Fellow-citizens: This fresh, delightful morning, this vast assemblage of contented and happy people, this building, dedicated to the uses of civil government—all things about us tend to inspire our hearts with pride and with gratitude. Gratitude to that overruling Providence that turned hither, after the discovery of this continent, the steps of those who had the capacity to organize a free representative government. Gratitude to that Providence that has increased the feeble colonies on an inhospitable coast to these millions of prosperous people, who have found another sea and populated its sunny shores with a happy and growing people.
Gratitude to that Providence that led us through civil strife to a glory and a perfection of unity as a people that was otherwise impossible. Gratitude that we have to-day a Union of free States without a slave to stand as a reproach to that immortal declaration upon which our Government rests.
Pride that our people have achieved so much; that, triumphing over all the hardships of those early pioneers, who struggled in the face of discouragement and difficulties more appalling than those that met Columbus when he turned the prows of his little vessels toward an unknown shore; that, triumphing over perils of starvation, perils of savages, perils of sickness, here on the sunny slope of the Pacific they have established civil institutions and set up the banner of the imperishable Union.
NATURE SUPERIOR.
Sir Francis Bond Head, a popular English writer. Born near Rochester, Kent, January 1, 1893. Lieutenant-general of Upper Canada 1836-1838. Died, July 20, 1875.
In both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New World, nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World. The heavens of America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader.
AMERICA'S WELCOME.
Patrick Henry, a celebrated American orator and patriot. Born at Studley, Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died, June 6, 1799. The author of the celebrated phrase, "Give me liberty or give me death," in speaking in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775.
Cast your eyes over this extensive country; observe the salubrity of your climate, the variety and fertility of your soil, and see that soil intersected in every quarter by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of Heaven were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the way to wealth. You are destined, at some time or other, to become a great agricultural and commercial people; the only question is, whether you choose to reach this point by slow gradations, and at some distant period; lingering on through a long and sickly minority; subjected, meanwhile, to the machinations, insults, and oppressions, of enemies, foreign and domestic, without sufficient strength to resist and chastise them; or whether you choose rather to rush at once, as it were, to the full enjoyment of those high destinies, and be able to cope, single-handed, with the proudest oppressor of the Old World. If you prefer the latter course, as I trust you do, encourage immigration; encourage the husbandmen, the mechanics, the merchants, of the Old World to come and settle in this land of promise; make it the home of the skillful, the industrious, the fortunate, and happy, as well as the asylum of the distressed; fill up the measure of your population as speedily as you can, by the means which Heaven hath placed in your power; and I venture to prophesy there are those now living who will see this favored land amongst the most powerful on earth; able to take care of herself, without resorting to that policy, which is always so dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, of calling in foreign aid. Yes, they will see her great in arts and in arms; her golden harvests waving over fields of immeasurable extent; her commerce penetrating the most distant seas, and her cannon silencing the vain boasts of those who now proudly affect to rule the waves.