would have slept in its native bèd. It has a purpose; and that purpose gives it character. Thát purpose enrobes it with dignity and móral grandeur. That wellknown purpose it is, which causes us to look up to it with a feeling of awe. It is itself the órator of this occasion.

3. It is not from my lips, it is not from any human lips, that that strain of eloquence is this day to flów, most competent to move and excite the vast multitudes around. The potent speaker stands motionless before them. It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscríptions, fronting to the rising sún, from which the future antiquarian shall wipe the dúst. Nor does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its sùmmit. But at the rising of the sun, and at the setting of the sun, in the blaze of nóon-day, and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it speaks, it àcts, to the full comprehension of every American mind, and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart.

4. Its silent, but awful útterance; its deep pathos, as it brings to our contemplation the 17th of June, 1775, and the consequences which have resulted to us, to our cóuntry, and to the world, from the events of that day, and which we know must continue to rain influence on the destinies of mankind to the end of time; the elevation with which it raises us high above the ordinary feelings of life-surpass all that the study of the clóset, or even the inspiration of gènius can prodùce.

5. To-day, it speaks to us. Its future auditories will be through successive generations of mén, as they rise up before it, and gather round it. Its speech will be of pátriotism and còurage; of civil and religious liberty; of free government; of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind; and of the immortal mémory of those who, with heroic devótion, have sacrificed their lives for their country.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

23. THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON.

1. The birthday of the "Father of his Country"! May it ever be freshly remembered by American hearts! May it ever re-awaken in them a filial veneration for his memory; ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard for the country which he loved so well, to which he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy, during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; to which he devoted his life in the maturity of his powers, in the field; to which again he offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience, as president of the convention that framed our Constitution; which he guided and directed while in the chair of state, and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and so grandly, and so calmly, to die.

2. He was the first man of the time in which he grew. His memory is first and most sacred in our love, and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be a spell of power and of might.

3. Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity, which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty, and towering and matchless glory of his life which enabled him to create his country, and at the same time secure an undying love and regard from the whole American people. "The first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Yes, first! He has our first and most fervent love.

4. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American nation, as a nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the first love of that Young America was Washington. The first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her

proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life!

5. Yes; others of our great men have been appreciated many admired by all; but him we love; him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements-no sectional prejudice nor bias-no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes; when the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart.

RUFUS CHOATE.

24. THE NATIONAL CLOCK.

1. Every nation is like a clock, the forces at work within carrying forward sonie purpose or plan of Providence with patient constancy; but when the season comes that the sixtieth minute is dúe, and a new hour must be sounded, perhaps not for the nation alóne, but for the world, thén-then the clock strikes, and it may be with a force and résonance that startles and inspires the race.

2. The first American revolution was such a pèriodthat was the glory of it. The English Government had oppressed our fathers. It tried to break their spirit. For several years it was a dark time, like the hours before the striking of the dawn.

3. But the Colonial time-piece kept ticking, ticking to the pressure of the English Government, the giant wheels playing calmly till about 1775', when there was a strange stir and buzz within the case. The people could not bear any mòre of it. But the sixtieth minute cáme, and the clock struck.

4. The world heard-the battle of Léxington-one; the Declaration of Independence-twò; the surrender of Bur

góyne—thrèe; the siege of Yorktown—fòur; the Treaty of Páris-five; the inauguration of Washington—sìx. 5. And then it was sunrise of the new dày, of which we have seen yet only the glórious forendon.

THOMAS STARR KING.

25. FREE SCHOOLS.

1. It is impossible for us adequately to conceive the boldness of the measure which aimed at universal education through the establishment of Free Schools. As a fact, it had no precedent in the world's history; and, as a theory, it could have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of argument and experience than was ever marshaled against any other institution of human origin.

2. But time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries of successful operation now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, and as beneficent as it was disinterested. Every community in the civilized world awards it the meed of praise, and States at home, and nations abroad, in the order of their intelligence, are copying the bright example.

3. What we call the enlightened nations of Christendom are approaching, by slow degrees, to the moral elevation which our ancestors reached at a single bound; and the tardy convictions of the one have been assimilating, through a period of two centuries, to the intuitions. of the other.

4. The establishment of Free Schools was one of those grand mental and moral experiments whose effects could not be developed and made manifest in a single generation. But now, according to the manner in which human life is computed, we are the sixth generation from its founders; and have we not reason to be grateful, both to God and man, for its unnumbered blessings? The

sincerity of our gratitude must be tested by our efforts to perpetuate and to improve what they established. The gratitude of the lips only is an unholy offering.

HORACE MANN.

26. THE BALLOT.

1. Consider, for a moment, what it is to cast a vòte, It is the token of inestimable privileges, and involves the responsibilities of an heréditary trùst. It has passed into your hands as a rìght, reaped from fields of suffering and blood.

2. The grandeur of history is represented in your àct. Men have wrought with pen and tongue, and pined in dúngeons, and died on scaffolds, that you might obtain this symbol of freedom, and enjoy this consciousness of a sácred individuality. To the ballot have been transmítted, as it wére, the dignity of the scéptre and the potency of the swòrd.

3. And that which is so potent as a right, is also pregnant as a dûty; a duty for the présent and for the fùture. If you will, that folded leaf becomes a tongue of justice, a voice of òrder, a force of imperial làw— securing rights, abolishing abúses, erecting new institutions of truth and love. And, however you will, it is the expression of a sólemn responsibility, the éxercise of an immeasurable power for good or for évil, nów and hereafter.

4. It is the medium through which you act upon your country-the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the republic are more intimately invólved, none upon which we can fall back with more confidence than the ballot-box.

E. H. CHAPIN.