These men were few in number; we are many. They were poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we are strong. What is it, countrymen, that we need to-day? Wealth? Behold it in your hands. Power? God hath given it you. Liberty? It is your birthright. Peace? It dwells amongst you. You have a Government founded in the hearts of men, built by the people for the common good. You have a land flowing with milk and honey; your homes are happy, your workshops busy, your barns are full. The school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing press, have welded you together into one. Descend those mines that honeycomb the hills! Behold that commerce whitening every sea! Stand by yon gates and see that multitude pour through them from the corners of the earth, grafting the qualities of older stocks upon one stem; mingling the blood of many races in a common stream, and swelling the rich volume of our English speech with varied music from an hundred tongues. You have a long and glorious history, a past glittering with heroic deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and unperishable examples. You have passed through danger, endured privation, been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by suffering. You have journeyed in safety through the wilderness and crossed in triumph the Red Sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who led you hath not faltered nor the light of His countenance been turned away. It is a question for us now, not of the founding of a new government, but of the preservation of one already old; not of the formation of an independent power, but of the purification of a nation's life; not of the conquest of a foreign foe, but of the subjection of ourselves. The capacity of man to rule himself is to be proven in the days to come, not by the greatness of his wealth; not by his valor in the field; not by the extent of his dominion, nor by the splendor of his genius. The dangers of to-day come from within. The worship of self, the love of power, the lust for gold, the weakening of faith, the decay of public virtue, the lack of private worth-these are the perils which threaten our future; these are the enemies we have to fear; these are the traitors which infest the camp; and the danger was far less when Cataline knocked with his army at the gates of Rome. than when he sat smiling in the Senate House. We see them daily face to face; in the walk of virtue; in the road to wealth; in the path to honor; on the way to happiness. There is no peace between them and our safety. Nor can we avoid them and turn back. It is not enough to rest upon the past. No man or nation can stand still. We must mount upward or go down. We must grow worse or better. It is the Eternal law-we cannot change it. The century that is opening is all our own. The years that lie before us are a virgin page. We can inscribe them as we will. The future of our country rests upon us; the happiness of posterity depends upon us. The fate of humanity may be in our hands. That pleading voice, choked with the sobs of ages, which has so often spoken to deaf ears, is lifted up to us. It asks us to be brave, benevolent, consistent, true to the teachings of our history, proving "divine descent by worth divine." It asks us to be virtuousbuilding up public virtue by private worth; seeking that righteousness which exalteth nations. It asks us to be patriotic-loving our country before all other things; her happiness our happiness, her honor ours, her fame our own. It asks us, in the name of justice, in the name of charity, in the name of freedom, in the name of God. My countrymen, this anniversary has gone by forever, and my task is done. While I have spoken, the hour has passed from us: the hand has moved upon the dial, and the old century is dead. The American Union hath endured an hundred years! Here, on this threshold of the future, the voice of humanity shall not plead to us in vain. There shall be darkness in the days to come; danger for our courage; temptation for our virtue; doubt for our faith; suffering for our fortitude. A thousand shall fall before us, and tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall pass beneath our feet, and century follow century in quick succession. The generations of men shall come and go; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten; to-day and the glories of this noon shall vanish before to-morrow's sun; but America shall not perish, but endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons. SNEEZING. AFTER TAKING A PINCH OF SNUFF. What a moment, what a doubt! Wants to sneeze and cannot do it! How with rapturous torment fills me! Now says, "Sneeze, you fool,-get through it." Shee-shee-oh! 'tis most del-ishi Ishi-ishi-most del-ishi! (Hang it, I shall sneeze till spring!) Snuff is a delicious thing. COLUMBIA.-TIMOTHY Dwight. Columbia, Columbia to glory arise, The queen of the world, and the child of the skies! Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time; Let the crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name; To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire; Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display, And the east and the south yield their spices and gold. The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." THE SONG OF 1876.-BAYARD TAYLOR. Waken, voice of the land's devotion! Let every tongue be dumb That sounded its malice or murmured its fears; She wears her glory; We crown her the land of a hundred years! Out of darkness and toil and danger Into the light of victory's day. Help to the weak and home to the stranger, The voices of nations are heard in the cheers New love and honor, And crown her the queen of a hundred years? North and South, we are met as brothers; East and West, we are wedded as one! Right of each shall secure our mother's; For battle has tried thee and time endears; As pure as of old for a thousand years! THE DAWN OF THE CENTENNIAL. The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! See the lights and hear the heralds of the century to be! While the whole united people, with a bending heart and knee, Crave a blessing of the Father, and thank Him that they are free. The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! The nation unto joy is waking! Note the throbbings of its full heart as they daily stronger grow; Forgotten are the old discomforts, and the petty feuds I know Vanish, as we group together of our proudest life-blood flow. The dawn of peace is breaking!" breaking! The nation unto joy is waking! A joy that will be pure, absorbing, untempered by the grief That comes with victories of war, and brings of sorrow with relief, A great outburst of gladness, a country's fully ripened sheaf. The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! The nation unto joy is waking! Its first hundred years are passing, and to celebrate its birth hearth. The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! See the lights and hear the heralds of the century to be! While the whole united people, with a bending heart and knee, Crave a blessing of the Father, and thank Him that they are free. The dawn of peace is breaking! breaking! |