Year: 1876

W
it was tabled that Jupiter, and Juno,
and Mercury, came from Olympus, to
hurl confusion into the contending
ranks of armies. To this decisive
combat, the one true God of battles
sent bis evaDgels from their skiey
abodes, to minister to the true heart
and nerve the strong arm of the union
soldier, contending for the preserva.
tion of the liberties handed down to
him by the fathers. And though the
issues were so tremendous, the result
to humanity 30 important, the faith
in the event so universal and sublime,
still the day of decision did not ar
rive,-hope often deferred I1ade sick
the patriot heart,-and though the
soldiers courage waned not, and peo-
pies faith failed not, yet after three
years of a struggle, the event still hung
in doubtful balance, when in a supreme
moment, Abraham Lincoln threw into
the trembling scales the broken man
acles of four millions of bondsmen,
and then came the end! The athlete
Of the occident rose from the encoun.
ter, laureled with Gettysburg, AMI
made his triumphal march directly
through the gates of victory. And,
what is unparalleled in the history of
any country, the United States, that
had gone into the war dependent upon
British manufacture, that had ruled
aud belted the commercial world from
the time of the Navigation Act, came
out of it with her own wrought to
a degree of perfection that placed her
in the vanguard of civilization.


2. But let US turn for moment to
the tendency of this great people. In
Republic like ours changes take
place almost imperceptibly, which
under other forms Of government,
would descend only from the scaffold,
or rise from a revolution. And so it
always has been since the origin of
our institutions here. X
But the same laws will govern as did
in the beginnings, if we but retain the
moral manhood Of the fathers. Yet
we have difficulties in our day that
were wholly unknown to them, and
graver, we think, in their character.
They had slavery and federalism-we
have the dangers arising from immi-
grafton, emancipation, and centraliza-
tion in State and industrial affairs.
These in their tendency are vast prob
lens for our day, that are not solved
at this hour, and which will require
the finest mounted political wisdom
for their solution.


a. l do not deprecate immigration.
It is only few years since our faith
ers themselves came to this land for a
resting place and retreat from op-
preston. 1t is the glory, and
shall ever be the boast of America,
that she IS the homo of the friendless,
and refuge for all who toll, or march or
sail under the sun. But those dense
masses of foreign populations, like the
ocean waves that bring them, are roll
ing in upon US with a rapidity and
frequency that were wholly unknown
to the fathers. AS they come, they
renounce allegiance to Queen or Em.
peror, while at the same tiEne vast
majority are pledged in heart and
conscience, to obey the Pope of Rome
in things temporal, as lord paramount.
The doctrine of this temporal prince
is that he has full power to absolve his
subjects, wherever they are, from allie
glance to all government, and attach
it to his own. The tendency of all
this would be to overthrow free gov
ernment here, and establish the tenn
poral power Of the church. II ia
strongly opposed by the liberty loving
Catholics Of America-and am glad
[ can reckon in that church some of
the most eminent patriots of the age,
some Of the most devoted citizens of
our own or any times, but it has its
advocates, and it has, too, its menace
of danger to our institutions. l point
you, my fellow citizens, to the common
school of our land, as the palladium
of our liberty, the very temples of
American citizenship, spanned by the
divine arch of promise, one extremity
resting on the gates Of the kingdom
of knowledge, and the other resting
upon the gates Of the kingdom of
heaven, against which vandal hands
were never uplifted, until immigration
sent them to our shores. | point you
to the Bible of the Christian, as the
benofcent oasket in which are contain
ed all the treasures of government,
law, and civilization so miraculously
preserved TO us through the centuries,
upon which hands sacriiegious were
never laid, until immigration made
such outrage possible. The bell, hung