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.

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? We were then 3,000,000 of people, we are now over 40,000,000. What 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

the continent, through the ice passes of the Sierra Nevada, to be met with voyagers who defied alike the rage of the Atlantic and the wrath of the Pacific, to find a home in the Eldorado of our western shores. We have tamed the continent-at least our allotted part is subservient to man's interest-and therein the laborer who garners the yellow harvest is recompensed with its profits. Not unmixed prosperity and peace have been oursthe rose had thorns and sorely they pricked us. A war for political existence was waged in the infancy of the Republic. Jackson and New Orleans are the magic words which briefly tell the story of its ending. The arts of peace, with the sporadic exceptions of Indian warfare, dominated and directed the destinies of the Republic for a whole generation after the victory of January, 1815. The brief, brilliant and profitable episode of the Mexican war enlarged our territorial domain, and enshrined the jewels of the Pacific in the quarterings of our flag. A few little years, and the heavens grew dark-the mightiest civil war of recorded history was fought. Blood rained upon battle fields, but did not for long. The geographical unity of the country was preserved by the surrender at Appotomax. The old Roman forbade the preservation of any relic or flag which told of a war between Roman and Roman; no record of civil strife was permitted, and it was wise. Let us imitate the wisdom of the ancients, and pledge ourselves here, upon this joyous, glorious day, in the face of God and our country, to bury the dead past, to preserve no recollection of the works of those dark days, but hand in hand, heart to heart, soul to soul, march forward with unity of purpose, to enlarge the prosperity, garner the glory, increase the intelligence, deepen the patriotism, and render more enduring than an Egypt pyramid, our Republic; the sanctuary of right, freedom, and order.

One hundred years ago, around the old State House in Philadelphia, were gathered no denser crowd than now here, then as now—the declaration of independence was read. It was then to be sustained by serried columns of armed men, now by the votes of unarmed freemen. The grim and bloody visage of war, has unruffled its frowns and scars, and the halcyon smiles of peace now wreath the same brow; but peace has its duties, as well as war, and their performances are sternly demanded.

Within the old State House sat the Continental Congress-its story is too well known to need repetition. To-day in the same city, the greatest Congress of the Nations ever before assembled, holds high council. It is not a congress of a race, or a nation; it is gathering together of all the tribes and peoples, whom God scattered upon the plains of Shinaar, for impious defiance of his power

Although diverse in speech, with Babel's confusion upon every tongue, yet the threshold of unification has been reached, and an acknowledgment by all mankind, from the Malay, Mongolian, Hindostan, Persian, Turk and Arab, as well as from our cognate races, that all are brothers, the children of a common father, friendly rivals in the race for human perfection has been had amid the hossanahs of song, and the roar of cannon. save the Republic!

God