ruin and desolation of his fair vine-clad France, ruined by that despotism which has hurled its course upon the people from a French throne, remembers Lafayette, looks upon our banner and hopes his France will yet be free. The lovers of liberty in Spain point to our banner, and shout for a government like ours.

And the people of Canada, and of Cuba-the queen of the Antilles, standing away out among the dashing waves of the Atlantic, and San Domingo and all the Islands on the American Continent, are even now wishing for the time when they can call our flag their own. And who shall hinder them? Who shall stand in the way of the march of our manifest destiny? Who shall be so unreasonable as to say to these countries and these islands which are even now trembling within the grasp of monarchs or being crushed out by the heel of despotism, you shall not become a part of us? I trust none.

One hundred long years have passed since the war of independence in this land waged for the rights of freemen, burst upon the country, and that one hundred years are crowded full of the most glorious memories of a national life, and the most touching, sweetest and saddest memories that our hearts cherish. The patriot fathers are gathered to their long homes. We kneel by their graves and utter a prayer for their spirits fled. We honor their deeds; we worship their memories. We plant above their graves

the willow and the laurel, and we feel that blood like this

"For liberty shed so holy is

It would not stain the purest rill

That sparkles among the bowers of bliss.
Oh! if there be on this earthly sphere

A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear,

'Tis the last libation liberty draws

From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause."

We as citizens of this Republic must not forget that we have duties to perform-solemn, high, imperative duties. We must bear in mind that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. We must remain as faithful sentinels on the watch tower of freedom, guarding well the portals of liberty, ever bearing in mind that

"Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."

Soon, very soon, we of this generation will be gathered to the graves of our fathers. Why, there is not one of us here to-day who in the course of nature will be here one hundred years hence. The voices that now shout the praises of those who gave us this noble heritage will be stilled in death. The hearts that beat with pulsations of pride and patriotic emotion, will be silent forever. Let us, while we are here, do our duty as well as those in the past did theirs. Let us keep manned with a brave and patriotic crew the ship of State, so that when we shall turn it over to another crew there will not be a plank, a sail, a rope, or spar out of place, and the grand old pennon of liberty will be streaming full high at the masthead. That the generations to come after us as they see her moored in the haven of safety, freighted with the dearest rights of man, will greet her with

"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, in what a heat,

Were shaped the anchors of thy hope."

There are even yet dangers which beset our national pathway. They can only be avoided by a correct and faithful performance of our duty; by vigilant and watchful care on the part of all good citizens. Then let us retire from the celebration of this, our one hundredth national birthday with renewed faith in our institutions; with still stronger convictions in favor of the capacity of man for self-government, with a firm determination, and a high and noble resolve on our part that let come what will, that we will ever remain faithful guardians of institutions and laws which protect all alike; which secure liberty to all, no matter whether it be the opulent and powerful, or the poor and lowly. That the mailed hand of power, wielded by the whole American people, will ever protect the government of our common country, and preserve for all coming time our free institutions.

Let us resolve to hasten that day when the nations "shall learn war no more;" when the battle flags shall be furled; when the sword shall be beaten into the scythe, and the cannon shall become

the plowshare; when the universal brotherhood of man shall be proclaimed and recognized everywhere; when peace on earth and goodwill to men shall be the watchword among the nations; when

"All crime shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail,

Returning justice lift aloft her scale,

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,

And white robed innocence from heaven descend."

Then let us, as good citizens and patriots, so perform our part, that when we have passed from the stage of action, and the mystic chord of memory shall bring the minds of our posterity back to this period, and to the time when our fathers laid broad and deep the foundations of our free institutions, they can say that we preserved and transmitted to them untarnished and uncorrupted what the fathers gave to us, so that they can with the same emotion, the same truth, the same patriotic pride, and the same devotion say, as we can this day before high Heaven exclaim,

Great God, we thank Thee for this home

This bounteous birth-land of the free;
Where wanderers from afar may come
And breathe the air of liberty.

Still may her flowers untramelled spring,
Her harvest wave, her cities rise;
And yet, till time shall fold his wing,
Remain earth's loveliest paradise.

GOD'S PROVIDENCES AND OUR DUTY.

BY REV. ROBT. COLLYER, D. D.

A TALK TO THE CITIZENS OF LA CROSSE, WIS., JULY 4TH, 1876.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.-When I got to La Crosse and enquired about the order of proceedings, and found the Declaration of Independence had to be read before I made my speech, I tried to alter the thing so that it should be read after; because I knew when that document was drawn out I should have to suffer. I am an Englishman. That man Thomas Jefferson handled so roughly was my great grandfather's king. And there is a tradition in the Collyer family that my great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary war, but then he fought on the other side. So you see where I am. I look on this great crowd of faces and think I see a good deal of good feeling, and tenderness and kindness; and I want you just to think how I have been suffering while our friend read the document. Every blow fell on my shoulders, and now after having all this to bear, I must make a speech about a matter in which by birth and tradition, my family and myself are all on the wrong side.

Then I have to remember another thing. That all over these United States to-day where men and women gather to hear this paper read-the noblest declaration of human rights ever made to the world—only one of two men can say just the right word after it. If in this great assembly this morning there stands a man who has descended from the pure and noble blood of the fathers who fought in the Revolutionary war on the right side, he himself having a good, square, honest, manful personal history, that man might speak to you and you might hear him to a grand purpose. Or again, I saw a man on the train yesterday afternoon who could have made a nobler speech than I can or any man in my position. He was evidently a soldier, he was thin and worn, his face told a

story of sickness and suffering, and one of his sleeves was empty. That was the man to talk to you, or my brother who has just now prayed for us and who told me, with no idea that I would repeat his story, how he went out in the great quarrel which has filled the latter pages of our national history, not as a chaplain to go to the rear when the fight came on, but as a common soldier to carry his musket and take his chances. These are the men who should talk to us to-day.

You remember in the old Roman history a story of a great day when a man was needed to stir the common heart. One man after another got up and made his speech, but the heart was not stirred; until an old man came forward and held up the stump that was left of a hand that had been shorn off in battle for Rome. He said no word—that was the speech-the common heart responded to it and the day was won. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the true secret

of power to-day. The men who not only said they were ready to give their life, their wealth, and their sacred honor for the great cause, but who gave all they had, in a grand enthusiasm for the great cause, these are the men who should talk to us to-day.

But I am here to say some word to you fit for the time, and I can do no better than begin by saying that, while I can claim no such fitness as this I have tried to touch, I trust I can claim a certain fitness in being as I have been for six and twenty years, thoroughly identified with this nation, as well as a member of the great family from which so many of you that hear me this morning are descended. And while your Declaration of Independence is true, every word of it, and that old King ought to be entirely ashamed of himself every time he thinks about his part in it, wherever he has gone, this is true also. That there was in those old times of the struggle for a national existence in this country what you shall also find to this day, a great body of noble men in my mother country who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the American nation. Men who, before the struggle broke out into bloodshed, said that is right, you must fight for your Independence if you have to, or you will be enslaved. Who, during the darkest days of the Revolution sent great words of cheer to you, and have

*The Rev. Mr. Clough, pastor in charge of the Methodist Church, and a capital fellow.