ORATION.

FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS :

We cannot assemble on this day without lively emotion. Too many associations cluster around it, and it marks an epoch too important in the annals of our race, for us to meet its yearly return with indifference. We hail it as the birthday of our Republic; we also hail it as the birthday of Freedom to the long oppressed and down-trodden masses.

The story of the American Revolution has often been told; and the praises of those to whose wisdom, foresight, bravery, and self-sacrifice we owe it that we are a free people, have not remained unsung. The story is full of interest, but as a mere story it may be matched elsewhere; and the prominent actors in the struggle which resulted in our political independence, though seldom surpassed in the nobler deeds and nobler qualities of men, have been equalled, and may be again. They, and the special events in which they took their part, viewed simply as individuals, and as particular events, shrink into insignificance before the sublime cause which was then at stake;

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before the American Revolution regarded in its place in universal history, and in its bearing on the future progress of mankind.

In truth, only those events are worthy of commemoration, which concern universal Humanity, and which therefore have a place in universal history. Whatever is purely individual passes away and leaves no trace; what concerns merely an individual people, is temporary and local in its nature, and is therefore without power to touch the universal heart. Individuals die; nations die; but the race is immortal; and individuals and nations become worthy of consideration only as they contribute to the life and growth of the race. Our Revolution, did it mark merely the political independence of the Colonies on the mother country, and the establishment of a national government for themselves, might indeed have its interest for us, American citizens; but it would be without a place in the history of mankind, and could call forth little enthusiasm from the philosopher or the philanthropist. Its importance arises from the fact that far other interests than those of a few colonists and their descendants, were in question, from the fact that, in the Providential chain of events, the American Revolution was a Revolution for the race.

The question of American Independence on England, was of course debated and decided in our Revolution; but there was also debated, and, to the eye of the philosopher, decided, a question of far graver import, and of far more thrilling interest. In the debate between the colonists and the mother country, entire Humanity mingled. Man's whole future was there under discussion, and on the issue of that debate, it depended whether the human race should be held back in endless thrall, hopeless bondage; or be suffered to continue its line of march through the ages to the completion of its destiny. The whole question of modern civilization was there, and eve

ry success gained by the American forces over the British, was a success gained to civilization itself.

Here is wherefore we have a right to commemorate this day; and wherefore we exult in its clustering associations, its thrilling incidents, its proud recollections, without subjecting ourselves to the charge of national prejudice, or of national vanity. We meet as American citizens, it is true; but we meet, also, as men, and it is even more as men than as citizens that we exult. We commemorate the triumph of the Colonists over transatlantic tyranny; we commemorate, also, one of the proudest of Time's victories for Humanity.

But what was the cause, what was the question debated in our revolution? What was the victory then gained to civilization? We comprehend not the American Revolution, we grasp not its real meaning till we are able to answer these and all similar questions; not indeed till we can separate it from the special controversy between the colonists and the king and parliament of Great Britain, and view it in its bearings on the general progress of the race.

Humanity may be viewed as a vast collective being *

with a life and a growth of its own, in some sense, independent of the individuals who compose it. Without individuals there would, of course, be no race; but he who can see in the human race only individuals, has no reason to applaud himself for the keenness or extent of his vision. There is Man as well as men, and the life and progress of men, become to us matters of interest only as they are subsidiary to the life and progress of Man.

Humanity viewed as a vast collective being, has a life and a growth of its own, and strictly analogous to the life and growth of individuals. It has its infancy, youth, adolescence, manhood and mature age. These are the

successive stages in its career of civilization, and mark its progress towards the fulfilment of its destiny in time and space.

The infancy of the race is the savage state. In this state man contains the elements of all he can ever become; but contains them undeveloped and for the most part inoperative. The savage state is that of mere individuality. It embosoms, indeed, the elements of society, but not society itself. Each individual is his own centre; a whole in himself, and not a member of the community. He fishes, hunts, makes war on his own account; not in subordination to a life, to interests and wants paramount to his own. His state, therefore, cannot be the definitive state of man; for the simple reason that it gives little or no scope to two essential and indestructible elements of human nature,—the moral and the şocial.

Man is created with a conscience. He is by his very constitution placed under law,-made accountable to a power above himself. He may do, not what he will, but what he has the RIGHT to do. He makes progress only in proportion as this moral law,--the law of eternal justice, —becomes more and more clear and precise to his understanding, and able to exert more and more influence over his heart.

The priest seizes upon this element of man's nature,possesses himself of it as his patrimony; and by its aid founds Theocracy, which is the first step Humanity takes in its career of civilization. The priesthood, by the force of the moral element, or of conscience, curbs the wild freedom of the savage, and breaks down his proud individuality. It brings him under a moral rule, a dominion foreign to himself; in theory that of the Divinity;-in practice that of the priesthood, which in the end proves to be the worst of all possible tyrannies, for it enslaves the soul as well as the body.