, rather than justify pride in comparison with those old countries where nature has spoken long ago her last word of discovery, and where labor and science can but glean in the fields already harvested. And when we look with wonder upon the vast public works, not disproportionate to the vastness of our territory, which the last half-century especially has seen constructed, let us not forget that the industry and frugality which gathered the capital that built our railroad system-not all of which certainly, was American capital-the trained intellect of the engineers who designed and constructed its countless parts are a greater honor to any people than 70,000 miles of track that the patient ingenuity of Fitch and Fulton are more to be boasted of than the ownership of the steam navies of the world: the scientific culture and genius of Morse, than 200,000 miles of telegraphic wire.

5. If I have thought it needless to enlarge upon other subjects, familiar upon such occasions, for public congratulation, especially will it be superfluous to remind such an audience as this how broad and general is the diffusion of intelligence and education through large portions of our country. But let us not be so dazzled by the sunlight which irradiates us here in New York, as to forget the darkness of illiteracy which overwhelms vast regions of our common country; that if New York, and Massachusetts, and Ohio, offer to all their children opportunities of learning, there exists in many states a numerous peasantry, both white and black, of besotted ignorance, and struggling but feebly, almost without aid or opportunity, toward some small enlightenment. Let us not overlook the fact, in our complacency, that while we, in these favored communities,

content ourselves with offering education to those whom we leave free to become sovereign citizens in abject ignorance, other nations have gone beyond us in enforcing universal education; in not only throwing open the feast of reason, but in going into the highways and hedges, and compelling them to come in. 6. Coming to the last of the familiar sources of national pride which I have suggested, we may fairly say that the emotions with which a patriot looks back upon the conclusions of the period beginning in 1860 must be of a most varied and conflicting sort. The glory of successful war must be tempered by shame that red-handed rebellion should ever have raised its head in a constitutional nation. If it was not permitted to a Roman general, so it is not becoming to us, to triumph over conquered fellow-citizens. If we rejoice, as the whole world does rejoice, that the conflict which for four years distracted us, ended in the restoration of four million slaves to the rights of free manhood, the remembrance that neither our national conscience nor our statesmanship had found a better way out of the bondage of Egypt than through a Red Sea of blood, may well qualify our reasonable pride; the question, how these millions and their masters are yet to be lifted up into fitness for their new sovereignty over themselves and over us, may well sober our exultation.

If I have departed from the common usage of this occasion, in assuming that you know, quite as well as I do, the infinite causes that exist for pride, and joy, and common congratulation in being American citizens, I beg leave before I close to suggest one further reason for the emotions which are natural to all our hearts to-day. It has been common to us and to other nations, -to our friends alike and our detractors,-to speak of the institutions under which we live, as new, experimental, and of questionable permanency. Fellow-citizens, if we can learn nothing else from the comparative view of other nations to which I have been hastily recommending you, this fact at least presses itself home upon us that of all the nations of the earth which are under the light of Christian and European civilization, the institutions of America are those which the vicissitudes of a century have left most unchanged; that, tested by the history of

those hundred years, and by the experience of every such nation, republican democracy, means permanency, not revolution; wise conservatism, not destruction; and that all other institutions are as unstable as water in comparison.

I believe that to-day this American "experiment" is the most ancient system in Christendom. Not a constitution in Europe but exists by grace of a revolution of far later date than the framing of our constitution, which stands now, immortal monument to the wisdom of its founders, almost unchanged from its pristine shape and substance. If the stable British monarchy seems to you an exception, reflect upon the silent revolution which in that time has annulled the power of the crown, and almost subverted its influence; remember the suppression of the Irish Parliament, the removal of the Catholic disabilities which for a century and a half had been a foundation stone of the constitution; remember the Reform Bill which prostrated the power of the aristocracy; the repeal of the Corn Laws, which reversed the economic policy of a thousand years; look at the audacious legislation which within two years has destroyed even the names of that judicial system which is identified with English monarchy-at that which within a few weeks has dared to add a flimsy glitter to the immemorial title of the sovereign herself-and you may well be proud of the solidity and permanence of our institutions compared with the swift-dissolving forms of European systems.

We know, however, that institutions, even the best of them, cannot long exist without change. As in physical life, there must be either growth or decay; when growth has ceased, decay cannot long be postponed. How shall it be with those institutions which a noble ancestry has bequeathed to us, and in which we rejoice to-day? Let us not forget that the day is the beginning of a new century, as well, as the close of an old one. Not one of us is to see the close of the coming age, as none of us saw the opening of the last. And while it is given to none to discern the future, we know well that institutions, whether civil or social, cannot long continue better than the people who

Lenjoy them. Be it ours, therefore, so far as lies in us, to per

petuate for our remote offspring the benefits which have come

down from our ancestors. Let us cultivate in ourselves-let us teach to our children-those virtues which alone make our free institutions possible or desirable. Thus, and only thus, shall we make this day not merely the commemoration of departed glories, but the portal to that Golden Age which has been the dream of poets and the promise of prophets, and toward which, as we dare to hope, the event which we now celebrate has so mightily impelled mankind. Our eyes shall not behold it; but woe to us if we cease to hope for it and to labor towards it It may be hard-it is hard-for us, surrounded by the green graves and the desolated homes which within a dozen years a ghastly civil war has made in this religious and enlightened nation,for us here, in the very presence of the tattered yet venerated symbols of that strife,* to believe that the day can ever shine upon the earth

When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world:

When the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

The reign of " Peace on Earth-Good Will towards Men”— the dominion of Reason and Justice over Force and Fraud-it may be far off, but it shall surely come.

Down the dark future, through long generations,
The sounds of strife grow fainter, and then cease;
And like a bell, in solemn, sweet vibrations,

I hear once more the voice of Christ say," Peace?"
Peace! and no longer from its 'brazen portals,
The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies:
But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of Love arise.

* The worn-out regimental colors of the 33d New York Volunteers, a regiment which went to the war from Wayne County, were carried in the procession and set up in front of the speaker's stand.

FOR UNION AND RECONCILIATION.

AN ORATION BY HON. EDWARD CANTWELL,

DELIVERED AT MOORE'S CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, JULY 4TH, 1876.

As once, Simeon the Prophet, in the Temple at Jerusalem, with outstretched hands and streaming eyes beheld a Saviour's advent, and a light which should lighten the Gentiles and be the glory of his own people, so, standing here on the Fourth day of July, at the foot of this North Carolina monument, I see the gate of another Temple open; I behold another light streaming by in the thick darkness; and as the gladsome rays penetrate the gloom, the very sands beneath my feet, appear to awaken and reverberate with celestial harmonies, which fill the air and float on every breeze. This is the centennial year of the American Republic. We are to-day celebrating the first centennial in the centennial year of the national existence. No prouder glow of patriotic exaltation inspired the last Prophet of Judea than now swells the breast of every North Carolinian. Jutting far out to sea, the eastern coasts of North Carolina are the first to greet the sun in his daily course of glory and of empire. Here, on the fourth day of July, 1584, Philip Amidas, and Arthur Barlowe arrived and established the first English colony in America, bequeathing to posterity the priceless legacy of Anglo-Saxon liberty, and therefore, appropriately here in North Carolina, begin the celebrations of the centennial anniversary. Here, where the grand and unfulfilled vow of a colossal continental America for a country; the refuge of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed, was first conceived and recorded. Here, where the peal of its signal gun first broke the stillness of the morning air; at Moore's Creek, where its first victory was won; where the first North Carolina blood was shed, and upon the spot where the bones of John Grady of Duplin, her first martyred offering to liberty, lie buried.

Far from you and me, my friends, this day, be any sentiment