floated at last in triumph and in victory over the royal ensign of King George, and the freedom of the colonies of North America became an assured and a most glorious fact. It meant the bloody stories of Trenton and Princeton, and Bennington and Brandywine, and Saratoga and Germantown, and Monmouth and Stony Point, and Savannah and Charleston, and Camden and King's Mountain, and the Cowpens and Eutaw, and wherever else upon the land, or upon the sea the sublime emergencies of the hour called love and loyalty to victory or to death. It meant famine and fire and sword. It meant the wicked treason of Arnold and the wild unholy ambition of Lee. It meant want and woe, the shivering, ill-clad forms and shoeless feet, and bloodstained snow at Valley Forge. It meant doubt and despair, sorrow and death. All this it meant and more, but all of this they knew.

But God be praised, and glory be to His great name, it meant other and better far. It meant that, in the

"All Hail hereafter,"

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out of this present gloom should come gladness, out of this present sorrow a great joy. It meant that, as without death there can be no resurrection, and without the grave there can be naught of immortality beyond, so, with death, there should came, and there would, a certain resurrection and a new life, and out of this almost seeming grave of hope there should spring, and there would, a great tree-a very tree of life "-the Tree of Liberty whose far reaching branches should fill the world, whose blossoms, like the blessing of God, would fall upon all lands, and upon all peoples, and whose leaves should in very deed be for the healing of all the nations upon the face of the earth! It meant that out of the loins of this young nationscarcely yet worthy of the name-there should come, and there would, in the years and century of the future, a great people, bold, defiant, aggressive, carrying with their flag everywhere the genius of free institutions and their laws; covering a continent with their starry banner of empire, and blessing and beautifying it with an advanced, and let us hope, an ever-advancing civilization! It meant a State without a King, and in the far away future-and God be praised that we have lived to see the

day-a land without a slave! It meant a refuge for the downtrodden of avery clime without regard to creed or color or condition. It meant the perfection of all government-complete equality before the law, and so a people always and wholly free, calling no one master, save Him above, the Lord and Master of us all!

"Great God, we thank thee for this home.
This bounteous birthland of the free;
Where wanderers from afar may come
And breathe the air of liberty.
Still may her flowsrs untrammelled spring,
Her harvests ave, her cities rise;
And yet till time shall fold her wing,

Remain earth's lovliest paradise."

Standing as we are this day, my countrymen, amidst all these grand results, and gathering to our bosoms as we are, during its peaceful summer hours, all over this broad land the golden sheaves of a harvest which these men planted in tears and watered with their blood, what wonder is it that I have called them great, and ranked them as peers of any time? "By their fruits shall ye shall know them;" so judged and thus considered, where in all the pages of history, and amongst all of those world calls great, where, I ask, will you find any greater than they?

If, however, another Past hath greater dead than ours, and if there be graves which hold sweeter and holier dust than ours, then had I power I should bid these graves to open, and call upon their dead to come forth, that the manhood of the young republic might look upon their mighty forms, rightly read the lesson of their perfect lives, and so themselves become very prophets and priests and kings among men.

And now, my countrymen, in a concluding word, what is the moral of the hour, and what the lesson of this passing pageant, this waning day?

We have spoken to you of these great men, and their greater deeds of one hundred years ago. As best we could we told you the wondrous story of the wondrous past. With your own eyes you see, and yourselves everywhere read, the open wide spread page of the still more wondrous present. It only now and yet remains for me to ask of you, and to ask of myself, what of the

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future of this great land? Shall the young republic live? Shall it continue to grow? Shall it wax greater and stronger in the years, and the centuries, and the ages yet to come, as it has lived and grown and become great in the years and the century whose requiem dirge we have just sung? Or shall it, like many of the republics, and kingdoms, and empires, and dynasties of the past, perish utterly from off the face of the earth, leaving not a name, not a vestige, not even a wreck behind it on the shores of time? By you and by me, and by all who are with us, and of us to-day, this question-this great question so full freighted with the welfare of the race and the future of the world-must be answered, must be met. God grant that we answer it wisely and meet it well. Let us see to it that wrong be righted everywhere. Let us see to it that injustice and iniquity, and fraud and corruption in high places as in low, wherever found, and in whatever form-and of which 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true," the very air seems full to-day-be smitten down by the most righteous wrath, and driven out into the wilderness of punishment by the just indignation of an incensed and outraged people. Let us see to it that no shiboleth of party take precedence of truth and honor, and that no false Gods of greed or gain have place and power over honesty and manhood, integrity and the right. So, my countrymen, the Republic shall live. So it shall continue to flourish and grow and its "bow abide in strength;" and so it shall become greater and stronger and cover the earth with its beauty, and all people with its blessings until the latest syllable of recorded time, and so we, each for himself conscious of highest duty best performed, can say to the shining, white-robed hosts, which to-day, even at this hour, are thronging the battlements of the skies, and bending over us with their love from their far away home beyond the stars, even from that celestial and Eternal City, whose walls are jaspar and whose streets are gold, we, too, have fought the fight; we, too, have run the race; we, too, have kept the faith-and so, by the great blessing of God, you have not lived, you have not died, in vain!

"Thou, too, sail on, Oh, ship of State!

Sail on, Oh UNION, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock.
"Tis of the wave and not the rock,
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail oh, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee;

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee--are all with thee!"

THE MAGNIFICENT PRESENT.

AN ADDRESS BY HON. HENRY CHAPMAN,

DELIVERED AT DOYLESTOWN, PA., JULY 4TH, 1876.

FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: I ought not to occupy this chair without returning my thanks for the honor conferred upon me; for the occasion will be memorable in the annals of the future, and harmonizes with the impulses of the sincerest patriotism. This day, above and beyond all other days, challenges a retrospect of the past, extending back to that period when this now mighty nation in its infancy bade defiance to the sceptre of a foreign power, and invites a review of the unprecedented strides since then made from year to year in the advancement of the arts and sciences, manufactures, education and population. And after such a review, we reach the present hour-the magnificent present-when the happy millions of this broad land, which stretches from ocean to ocean, are assembling without distinction of race, of country, of profession or occupation, of creed or of party, to seal, with the impress of gratitude, the immortal work of the sages and heroes who have long slumbered in their graves. We cannot, if we would, close our eyes to the contrast which is presented between the scene that lowered over the infant struggles of this country and that which is now unfolded to our view. He who visits the great International Exhibition, near at hand, will have displayed to his vision the various productions which the rivalry of nations has brought together from all parts of the globe-they come from every zone-from the mainland and the islands of the sea, and from realms which were in their prime when this continent was unnoticed in the pages of history and not found on the map of the world. He will, also, behold the productions and handiwork of his own fellow citizens, and there will be enough and more than enough in the display to fill his heart with a glow of patriotic pride. While thus hastily glancing at the past and the present, we may in