Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1852-05-28

'e pass away on their lightning -braidt
re pinions and leave unruff1ed the sun -bathe
ss sky of smiling and serenest blue.
If Seventy-6v years ago, on the First I
g July, within a guarded chamber, burie
II in the shadows of their own thoughts,
wise and brave few-the honored Congrei
+ of the oppressed colonists Of America
II with untrembling hands, signed tn
e magma Charta" of our national emanci
: patton. What dim visions of the spectra
!, gallows and bloody scaffold foated in upol
, the sea Of troubled thought, We know not
} The men within those walls-since become
the holicst, dearest shrine of Freedom
whether among the ruined fanes Of olden
wrapt WIN nj ihe iame taS "a inodei SH %
and drenched with the hero blood OF
modern valor-the little band of calm,
bold men, within the stiffness of their
sanctuary, heard but the agonized beating
Of the great national heart. Four days
went by-three weary days Of anxiety and
troubled anticipation. The morning OF
the Fourth, the sun shone out goldenly
as though the smile of God were awaiting,
with its sweet radiance, the one deed OF
that immortal day. From the portal of
Independence Hall a group of men ad-
yanced to meet the crowd, who, with
uncovered heads, are pressing closer to
hear read, for the first time, that glorious
instrument which has since, in each sue
ceeding year, been re-read in every hamlet
and village home throughout our free Uni
ted States. Calmly they listen-those
sons Of toll, with new joy in their hearts
while that venerable man, with the
light of heaven burning in his eye, in a
clear, sororous voice, reads to them the
declaration of human rights, the recital of
deep wrongs inflicted by an unnatural
mother country, and the bold avowal of an
uaAir ching determination to resist the
aggressions of royalty. The names of
those who had pledged to each other
their lives, fortunes and sacred houors,"
were slowly repeated, and when the last
word died upon the air, loud aud long
huzza, from that vast multitude, startled
the slumbering echoes for many a mile
away, while with the dying cadences
mingled the deep, musical tones of the
old bell suspended in the tower hun
dred feet above the crowded street that
stretched below to the margin of the blue
waved Delaware Upon the rim of that
bell whose joyous clamor announced the
natal hour of Columbia, was inscribed the
appropriate, seemingly prophetic legend,
"PRocLA1M LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL
THE LAND, TO ALL THE INHA-
BITANTs THEREOF"
That wa. the Fourth of July, 1776.
The scene changed. Through six
dark years Of war, and despair, and blood,
the little army-their country, our coun-
try's last hope-that hero-band,in winters
snow and summers heat on many q
warmly contested battlefield, one by one
laid down their lives in the sacred cause
they had espou,ed, until scanty remnant
remained. But Princeton, Brandyvine,
Saratoga, Monmouth, Camden and York.
town had, at last, all been fought-and
our nattos ras free.
Three-quarters Of a century have gone
by, and on the Fourth Of July, 1851, the
golden sun shone down upon unnumbered
dwellings of happy. freemen. Europe,
whose soldier r-hordes in our time of weak
ness sought to stiao the germ of our
greatness-Europe, our rjealous and tyran-
nous mother, has gladly availed herself of
our proHered asylum for her poor and
suffering children. They come from the
depths Of Germany, from the wilds of
once glorious Scotland, from stricken
Hungary, from the fair wales of Italy,
from the snow fields of the Russ, from
gaunt, famine-cursed ireland, from old,
classic Grcece-across the isle gemmed
the Joviau Alps, the broad
Atlantic---thcy come to the shores Of our
free land, and the welcoming embrace Of
brothers. Thirty one stars now blaze on
the azure field of our world honored flag
a constellation of unsullied glory and
iimle.s splendor.
ABsAtoM B. STEWART.
University, Le1isdury, Pa.
An always timely Suggestion.
Its pleasant to sit with ones wife
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