future and in the destiny of America?-something above and beyond the patriotism and love which every man whose soul is not dead within him feels for the land of his birth? Is it not to be national and not sectional, independent and not colonial? Is it not to have a high conception of what this great new country should be, and to follow out that ideal with loyalty and truth? HENRY CABOT LODGE.

Have we not learned that not stocks nor bonds, nor stately houses nor lands, nor the product of the mill, is our country? It is a spiritual thought that is in our minds. It is the flag and what it stands for. It is its glorious history. It is the fireside and the home. It is the high thoughts that are in the heart, born of the inspiration which comes by the stories of their fathers, the martyrs to liberty; it is the grave-yards into which our careful country has gathered the unconscious dust of those who have died. Here, in these things, is that which we love and call our country, rather than in anything that can be touched or handled. BENJAMIN HARRISON.

With passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to his country. So Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that his country demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than God and the satisfied sense of duty. So George Washington, at once comprehending the scope of the destiny to which his country was devoted, with one hand puts aside the crown, and with the other sets his slaves free. So, through all history from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history to the end, as long as men believe in God, that army must still march and fight and fall-recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of humanity, strong only in their confidence in their cause.

GEORGE W. CURTIS.

In the war of the Revolution, when it was thought the cause was lost, men became inspired at the very mention of the

name of George Washington. In 1812, when we succeeded once more against the mother country, men were looking for a hero, and there rose before them that rugged, grim, independent old hero, Andrew Jackson. In the last and greatest of all wars, an independent and tender-hearted man was raised up by Providence to guide the helm of state through that great crisis, and men confidingly placed the destinies of this great land in the hands of Abraham Lincoln. In the annals of our country, we find no man whose training had been so peaceful, whose heart was so gentle, whose nature was so tender, and yet who was called upon to marshal the hosts of the masses of the people during four years of remorseless and bloody and unrelenting fratricidal war. HORACE PORTER.

And how is the spirit of a free people to be formed and animated and cheered, but out of the storehouse of its historic recollections? Are we to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermopyla; and going back to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin of the exemplars of patriotic virtue? I thank God that we can find them nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil; that strains of the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man, are breathing to us out of every page of our country's history, in the native eloquence of our native tongue; that the colonial and provincial councils of America exhibit to us models of the spirit and character which gave Greece and Rome their name and their praise among the nations. Here we may go for our instruction; the lesson is plain, it is clear, it is applicable.

EDWARD EVERETT.

As the American youth, for uncounted centuries, shall visit the capital of his country-strongest, richest, freest, happiest of the nations of the earth-from the stormy coast of New England, from the luxurious regions of the Gulf, from the prairie and the plain, from the Golden Gate, from far Alaska-he will admire the evidences of its grandeur and the monuments of its historic glory.

He will find there rich libraries and vast museums, which

show the product of that matchless inventive genius of America, which has multiplied a thousandfold the wealth and comfort of human life. He will see the simple and modest portal through which the great line of the Republic's chief magistrates have passed, at the call of their country, to assume an honor surpassing that of emperors and kings, and through which they have returned, in obedience to her laws, to take their place again as equals in the ranks of their fellow citizens. He will stand by the matchless obelisk, which, loftiest of human structures, is itself but the imperfect type of the loftiest of human characters. He will gaze upon the marble splendors of the Capitol, in whose chambers are enacted the statutes under which the people of a continent dwell together in peace, and the judgments are rendered which keep the forces of states and nation alike within their appointed bounds. He will look upon the records of great wars and the statues of great commanders. But, if he know his country's history, and consider wisely the sources of her glory, there is nothing in all these which will so stir his heart as two fading and time-soiled papers whose characters were traced by the hands of the fathers one hundred years ago. They are the original records of the acts which devoted this nation, forever, to equality, to education, to religion, and to liberty. One is the Declaration of Independence, the other is the Ordinance of 1787.

GEORGE F. HOAR.

A

Meaning and Literature of the Flag

LL hail to our glorious ensign! Courage to the heart, and strength to the hand, to which, in all time, it shall be entrusted! May it ever wave in honor, in unsullied glory, and patriotic hope, on the dome of the Capitol, on the country's stronghold, on the tented plain, on the wave-rocked topmast. Wherever, on the earth's surface, the eye of the American shall behold it, may he have reason to bless it! On whatsoever spot it is planted, there may freedom have a foothold, humanity a brave champion, and religion an altar. Though stained with

blood in a righteous cause, may it never, in any cause, be stained with shame. Alike, when its gorgeous folds shall wanton in lazy holiday triumphs on the summer breeze, and its tattered fragments be dimly seen through the clouds of war, may it be the joy and the pride of the American heart. First raised in the cause of right and liberty, in that cause alone may it forever spread out its streaming blazonry to the battle and the storm. Having been borne victoriously across the continent, and on every sea, may virtue, and freedom, and peace forever follow where it leads the way. EDWARD EVERETT.

There is the national flag! He must be cold, indeed, who can look upon its folds rippling in the breeze without pride of country. If he be in a foreign land, the flag is companionship, and country itself with all its endearments. Who, as he sees it, can think of a state merely? Whose eye once fastened upon its radiant trophies can fail to recognize the image of the whole nation?

It has been called a "floating piece of poetry;" and yet I know not if it have any intrinsic beauty beyond other ensigns. Its highest beauty is in what it symbolizes. It is because it represents all, that all gaze at it with delight and reverence. It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air; but it speaks sublimely and every part has a voice. Its stripes of alternate red and white proclaim the original union of thirteen states to maintain the Declaration of Independence. Its stars, white on a field of blue, proclaim that union of states constituting our national constellation, which receives a new star with every new state. The two together signify union, past and present. The very colors have a language which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice; and all together-bunting, stripes, stars, and colors, blazing in the sky-make the flag of our country, to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands.

CHARLES SUMNER.

I have recently returned from an extended tour of the states, and nothing so impressed and so refreshened me as the

universal display of this banner of beauty and glory. It waved over the school-houses; it was in the hands of the school children. As we speeded across the sandy wastes at some solitary place, a man, a woman, a child, would come to the door and wave it in loyal greeting. Two years ago I saw a sight that has ever been present in my memory. As we were going out of the harbor of Newport, about midnight, on a dark night, some of the officers of the torpedo station had prepared for us a beautiful surprise. The flag at the depot station was unseen in the darkness of the night, when suddenly electric search lights were turned on it, bathing it in a flood of light. All below the flag was hidden, and it seemed to have no touch with earth, but to hang from the battlements of heaven. It was as if heaven was approving the human liberty and human equality typified by that flag.

BENJAMIN HARRISON.

For myself, in our federal relations, I know but one section, one union, one flag, one government. That section embraces every state; that union is the Union sealed with the blood and consecrated by the tears of the Revolutionary struggle; that flag is the flag known and honored in every sea under heaven; which has borne off glorious victory from many a bloody battle field, and yet stirs with warmer and quicker pulsations the heart's blood of every true American, when he looks upon its stars and stripes. I will sustain that flag wherever it waves— over the sea or over the land. And when it shall be despoiled and disfigured, I will rally around it still, as the star-spangled banner of my fathers and my country; and, so long as a single stripe can be discovered, or a single star shall glimmer from the surrounding darkness, I will cheer it as the emblem of a nation's glory and a nation's hope.

DANIEL S. DICKINSON.

Behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe is articulate. "There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard." There is magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution