Georgia and Florida scenery; and Burke, another friend, was ut tering his first fulminations against the oppression of the Colonies.

Bartram, the botanist, leaving the garden of his father on the Schuylkill, where now the world is celebrating America's Centennial epoch, was exploring the St. John's. He launched his boat for his river voyage on the very spot on which Jacksonville now stands, then the virgin forest, and the asserted domain of Micco Chlucco, the Long Warrior.

In the garden on the Schuylkill, fostered by the munificence of the Crown, as a Colonial nursery of botanical science, the Bartrams lived when the storm of revolution broke, and its shades were sought by the congenial spirits of Washington, Franklin, and other worthies of the struggle.

These are names and incidents which entitle Florida to a niche in that hundred years expired which, like the coral temples of the ocean that surround her, rise mysteriously and sublimely into the fabric of history.

It may be said, without much strain of poetic license, that the ocean waves which break upon the beach of the beautiful St. John's leap from the snowy shores of Cumberland Island. Dungenness is there! The home of Nathaniel Greene is there! He sleeps not there, and the silent stars that watch over the noble and the good, if they single out the heroic living or the heroic dead, to assign to each a guardian of immortal destiny, only know where now he sleeps. His home is there, if his memory has a home on earth; for the olive-trees that cluster there, sweet emblem of a nation's peace, may have been planted by his hand, and the shade that lingers over the tablet to his name be the spirit-vigil of his rest.

Proud architect of a nation's liberty and honor! Builder of a home for Freedom's rest! Well mightest thou, when the din of battle is over, and we can contemplate,

"Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,"

have planted the shadow of another home more typical of that celestial rest which now is thine! Born in another sea-girt gem, Rhode Island proudly claims his birth-place, and the island chain. that almost joins the two extremes, hung upon the breast of a continent, is a precious necklace of emerald beads, which memory

counts from year to year as the sweet pastime of its cloistered sanctuary.

What more precious could bind a nation together than the chain which memory thus retains? Meet that in the lapse of a century of years, a nation's tears should moisten and make that garland fresh -fresh as the flowers of the cradles or the olives of the grave in which Greene slept and sought eternal sleep!

In the graveyard at the Dungenness rest the remains of Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary Army. Friends in life, friends in the dark hour of their country's trial, if they sleep not together in death, the names of Greene and Lee are associated with the spotthe one preparing for himself there a last resting-place, the other resting, it might almost be said, in the grave his friend had before prepared!

In failing health, after the close of the Revolution, General Henry Lee repaired to the West Indies, and in 1818, with strength scarcely sufficient to reach his Virginia home, he crossed in a small vessel to Dungenness, and was there received by Mrs. Shaw, the daughter of Gen. Greene. He died shortly after his arrival. His son, Gen. Robert E. Lee, writing in 1869, mentions some account given by Mrs. Shaw of his last moments.

"One incident is worth recording, as showing how his veneration for Washington, and his fondness for expressing it, clung to him to the last. A surgical operation was proposed, as offering some hope of prolonging his life; but he replied that the eminent physicians, to whose skill and care during his sojourn in the West Indies he was so much indebted, had disapproved a resort to the proposed operation. The surgeon in attendance still urging it, his patient put an end to the discussion by saying, 'My dear sir, were the great Washington alive and here, and joining you in advocating it, I would still resist.' After this he sank rapidly, and his last effort at communication with this world was to send a message to his son, C. Carter Lee.”

Doubly consecrated in the heart of every American be the spot redolent with these illustrious memories! Over the grave of Lee and the Tablet of Greene, the North and the South join hands together, not as over a bloody chasm, but as over the sealed grave of patriot brothers, upon whom the earth closed to know no open

ing till the resurrection morn.

The South and the North may The fields on which they shone re

say these jewels are mine. splendent are mine; on this Centennial anniversary Bunker Hill is mine, and Yorktown is mine; and when the haze of a distant future softens the asperities of the present time, may each assign our fratricidal strife to the Nemesis of nations, and say the brave who were decreed to fall are mine; the magnanimity of the conqueror and the heroism of the conquered at Appomatox are mine; and pouring the balm of peace upon the land, say "Gilead and Manasseh are mine" also.

It may be, in that distant future, the flag that Lee surrendered will be spoken of, like the soul of Bayard, "without stain and without reproach;" but no man will seek to flaunt it as the emblem of a nation.

"True, 'tis gory;

Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,
And will live in song and story,

When its folds are in the dust,

And its fame on brighter pages,

Penn'd by poets and by sages,

Shall go sounding down the ages,

Furl its folds though now we must."

True to the victorious banner to which Lee pledged his faith when the sun of the Lost Cause went down-a glorious banner, the stars of which were the cynosure of his father's eyes-let us always endeavor to rekindle the fire of patriotism when the embers are dying upon the altar, that there may be a pyramid of centennial spheres, so true and perfect in their rounded form, that no shock can disturb their well-poised elevation.

On its top may the emblem of our new nationality be forever planted, and as the American flag may it ever deserve the apostrophe of a people's gratitude.

"Flag of the free heart's hope and home,

By angel hands to valor given !

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet;

Where breathes the foe that falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!"

And as a Christian nation, looking at the symbol without the substance as a paltry toy, may our flag be as the rainbow in purity, the type of that scroll which shall be unrolled when all things sublunary shall have passed away.

"The banner that Thou hast given to them that fear Thee."

The floral and vegetable world abounds with emblems of tender and beautiful sentiment. May the Eucalyptus tree, newly planted on our shores, be hereafter the emblem of our new national life. Its strong branch is the type of our central union; the twin leaves pointing to the south and to the north, to the east and to the west, in exact equilibrium, clasping the trunk as if unwilling to trust themselves to the frail stem which holds the foliage of common nature, resemble the States in their dependence upon each other and upon the central stock. Wound the branch, and the leaves will curl themselves back upon it as if to heal the wound; puncture one leaf and you wound another. All delicate and nicely poised, may the sons of America, the guardians of the Eucalyptus, be the last to strike at its vitality.

To the Jacksonville Light Infantry is due the credit of inaugurating the celebration of the Fourth of July of 1860, the last commemoration of that day in Florida previous to the collision of the States, as this is the first which follows it. As a body of citizen soldiery, none were more alive to a sentiment of veneration for the past than they. Most of them have been called to "cross over the river to sleep under the shadow of the trees." Disturb them not by a harsh tread. Let no discordant note awake them. They sank to their slumber as true men, after the battle of life was over, and the firemen of to-day are proud to stand as sentinels over their sleeping forms.

To the firemen of Jacksonville belongs the honor of initiating this celebration.

May the fireman's trumpet this day utter no loud note of command, as in the hour of danger, but may it speak, as with a voice of music, the invocation—

Come to the Altar of Freedom once more!

Come from the midland and come from the shore,
Come from the prairie and come from the main,

Come to the shrine of our Goddess again!

THE FIRST CENTURY DAY OF THE NATION.

AN ORATION BY COL. GEORGE FLOURNOY.

DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT GALVESTON, TEXAS, JULY 4TH, 1876.

THE sentiments evoked in commemorative celebrations are gratitude and affection-gratitude to Providence for the blessings conferred in permitting the successful accomplishment of great events, and an affectionate appreciation of the genius, heroism, fortitude, self-denial and other virtues exemplified in the conduct of actors amid great occasions, often glorified into an earnest love of some great truth, the soul of action, giving strength and beauty and immortality to the victory of success in the triumph of the present, or the victory of martyrdom in the conquests of the future.

There is nothing in the experience of man older or more natural than the custom of recalling these motives of gratitude and affection-a custom always encouraged by the wisest statesmen and philosophers as tending to elevate the character and inflame the patriotism of nations. Some such occasions are even of Divine origin. One day of the seven the seventh or the first-with Hebrew or Christian, has since the miraculous interview on the summit of Mount Sinai, been religiously observed, in memory of the completion of the creation. It is possible Abraham may have celebrated it long before the commandments were given to Moses. It is certain the Egyptians feasted on the harvest anniversary of Isis, and annually displayed the most splendid pomp and pageantry of funeral ceremonies in commemoration of the death of Osiris, long before Joseph was sold by his brethren; before Cadmus had ventured to the then unknown shores of Greece, and before the ancestors of Priam had located on the plains of Troy; long before the wrath of Achilles became enshrined in the genius of Homer. The anniversary festivals of Greece have been called a compend