together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so, on the American flag, stars and beams of many colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and no fierce eagle; they see the symbols of light. It is the Banner of Dawn; it means Liberty.

Consider the men who devised and set forth this banner; they were men that had taken their lives in their hands, and consecrated all their worldly possessions for what? For the doctrine, and for the personal fact, of liberty, —for the right of all men to liberty.

If any one, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him, it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known, or has since known, the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.

The history of this banner is all on the side of liberty. Under it, rode Washington and his armies; before it, Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven away, by the beams of light from this starry banner.

It cheered our army, driven from New York, in their pilgrimage through New Jersey. It streamed in light over the soldiers' heads at Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of this nation. And when the long years of war were drawing to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington, while Yorktown surrendered its hosts, and our Revolutionary struggles ended with victory.

How glorious, then, has been its origin! How glorious has been its history! How divine its meaning! In all the world is there another banner that carries such hope, such grandeur of spirit, such soulinspiring truth, as our dear old American flag? Made by liberty, made for liberty, nourished in its spirit, carried in its service, and never, not once in all the earth, made to stoop to despotism!

It

Accept it, then, in its fulness of meaning. is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the government. It is the free people that stand in the government, on the Constitution. Forget not what it means; and for the sake of its meaning, be true to your country's flag.

Let us, then, twine each thread of the glorious tissues of our country's flag about our heartstrings; and, looking upon our homes and catching the spirit

that breathes upon us from the battle-fields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the stars and stripes. They have been unfurled from the snows of Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the Montezumas, and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the brave to victory and to glory. They have floated over our cradles; let it be our prayer and our struggle that they shall float over our graves.

ef ful'gent, shining brightly; splendid. | Bur goyne', an English general who ram'pant, raging.

mo men'tous, of great importance. em blaʼzon ry, decorations, as figures on shields, standards, etc.

surrendered to the American army at Saratoga, October 17, 1777.

Mon te zu'mas, emperors of Mexico. be nef'i cent, kindly, charitable.

HENRY WARD BEECHER (1813-1887) was a noted American clergyman, author, and orator.

WHAT IS A MINORITY?

JOHN B. GOUGH

WHAT is a minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in the minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient sufferings of the minority. It is the minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle.

It is the minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world. You will find that each generation has been always busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation's history.

Minority! if a man stand up for the right, though the right be on the scaffold, while the wrong sits in the seat of government; if he stand for the right, though he eat, with the right and truth, a wretched crust; if he walk with obloquy and scorn in the bylanes and streets, while falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire, — let him remember that wherever the right and truth are, there are always "troops of beautiful, tall angels" gathering round him, and God himself stands within the dim future, and keeps watch over his own.

If a man stands for the right and the truth, though every man's finger be pointed at him, though every woman's lips be curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with him, and greater are they that are for him than all they that are against him!

vin'di cat ed, defended, justified. | ob’lo quy, reproach; blame.

JOHN B. GOUGH (1817-1886) was born in England. He came to America in 1829. After years of intemperance, he became greatly interested in temperance reform. He was the most popular lecturer of his time.