have more than kept pace with the population. That certain offenses against law have assumed a grave magnitude is a thing to be deplored, but in the presence of the good which emanates from our beneficent government they are but as the spots on the disk of the sun, which mellow the light by breaking the fierce rays of its overpowering effulgence.

But there is no reason to believe that the world is retrograding in morals or honesty. Such a concession would be an admission that civilization, intelligence and Christianity impede the progress of the world and are disadvantageous to mankind; for there are more schools and seminaries, more books to read; more people to read and understand them, more acts of benevolence and charity, more culture and refinement, and more people who worship God to-day than at any other period since the "morning stars sang together" at man's creation. That there are base, gross and wicked people is no new phenomenon. They have infested society and cursed the world since the day when our original progenitor partook of "that forbidden fruit whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe, with loss of Eden."

But the beacon fires of liberty burn as brightly to-day as they did on the morning of the Fourth of July, 1776, and the people of the country cherish the principles upon which the brave old patriots of that day established us as a free and independent nation. This morning has been ushered in over this broad land with the booming of cannon, the chimes of bells, the blare of the bugle, and the joyful greetings and proud huzzas of the people. These demonstrations are hearty, earnest and profound. They are the spontaneous outbursts of patriotism-the grand anthems bursting from the full hearts of a free, loyal and intelligent people.

Why should we not look forward to the future with wellfounded hopes, inspired by the success of the past? The staunch ship of State cannot encounter more difficult navigation in the coming century than in the past. She has encountered foes from without and enemies within. She has lain within the trough of the sea, and withstood the earth-shaking broadside; and while she trembled in every timber and groaned throughout

her hull at the "diapason of the cannonade," after the blue smoke of battle had drifted away in curling clouds on the breeze, we looked aloft, and joyfully exclaimed that "our flag is still there!" When the waves of rebellion, with fearful fury crashed upon her in mid-ocean, they were broken and scattered in foam on her hull, and died away in eternal silence at her keel. In calm and storm, in peace and war, our goodly craft has braved a hundred years "the battle and the breeze."

To-day all hands are piped on deck to receive instructions and inspiriting encouragement for a continuance of the voyage for another century. The winds and tides are fair, the skies are bright, and the sails are set. Gently swaying to the billows' motion, we rouud the headland, and boldly enter upon the broad expanse of waters. The world of old dynasties, which jeered when we essayed our first voyage, became astonished at our progress, and their astonishment turned into amazement as we pursued our successful course. That amazement, as we boldly head out for the open sea on the second century, assumes the aspect of awe. Such a craft, manned by such a crew, carrying a flag which is known and recognized as the emblem of freedom everywhere, is a dangerous emissary among the subjects of kings, emperors, and despots of every form. Wherever that flag floats, whether waving languidly in the gentle zephyr of the tropics, or fluttering amid the ice crags of arctic desolation, it is hailed as the emblem of freedom and the symbol of the rights of man.

To show our influence on the people in the remote corners of the earth, a citizen of the United States, during the trying times. of the rebellion, was traveling on the northern coast of Norway; and, landing from a small steamer at a trading town in the early morning, before the inhabitants were astir, found three fishermen from Lapland waiting at the door of a store to do some small business in trade. The fishermen appeared to be a father and two sons. They were dressed in skins of the reindeer, and appeared to be half barbarian, illiterate people. They were introduced to the American, and when the elder of the Laplanders learned that the distinguished stranger was a citizen of this country, his countenance lighted up with an expression of eager intelligence as he asked: "Are you from beyond the great sea?"

Upon being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed: "Tell me, tell me, does liberty still live?" He expressed great satisfaction upon being assured that it did.

If on the coasts of the northern frozen seas, in a land of almost perpetual night, an illiterate fisherman feels such an eager interest in the question of the continued vitality of liberty, what a dangerous messenger will be that ensign of the Ship of State flashing "its meteor glories" among the thrones, crowns, and sceptres of the world. The subjects and victims of oppression will catch "inspiration from its glance," and learning that liberty still lives, will pass the inspiring watchword from man to man. And the cry that "Liberty still lives" will be the world's battle shout of freedom, and the rallying watchword of deliverance.

"And the dwellers in the rocks and in the vales,

Shall shout it to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy,
'Till nation after nation taught the strain,

Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round."

And in the land of liberty's birth the fires of patriotism will be kept aflame by the iteration and reiteration of the answer to the fisherman's question, that "Liberty still lives." And from the hearts of the crowded cities, from the fireside of the farmer, and from the workshop of the mechanic, in the busy hamlets of labor, and in the homes of luxury and ease, the hearts of freemen will be cheered as our noble craft sails on, with the inspiriting assurance that "Liberty still lives." The burden of that cry will float upon the air wherever our banner waves, and its resonant notes will fill the land with a new inspiration as the joyful assurance is heard.

"Coming up from each valley, flung down from each height,
Our Country and Liberty, God for the right."

THE MATCHLESS STORY.

AN ORATION BY HON. JOHN O'BYRNE.

DELIVERED AT WILMINGTON, DEL., JULY 4th, 1876.

We were

What

MR. MAYOR, COUNCILMEN, CITIZENS AND LADIES: One hundred years have come and gone-and in some land the waves of time have left no impress. Not so with us. A century ago what were we? To-day what are we? then 3,000,000 of people, we are now over 40,000,000. does this mean, what wondrous national tale is this? Is it not a mistake. In all the annaled past the story is matchless. Go back to the frontier line of fact and fable, begin at the misty border which marks the boundary of exact knowledge, and cull out the most extraordinary stories of national progress; parallel them with our tale of a century; and how dry and insipid are they, how deficient in dramatic force, how slow and limping in gait, how denuded of the element of human happiness, when compared with the marvellous and beneficent growth of our Republic?

The glamor of history is thrown around a Cyrus, a Leonidas, a Miltiades, an Alexander, a Charlamagne, or Napoleon, and the glowing mind of the student, drinks in the glory of their career as they rise up in demigod proportions to the imagination. Their glories are written in the blood sweat and woe of the conquered. The wail of the captive is heard as the cadenced answer to the shout of triumph. Herein our history differs from that of all others. Our growth is wreathed and entwined with men's well-being and woman's exaltation. It is a poem of happiness conferred, not of suffering endured. This alone makes our career a blessed one among all the people.

Upon the border land of the Atlantic, bounded by the coast range, or the Alleghany and Appalachian mountains, three millions of chosen people dwelt a hundred years ago. They were a chosen people, culled from the best blood of the Norman,

Saxon, and Celt, men whose conscience were their only monitors, whose ingrained sense of equality was crystalized in the answer of the New England leader, that "he knew no Lord, but the Lord Jehovah." In this fringe of our continent there were no castelated towers, no ivy-crowned turrets, no baronal keeps, no gothic churches, whose foundations were laid in the gloaming of the Myen age; all was new. The compacts of the Puritan Mayflower, and the Catholic Dove, resting upon the great charter of John, were palladium of American rights. Mighty was the power of these compacts and charters, as they gave to the world a republic, which has already overshadowed in freedom, might, glory and prosperity all the political creations of man, and compared with the sheen of which all others are opaque.

This is seemingly exaggerated, but it is not so. England is held to be the foremost in the race of progressive national development. A century ago, the fishermen, farmers and planters, of this land met her, beat her, trailed her flag in the mire of Saratoga and Yorktown. She was then triple our population -with the gates of India, the Spice Islands, and the pearly Orient open, through which untold wealth was poured into her exchequer, with the German and Sclave tributaries to her industries. She is now 30,000,000—we are now 40,000,000.

Of the great drama of the Revolution I will not speak, it is the sunniest and brightest spot in history, its triumphs are jewels, fit companions for those contests which saved our Japethic civilization from Semetic barbarism, a civilization thrice endangered by the Persian, the Carthagenian, and the Saracen. Our municipal life was early freighted with a precious cargo; onward, through the passes of the Alleghanies, the precious burden is carried. The riven pathways are avenues through which the founders of more than Imperial States have passed. The Ohio valley swarm with frontier men, the resonant axe, the muffled rumble of the wagon, the curling smoke of the settlement, the tapping of the woodpecker, warn the huntsman and trapper that settlers with customs codified into law have occupied their haunts,-and their tents and wigwams must be carried onward to the Mississippi, across its rich valleys, over sage desert and rugged peak, up and beyond the back-bone of