this vast continent before the Pilgrims came, and to the situation of its primitive inhabitants. There is the beginning. I could not but feel it, as I saw one or two of them, poor wanderers, as we came into Plymouth, seated by the road-side, wondering spectators of the pageant which was passing before their eyes.

A few days ago, as I saw in the newspapers, two light birch-bark canoes appeared in Boston Harbor, containing each a solitary Indian. They seemed, as they approached, to gaze in silent wonder at the city of the triple hills, rising street above street, and crowned with the dome of the State-House, and at the long line of villas stretching far into the background; -at the numerous small vessels outward bound, as they dropped down the channel and spread their broad wings to the breeze, and those which were returning weather-beaten from the ends of the earth; - at the steamers, dashing in every direction across the harbor, breathing volumes of smoke from their fiery lungs. They paddled their frail barks with dexterity and speed through this strange, busy, and to them, no doubt, bewildering scene; and having made the circuit of East Boston, the Navy Yard, the city itself, and South Boston, dropped down with the current, and disappeared among the Islands.

There was not a human being of kindred blood to utter a word of welcome to them, in all the region which on the day we now commemorate was occupied by their forefathers in Massachusetts. The race is gone. It would be a mistaken sentimentality to re

gret the change; to regret that some thousand uncultured barbarians, destitute of all the improvements of social life, as we understand it, and seemingly incapable of adopting them, should have yielded gradually to the civilized millions who have taken their place. But we must, both as men and as Christians, condemn whatever of oppression and wrong has marked the change, (as is too apt always to be the case when strong and weak are brought into contact with each other,) and without affectation we may indulge a heartfelt sympathy for the feeble and stricken relics of once powerful and formidable tribes of fellow-men.

On the 1st of August, 1620, the circumstances of the two races, as far as this part of America is concerned, presented very nearly the reverse of the picture we have just contemplated. On that day, the territory now forming the States of New England was occupied by numerous Indian tribes, some of which were strong and warlike. They were far behind the natives of Mexico and Peru, but they had added some simple agriculture to their hunting and fishing, their moccasons, and snow-shoes, and stone hatchets, and arrow-heads, and wampum-belts, evinced their aptitude for the humble arts of savage life; they retained unimpaired their native independence, ignorant of the metaphysical claims to sovereignty which powerful governments three thousand miles off founded upon the right of discovery; and neither the arts, nor the arms, nor the diseases, nor the vices of civilized life, had commenced that terrible warfare

against them, which has since been pushed nearly to their extermination.

On that day, and in this condition of the American races, a handful of careworn, twice-doomed English exiles set sail from Delft Haven, in Holland, with the intention, after being joined by a few brethren of the faith in England, to encounter the then muchdreaded perils of the Atlantic, and the still more formidable uncertainties of their projected settlement on the outer edge of the New World. Two centuries and a third have passed, the momentous ages of national infancy, childhood, and youth have been rapidly lived through, and six prosperous republics, parents of a still increasing family of States in the boundless West, have grown up in the wilderness. In the mean time, in this part of the continent, the native inhabitants have sunk far below the point of comparative weakness, down to the verge of annihilation; and we have assembled now and here to celebrate the day on which this all-important change commenced.

I allude, Mr. President, to this revolution in the condition of this continent, and the races that occupy it, not as introducing a narrative of familiar incidents or a train of commonplace reflections, but as pointing directly to the great problem which first presented itself on the discovery of America, and the agency of the Pilgrim Fathers in its solution, an agency whose first public manifestation might be said to commence with the ever-memorable embarkation at Delft Haven, to which I have just referred.

The discovery itself of the American continent may, I think, fairly be considered the most extraordinary event in the history of the world. In this, as in other cases, familiarity blunts the edge of our perceptions; but much as I have meditated, and often as I have treated this theme, its magnitude grows upon me with each successive contemplation. That a continent nearly as large as Europe and Africa united, spread out on both sides of the equator, lying between the western shores of Europe and Africa and the eastern shore of Asia, with groups of islands in either ocean, as it were stopping-places on the march of discovery, -a continent not inhabited indeed by civilized races, but still occupied by one of the families of rational man, that this great hemisphere, I say, should have lain undiscovered for five thousand years upon the bosom of the deep, -a mystery so vast, within so short a distance, and yet not found out,-is indeed a marvel. Mute nature, if I may so express myself, had made the discovery to the philosopher, for the preponderance of land in the eastern hemisphere demanded a counterpoise in the west. Darkwooded trees, unknown to the European naturalist, had from age to age drifted over the sea and told of the tropical forests where they grew. Stupendous ocean currents, driven westward by the ever-breathing trade-winds, had wheeled their mighty flexures along the American coast, and returned to Europe with tidings of the everlasting breakwater which had stopped their way. But the fulness of time had not yet come. Egypt and Assyria, and Tyre and Car

thage, and Greece and Rome must flourish and fall, before the seals are broken. They must show what they can do for humanity before the veil which hides its last hope is lifted up. The ancient civilization must be weighed in a balance and found wanting. Yes, and more. Nature must unlock her rarest mysteries; the quivering steel must learn to tremble to the pole; the astrolabe must climb the arch of heaven, and bring down the sun to the horizon; science must demonstrate the sphericity of the earth, which the ancients suspected, but could not prove; the press must scatter the flying rear of mediæval darkness; the creative instincts of a new political, intellectual, and social life must begin to kindle into action; and then the Discoverer may go forth.

He does go forth. The discovery is made; the balance of the globe is redressed. A continent nearly equal in extent to one half the ancient hemisphere is brought to light. What momentous questions present themselves! Another world! Is it a twin sister of the ancient world? It has mountains, and rivers, and lakes, and forests, but does it contain the homes of kindred man; of cultivated races, who have pursued, independently of their Eastern brethren, separate, perhaps higher paths of civilization? In a word, has the great cause of Humanity made an immediate gain by the wonderful event which has added so much to the geography of the world as before known?

The first contact answered these questions in the negative. The native races, apparently incapable of