AGRICULTURE AND LOVE OF COUNTRY. 127 "Yes, by the blood our fathers shed, Whilst streaming from the gallant dead, It sealed and sanctified thy laws." Yes, and strong hearts and strong hands will hold their own; the promise of brave men will prevail, and echoing down the avenues of time will strike grand chords of harmony in the lives of our children and our children's children. So, in the far-off ages, when hundreds of millions of our flesh and blood shall fill this land, dwelling together in the glory of such peace as no turmoil can trouble, and no discontent disturb, those men of the dim future will remember what we swore to do, and what we did; and, looking back they will say one to another, "On that day our fathers struck a mighty blow, and shattered and crushed and trampled out all dissensions, all party strife for ever and ever. Choose, then, of your own heart and will, a man, to be our President and our leader. Elect him with one accord, and, as you give your voices in his choice, stand here together, knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, and let the mighty oath go thundering up to Heaven, "This Union shall not be broken." AGRICULTURE AND LOVE OF COUNTRY. JOSEPH HOLT. NEXT to the worship of the Father of us all-the deepest and grandest of human emotions-is the love of the land that gave us birth. It is an enlargement and exaltation of all the tenderest and strongest sympathies of kindred and home. In all centuries and climes it has lived, and defied chains, and dun geons, and racks, to crush it. It has strewed the earth with its monuments, and has shed undying lustre on a thousand fields on which it has battled. Through the night of ages, Thermopyla glows like some mountain peak on which the morning sun has risen, because 2,300 years ago this hallowed passion touched its mural precipice and its crowning crags. It is easy, however, to be patriotic in piping times of peace, and in the sunny hour of prosperity. It is national sorrow, it is war with its attendant perils and horrors, that test this passion, and winnow from the masses those who, with all their love of life, still love their country more. We honor commerce with its busy marts, and the workshop with its patient toil, and exhaustless ingenuity; but still, we would be unfaithful to the truth of history did we not confess, that the most heroic champions of human freedom, and the most illustrious apostle of its principles, have come from the broad fields of agriculture. There seems to be something in the scenes of nature, in her wild and beautiful landscapes, in her cascades and cataracts and waving woodlands, and in the pure and exhilarating air of her hills and mountains, that unbraces the fetters which man would rivet upon the spirit of his fellow-man. It was at the handles of the plough, and amid the breathing odors of its newly opened furrows, that the character of Cincinnatus was formed and matured. It was not in the city, but in the deep gorges and upon the snow-clad summits of the Alps, amid the eagles and the thunders, that William Tell laid the foundations of those altars to human liberty, against which the surging tides of European despotism have beat for centuries, but, thank God! have beat in vain. It was amid the primeval forests and mountains, the lakes and leaping streams of our own land, PLEA FOR THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON. 129 amid fields of waving grain, amid the songs of the reaper, and the tinkling of the shepherd's bell, that were nurtured those rare virtues which clustered, starlike, in the character of Washington, and lifted him in moral stature a head and shoulders above even the demi-gods of ancient story. PLEA FOR THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, WENDELL PHILLIPS. A HUNDRED years ago our fathers announced this sublime declaration, "God intended all men to be free and equal." To-day, with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with her millions of people, with two wars behind her, with the sublime achievement of having grappled with the fearful disease that threatened her life, and broken four millions of fetters, the great Republic launches into the second century of her existence. With how much pride, with what a thrill, with what tender and loyal reverence, may we not cherish the spot where this marvellous enterprise began, the roof under which its first councils were held, where the air still trembles and burns with Otis and Sam Adams. Except the Holy City, is there any more memorable or sacred place, on the face of the earth, than the cradle of such a change? Athens has her Acropolis, but the Greek can point to no such results. London has her Palace, and her Tower, and her St. Stephen's Chapel, but the human race owes her no such memories. France has spots marked by the sublimest devotion, but the Mecca of the man who believes and hopes for the human race is not to Paris, it is to the seaboard cities of the great Republic. And when the flag was assailed, and the regiments marched through the streets, what walls did they salute as the regimental flags floated by to Gettsyburg and Antietam? These! Our boys carried down to the battle-fields the memory of State Street, of Faneuil Hall, of the Old South Church. We had signal prominence in those early days. It was on the men of Boston that Lord North visited his revenge. It was our port was to be shut and its commerce annihilated. It was Sam Adams and John Hancock who enjoy the everlasting reward of being the only names excepted from the royal proclamation of forgiveness. Here, Sam Adams, the ablest and ripest statesman God gave to the epoch, forecast those measures which welded thirteen colonies into one thunderbolt, and launched it at George the Third. Here, Otis magnetized every boy into a desperate rebel. The saving of this landmark is the best monument you can erect to the men of the Revolution. You spend thousand of dollars to put up a statue of some old hero. You want your sons to gaze upon the nearest approach to the features of those "dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule our spirits from their urns." But what is a statue of Cicero, compared to standing where your voice echoes from pillar and wall that actually heard his philippics? Scholars have grown old and blind, striving to put their hands on the very spot where bold men spoke or brave men died. Shall we tear in pieces the roof that actually trembled to the words that made us a nation? It is impossible not to believe, if the spirits above us are permitted to know what passes in this terrestrial sphere, that Adams and Warren and Otis are to-day bending over us asking that the scene of their immortal labors shall not be desecrated or blotted from the sight of men. Consecrate it again to the memory and worship of a grateful people! Napoleon turned aside his Simplon road to save a tree Cæsar had once mentioned. Won't you turn a street, or spare a quarter of an acre, to remind boys what sort of men their fathers were? Think twice before you touch these walls. We are the world's trustees. The Old South no more belongs to us, than Luther's or Hampden's or Brutus's name does to Germany, England, or Rome. Each and all are held in trust as torchlight guides and inspiration for any man struggling for justice and ready to die for truth. The worship of great memories, noble deeds, sacred places, is one of the keenest ripeners of such elements. Seize greedily on every chance to save and emphasize them. NEW ENGLAND. S. S. PRENTISS. GLORIOUS New England! thou art still true to thine ancient fame and worthy of thine ancestral honors! A thousand fond associations throng upon us, roused by the spirit of the hour! On thy pleasant valleys rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early life; around thy hills and mountains cling, like gathering mists, the mighty memories of the Revolution; and far away in the horizon of thy past gleam, like thine own bright northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim sires! But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, let us not forget the one in which our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection |