Year: 1876

Like an Olu UOGumeut, muSCy Win dSe


but priceless in the value of its COLDER
( contents We lay aside our first cen


tury as the brightest in the archives
OF any Nations history. The sur
\ Of its existence set upon repu.
tation replete with glory, and we turn oul
faces from its withering shadows and well
come in the new.. Forty millions Of peo-
pie to-day stand upon the brink Of new
era and ready to plunge into the manifold
duties of life that it will bring forth ;
! glapple with its mutations of fortune and
adyersity, and bear on with the current
through the varied passages it will drift.
The Old Century laid the foundation stone
of wisdom in Government, and ifthe new
improves the lessons Of the old, it
must build wisely upon the walls of expe-
rience that are covered with the dust of
the past, and guard jealously lis volume
Of golden principles that are bejeweled
with worth inestimable.


We are thrown upon the new Century,
guided by the lamp-hand of all the
heroic examples, that glorious ancestry
has given us as common heritage. The
plow handles of thought and construction
are in our own hands, and we must cut the
furrow broad and deep, SO that we may be
seen in the way that we walk, as those did
who first made the foundation that we are
to build on. 1t must bear the imperial
stamp of honesty in every line, and mark
ed by cut as bold and incisive as that
which turned the plant natures one hun
dred years ago to sinews of steel and wills
of adamante. These same steps of manly
spirit and moral courage we want in the
new Century. If the beginning of the old
was made time to try mems souls by the
battling Of honest people against oppres-
sion's yoke; if priva!ion gave the temper
to industry, if freedom and liberty strung
the nerve and will of independence, is not
the beginning of the second hundredth
year fraught with lessons as susceptible of
cultivation? We will let the past fifteen
years scared upon the pages of history in
tlood, fire and political corruption answer.


We are in the midst of national emer-
gencies that the priceless principles, given
us by the constructive genius Of the past,
should be applied to. Its Declaration of
Independence, containing the essence of
honesty and manliness in every word,
should frame the mind of freemen to the
same mould of thought that it was cast in.
Its celebration day before yesterday should
prick patriotism in every sense of Ameri-
can honor, spurn unmanliness and dishon-
esty beneath the heel of an impartial JUS
tice. and let the future throw a sunshine of
improvement upon the omissions of the
past. Forty million people commemora-
ting the first hundred years in blaze of
enthusiasm that linked all hearts together
al by rivets Of steel, gilds each page of our
history with an endorsement that cements
the Union as one and inseparable.


In the fastness of this Union, consecrated
TO honest principles, the actions Of this
new century should avail the lessons the
old has given us. What made one a sue
cess should make the other still greater.
1t should unmask that which is hidden in
public Office. and expose it to the view of
criticism. Nothing should be obscure
and if it is, the hand of the public is the
one to tear away the obscurity. Govern
ment now should be as pure and unsullied
as the declaration Of principles one hun
dred years ago intended. Let the future
crown the past with still brighter laurels
than did the end of the past, and pay tribute
to the mighty intellects that dared to act
with the right, by a fulfllment Of the pur-
poses that they wrought for the joy of
country and posterity, and it will be an
epitaph appropriate as we can inscribe
upon the tablet o memory, that marks
briIliancy in statesmanship and valor, un-
karalelled in this or any other country.


new Century belongs to all. If Its
: are made salutary, then will lit be