difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress of Philadelphia. The history of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it." Never, we may add, in this world before or since were so many men of transcendant ability arrayed at one time around a common cause. were God's masterworks, made for the hour.

They

God was at the birth of the nation. Think how, in spite of human contrivance and against human desire and ancestral prejudice, the bonds which hold so strongly the colonies to the parent states, were broken by that declaration which we celebrate to-day! By what combinations above and beyond human forecast it was brought about! God was in it.

He gave this people Washington. Among the marvellous creations of God where will we find a more wonderful than he? His character grows more sublime in each succeeding year, and his name as that of no other man has gone out over the earth and holds the increasing admiration of the people of every land and tongue.

Who can fail to see God's hand in the marvellous occurrence of the War of the Revolution, when out of more defeats than victories a triumph was won and the power of the foremost nation of the world was thrown off?

There were hours when no human eye could see a ray of hope, but God kept hope alive in those undaunted hearts, and again and again, above the agency of men, foiled the malice of traitors, broke the power of foes, inspired the courage of friends, and at the hour of rayless darkness gave light and deliverance.

Shall we fail to recognize the hand of God in the formation of our government? Our constitution has stood the test of nearly ninety years, and each one of them has spread its power wider and more beneficently abroad. It has stood strain and shock such as never tried government before. God made it strong.

Who will not see the almighty hand in the preservation of this nation? That we are not to-day weeping while we walk among the awful ruins of our country, that we are not hanging our heads in shame and mourning, that we have not blushes and groans on this anniversary instead of smiles and exultant songs, that we celebrate the day at all, is of God! It was an inspiration of the

Almighty that awakened the people, that gave them the courage to bear the toil, endure the sorrow, accept the bereavement of those days when brother struck at brother's life and countrymen sought to destroy the state.

It was God that gave us Lincoln. God made him the calm, patient, enduring, loving man that he was. God gave him his undying courage, his unfaltering faith, his far-reaching wisdom. God gave us those men who fought and suffered, those who live and rejoice with us to-day, or who sleep in their glory and our love as we enshrine them in our hearts. They were God's gift.

Who that looks at this flag and knows that it waves over a land without a slave will not see in its starry folds the Goodness of God? We wished and we labored and we prayed that some time it might tell only of freedom, but we dared not hope to see the day. Now for these thirteen years we have been exulting; with dimmed eyes we watch its wavy rise and fall-it floats on this summer air-the flag of the free. God made it pure.

Thus we look over the solemn days of war, over the sweet days of peace, over the long-drawn years of prosperity, of religious liberty so like this ambient air that we forget that we breathe it, and with hearts too full for utterance we bow and worship and praise Him, our God and our fathers' God.

ADDRESS

HON. A. LEWIS, MAYOR OF DETROIT, PRESIDENT OF THE DAY.

DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT DETROIT, MICH. JULY 4TH, 1876.

FELLOW-CITIZENS.-It seems fit and proper on an occasion like this that we should meet together to honor the memories of the Patriot Fathers, who brought our nation into existence, and to commemorate the great event of 1776. The assemblage of so vast a multitude here to-day speaks well for the descendants of those honored heroes who perilled their all that we might be free. From a small colony, in a century we have grown to be one of the mighty nations of the earth; and in Philadelphia to-day, within a stone's throw of where the Declaration of Independence was signed, is in progress the World's Fair that tells more forcibly than words can express of the growth and development of our country, as it surpasses in splendor and magnificence anything the world ever saw. No wonder, then that we feel proud of our inheritance and rejoice for the many blessings kind Providence has so liberally showered upon us. Long may we continue to increase and prosper, and deserve the many blessings that we enjoy.

THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF OUR REPUBLIC.

AN ORATION BY HON. SHELBY M. CULLOM.

DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT GENESEE, JULY 4,

1876.

FELLOW-CITIZENS.-Ours is a government, in the language of the immortal Lincoln, of the people, by the people, and for the people-a government in which the people are the rulers and the office-holders the agents. Office-holders seem to almost forget this sometimes, and imagine themselves the rulers and the people the servants; but when that idea grows upon a man until he shows its effect upon his conduct, he suddenly finds himself one of the people, with his little brief authority gone, generally forever.

How can we judge, my friends, whether a nation is well founded or not?

"By their fruits ye shall know them." By the growth, wealth, learning, morality, and general condition of a people we may judge of the foundation principles of the government, and whether it has been well managed.

Our country has been almost if not quite without a parallel in' growth and development in all that it takes to make a nation great.

Napoleon once said that "statistics mean the keeping the exact account of a nation's affairs, and without such an account there is no safety.

Goethe said "he did not know whether figures governed the world or not, but he did know that it showed how it was governed."

Following these suggestions, let us recur to our past history for a little while, giving some figures as to our growth and progress in several directions. One hundred years ago the United States contained only about 815,000 square miles of territory. To-day it includes over 3,500,000. One hundred years ago the population of America was less than 3,000,000—about as many people as we

have in Illinois to-day.

Now we have over 40,000,000 of free people in the land. Then the population and improvements of the country skirted along the shores of the Atlantic, mainly east of the Alleghanies; now the busy hum of machinery driven at the will of an industrious, enterprising, progressive people, is lost upon the waves of the western ocean. Boundless prairies have been cultivated by the hand of industry; and vast wildernesses, the silence of which have never been broken by the voice of a human being save by the rude language and wild yell of the red man, have fallen before the woodman's ax, and from which the harvest is now being gathered. Cities are built all over the land; school-houses spreading their light and knowledge to the rich and poor alike, and churches of all creeds, pointing their way to virtue and purity, and teaching to all a religion which offers to man victory over death, and immortality beyond, and lifts the clouds and darkness that rests upon and envelops eternity.

At the close of the Revolution we were without a navy, and had but a small army imperfectly equipped. At the close of the late war we had a navy that was mistress of the seas, and an army that marshaled a million brave, patriotic heroes, and arms and artillery that never had been equalled. At the close of the war for independence our commerce was of little importance. Now our commercial vessels are seen on every river, and playing every ocean, and trading in every mart. While the engine, with long trains of passengers and freight goes thundering along its track across plains and over hill and mountain with almost the speed of lightning, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes to the gulf, bearing the products of a fertile soil and grateful toil to our great centers of home trade, then to be transferred to the markets of the world, our flag is respected as far as commerce spreads her sails upon the seas or civilization walks the earth. The telegraph conveys intelligence to all parts of this land, and by the use of the ocean cable communication is opened with all parts of the globe wherever enterprise and civilization have found a footing thereon. What next? The American people are perhaps giving more attention to the education of the masses than any other people. This is the natural result of our system of government-a necessity of its existence. According to the census of 1870 there were in this country, in the