the hells of his town than the churches. Then he goes into soci ety, meets the young woman with all the accomplishments, believes her to be the exception to her entire sex in angelic beauty and perfect excellence, gives her what little heart he has left, poor fellow, and so the match is made and they are wedded, husband and wife so long as they both shall live-if they can stand it.

That is often like a wedding we had once in Yorkshire; as the man came out of church with his bride on his arm he met an old companion who said to him. "There lad, I wish thee much joy, thou's gotten t' end of all thee trouble." This was good news, so he went on his way rejoicing; but it turned out a bad job, he had got a wife with all the acomplishments except she could not keep house; so one day, when he met his crony again, he said to him with a very doleful heart, "I thowt thaa towd me John as I wer cumin aat o' Ginseley church, when I went to get wed, a'd gotten to t' end of all me trouble." "I did tell thaa soa," John answered, "I didn't tell thaa which end."

Then there is another match not quite so bad as this, but still bad enough. And that is when the husband and wife are both capable, both capital, and have every thing the heart can wish for except a real good honest love. The man is clever, so is the woman; she wants a home, he can give her one; she wants a husband, he wants a housekeeper; he will bring in the living and foot the bills, and she will slave and save and hear a great deal of growling then about what he calls "the extravagance of them women." Now a good home can no more bloom out of such a life as that in this new century than a damask rose can bloom on an iceberg. It is tyrant and slave, or else it is two slaves. It is two strings full of nothing but harsh discords constantly under the ban of the daily life. But there is a wedding which is just as good as gold, true and sweet every time, and sure to result in a good home; and that is when a man and woman, understanding what a good home and a true wedding means, are drawn together by that sure Providence which still makes all right matches in spite of the manoeuvering of our prejudice and pride to prevent them. When they come together in a fair equality, not as the poet sings as moonlight unto sunlight, but as "perfect music unto noble words." Yes, from Eastport and San Francisco, eastward and westward, a youth and

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maiden shall come with this equal reverence each for the other in their hearts. They may see a great many men and women more beautiful and noble to other men and women than they are, but they shall never see those they are looking for until they meet in this town of yours, it may be, and it is borne in on them that they are meant for husband and wife. It is no matter then if the one be beautiful and the other homely, or if all the world is wondering over the match. Theirs is still the greatest wonder that God should have given them this great gift as the end of all their hopes and fears. I know what such a wedding means for the home and for the life. It abides where there is no marrying or giving in marriage, but where men and women are like the angels of God. Chance and change make no difference on the golden wedding day. After fifty years of such a wedded life the glory of the maiden of twenty cannot be seen by reason of the glory which excelleth in the good old wife of seventy. Another thing to take to heart this day is that you young men shall go ahead, get married in this way, make these good homes and raise noble families of children for the nation instead of dawdling along until the bloom and glory of your life is over for fear the world will fail you if you take this step. It is a great mistake for a young man to think he can wait as long as he will before he takes a wife, and still be a whole true man for this grand era. But a great many do this, and if you ask them how it is, they will tell you they cannot do any better, they cannot ask a woman to marry them out of a mansion and go live in a poor man's cottage; the woman they want could not live in a cottage, if she would, and would not if she could; she is not fit to be a poor man's wife, and so they must wait until they get about so much money. Now I say that the woman who is not fit to be a poor man's wife, as a general rule, is not fit to be any man's wife. Suppose again she is fit to be a poor man's wife, and therefore all the fitter to be a rich man's wife, and he dare not ask her to leave her father's mansion, and go live with him in a poor man's cottage, but lets "I dare not" wait upon "I would" until the best of their life is over, and then gets married, why one of the first things she tells him is that she would have been very glad indeed to sooner if he had only said so. almost as sad as funerals to me

marry him ten or fifteen years The weddings that are sometimes are those that might have come

and should have come in the brave May days of life, but for the sake of this wealth bought at a price no man should pay, the day was driven forward until the finest strength and bloom of the life had gone. Let no young man in whose life the new hope of America hides itself make this fatal blunder as he stands on the edge of the new century, don't shunt off on a side track and wait too long for a train of circumstances to roll along and enable you to get married. Make sure of these three things-a good honest stroke of work, a good name, and a good wife, just as soon as you can, and then the older men will leave the whole venture gladly in your hands when our time comes, and get away to our rest.

One thing more and I have done. As we take care of our work, our life and our homes, we must also take care of our Government. In a Government like ours there is one sure law. It is like that of the water-works in my city, through which the water rises to the exact line of the water-mark in the tower and not a line above that, no matter if the whole city should pray to have it so. And so in our Central and State Governments, in everything we have to our name, as citizens of this Republic, we shall find that the public virtue, manliness and honesty in Washington, in Springfield and in Madison, is just the marrow of the private nature and good sense of the citizens, who elect these men to take care of the machine. We must have honesty, intelligence, courage and manliness in ourselves, or we shall not have it where it can do most good and most harm. So we must not elect our man because he can make a fine speech, but because he is a man to be trusted and is trusted by those who know him best. He may make very fine speeches and do very mean things. Nothing comes cheaper than good talk, and I think we have had about enough of it within the last few years to open our eyes. We are in very much the condition the people were in at a town on one of our south-western rivers. There was an old skipper who ran a steamboat up and down the river, and was by all odds the most profane man in that section. But one day his boat ran into a mud-bank near the little town, and there she stuck, one end in the water and the other in the mud, and would not stir an inch for all his swearing. So thinking what was best to be done, he called one of the deck-hands and said: "You go up into that air town, find the folks who belong to meetn', tell 'em I got

religion and want 'em to come and hold prayer-meet'n on my boat." The news made a vast sensation; the people came in a crowd, they found the old skipper standing ready to receive them. "Go aft brethren," he said, "go aft, go aft," and aft they went, until the weight at the water end weighed the steamer down, and she began to slip into deep water. This was what he wanted; he saw her clear and then yelled: "meetn's out, dn you, jump ashore, quick," and jump they did, and that was the end of his conversion.

That is the way with some of the men who want to represent us; they belong to both sides, always did and always will. What they want is to float their venture on false pretences. We must watch them, take care of them, and whether we are Democrat or Republican, elect only the man of a tried honesty, and then when we get hold of such a man we must stand by him and hold up his hands and his heart. Never mind what the other side says in the heat and passion of party strife; the spawn of party strife is the shame and disgrace of our era. It breaks down all the guards of truth and fair speech, looks on every man not on its side with an evil eye, and pursues its antagonist with the relentlessness of the find. We can have no part or lot in such mean work. We have to search for and to find virtue, honesty and fidelity in Democrat and Republican alike, to maintain those who are well proven in these things at all costs, and no other kind, and then there can be no doubt but that we are to have through the ages to come, a noble, beautiful and strong Republic. So may God bless us on this new day of a new century.

ELEMENTS OF OUR PROSPERITY.

AN ORATION BY S. H. CARPENTER, LL.D., PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.

DELIVERED AT MADISON, WIS., JULY 4TH. 1876.

FELLOW-CITIZENS-We are met to day to celebrate the demonstration of a great truth; the truth that Liberty is not the baseless dream of visionary enthusiasts; that a government by the People may be stable and lasting. Tried by the vicissitudes of a century. this Republic has withstood every shock, and has passed from a dimly-seen hope to a magnificent reality. It has gathered under its protection men of every language, and proved that Freedom is the Right of man by uniting them into one People, by the firm bond of loyalty to the same great truth.

Youth has no Past. Its active energy sees only the Present. Age has a past, to which it fondly looks, when its waning strength seeks solace in recalling the prowess of its early years, and boasts of deeds no longer possible to its lessened vigor. We have no musty records to search, no far-reaching history to recall. Our heroic age has hardly passed. Our golden youth has not yet stiffened into the harshness of an iron present. The memory of those still living holds the fresh records of our progress. Men whose natural force has not yet abated have seen our weakness grow to power, have seen the wilderness transformed into a blooming garden, and stately cities rise as by the enchanter's wand from the untamed soil. But shall not youth glory in his strength? Shall a just pride not lay hold of present achievement as well as past glory? Behind us are gathered the materials for our heroic history. Age is hastening after us, and to-day we turn the first century of our national existence.

There is a power in Antiquity-in the feeling that behind us is a long line of noble ancestors, a solid inheritance in the glories of

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