our children. Let us feel deeply how much, of what we are and what we possess, we owe to this liberty and these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given us a soil which yields bounteously to the hands of industry; the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture? And how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of this liberty, and these institutions. Let us, then, acknowledge the blessing; let us feel it deeply and powerfully; let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted. The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us, a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often and dwell on too long, cannot be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can perform their part well until they understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it. It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling of selfimportance; but it is that we may judge justly of our situation, and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our position and our character among the nations of the earth. It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been be fore altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, our country, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests. If they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upheld them. Let us contemplate, then, this connection which binds the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. Washington is in the clear upper sky. Those other stars have now joined the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity. DANIEL WEBSTER. AMERICA THE COLOSSUS OF THE NATIONS. Two ideas there are which, above all others, elevate and dignify a race, the idea of God and country. How imperishable is the idea of country! How does it live within and ennoble the heart in spite of persecution and trials, difficulties and dangers! After two thousand years of wandering, it makes the Jew a sharer in the glory of the prophets, the law-givers, the warriors and poets who lived in the morning of time. How does it toughen every fibre of an Englishman's frame, and imbue the spirit of a Frenchman with Napoleonic enthusiasm! How does the German carry with him even the "old house-furniture of the Rhine," surround himself with the sweet and tender associations of "Fatherland;" and wheresoever he may be, the great names of German history shine like stars in the heaven above him! And the Irishman, though the political existence of his country is merged in a kingdom whose rule he may abhor, yet still do the chords of his heart vibrate responsive to the tones of the harp of Erin, and the lowly shamrock is dearer to his soul than the fame-crowning laurel, the love-breathing myrtle, or storm-daring pine. What is our country? Not alone the land and the sea, the lakes and rivers, and valleys and mountains; not alone the people, their customs and laws; not alone the memories of the past, the hopes of the future; it is something more than all these combined. It is a divine abstraction. You cannot tell what it is, but let its flag rustle above your head, you feel its living presence in your hearts. They tell us that our country must die; that the sun and the stars will look down upon the great republic no more; that already the black eagles of despotism are gathering in our political sky; that even now kings and emperors are casting lots for the garments of our national glory. It shall not be! Not yet, not yet shall the nations lay the bleeding corpse of our country in the tomb! If they could, angels would roll the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre ! It would burst the cerements of the grave and come forth a living presence, "redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled." Not yet, not yet shall the republic die! The heavens are not darkened, the stones are not rent. It shall live,-it shall live, the embodiment of the power and majesty of the people. Baptized anew, it shall stand a thousand years to come, the colossus of the nations, its feet upon the continents, its sceptre over the seas, its forehead among the stars. NEWTON Bоотн. AMERICA AN AGGREGATE OF NATIONS. GIANT aggregate of nations, glorious whole, of glorious parts, Fling away absurd ambition! people, leave that toy to kings; Envy, jealousy, suspicion,-be above such grovelling things: In each other's joys delighted, all your hate be-joys of war, And by all means keep united, sister States, as now ye are! Were I but some scornful stranger, still my counsel would be just; Break the band and all is danger, mutual fear and dark distrust; But you know me for a brother, and a friend who speaks from far, Be as one, then, with each other, sister States, as now ye are ! If it seems a thing unholy, Freedom's soil by slaves to till, Yet be just! and sagely, slowly, nobly cure that ancient ill: Slowly,-haste is fatal ever; nobly,-lest good faith ye mar; Sagely, not in wrath, to sever, sister States, as now ye are! Charmed with your commingled beauty, England sends the signal round, Every man must do his duty" to redeem from bonds the bound! Then, indeed, your banner's brightness, shining clear from every star, Shall proclaim your uprightness, sister States, as now ye are! So a peerless constellation may those stars forever blaze! Three-and-ten times threefold nation, go ahead in power and praise ! Like the many-breasted goddess, throned on her Ephesian car, Be-one heart, in many bodies! sister States, as now ye are ! MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER. THE AMERICAN PATRIOT'S HOPE. OUR republic has long been a theme of speculation among the savans of Europe. They profess to have cast its horoscope; and fifty years was fixed upon by many as the utmost limit of its duration. But those years passed by, and beheld us a united and happy people; our political atmosphere agi tated by no storm, and scarce a cloud to obscure the serenity of our horizon; all of the present was prosperity, all of the future was hope. True, upon the day of that anniversary two venerable fathers of our freedom and of our country fell; but they sank calmly to rest, in the maturity of years and the fulness of time, and their simultaneous departure, on that day of jubilee, for another and a better world, was hailed by our nation as a propitious sign, sent to us from heaven. Wandering the other day in the alcoves of the library, I accidentally opened a volume containing the orations delivered by many distinguished men on that solemn occasion, and I noted some expressions of a few who now sit in this hall, which are deep-fraught with the then prevailing, I may say, universal feeling. It is inquired by one, "Is this the effect of accident, or blind chance, or has God, who holds in his hands the destiny of nations and of men, designed these things as an evidence of the permanence and perpetuity of our institutions ?" Another says, "Is it not stamped with the seal of divinity?" And a third, descanting on the prospects, bright and glorious, which opened on our beloved country, says, "Auspicious omens cheer us!" Yet it would have required but a tinge of superstitious gloom to have drawn from that event darker forebodings of that which was to come. In our primitive wilds, where the order of nature is unbroken by the hand of man, there, where majestic trees arise, spread forth their branches, live out their age, and decline, sometimes will a patriarchal plant, which has stood for centuries the winds and storms, fall, when no breeze agitates a leaf of the trees that surround it. And when, in the calm stillness of a summer's noon, the solitary woodsman hears, on either hand, the heavy crash of huge, branchless trunks, falling by their own weight to the earth whence they sprung,prescient of the future, he foresees the whirlwind at hand, which shall sweep through the forest, break its strongest stems, upturn its deepest roots, and strew in the dust its tallest, proudest heads. But I am none of those who indulge in gloomy anticipation. I do not despair of the republic. My trust is strong that |