of such a responsibility for the progress of freedom, in other lands as well as in our own. Next, certainly, to promoting the greatest good of the greatest number at home, the supreme mission of our country is to hold up before the eyes of all mankind a practical, well-regulated, successful system of Free, Constitutional government, purely administered and loyally supported, giving assurance and furnishing proof that true Liberty is not incompatible with the maintenance of Order, with obedience to Law, and with a lofty standard of political and social Virtue..

...

We cannot escape from the great responsibility of this great intervention of American Example; and it involves nothing less than the hope or the despair of the Ages! Let us strive, then, to aid and advance the Liberty of the world, in the only legitimate way in our power, by patriotic fidelity and devotion in upholding, illustrating, and adorning our own free institutions. "Spartam nactus es: Hanc exorna!" There is no limit to our prosperity and welfare if we are true to those institutions. We have noth

ing now to fear except from ourselves. We are One by the configuration of nature and by the strong impress of art,-inextricably entwined by the lay of our land, the run of our rivers, the chain of our lakes, and the iron network of our crossing and recrossing and ever-multiplying and still advancing tracks of trade and travel. We are One by the memories of our fathers. We are One by the hopes of our children. We are One by a Constitution and a Union which have not only survived the shock of Foreign and of Civil war, but have stood the abeyance of almost all administration, while the whole people were waiting breathless, in alternate hope and fear, for the issues of an execrable crime. With the surrender to each other of all our old sectional animosities and prejudices, let us be One, henceforth and always, in mutual regard, conciliation, and affection!

"Go on, hand in hand, O States, never to be disunited! Bo the praise and the heroic song of all posterity!" On this auspicious day let me invoke, as I devoutly and fervently do, the choicest and richest blessings of Heaven on those who shall do most, in all time to come, to preserve our beloved country in UNITY, PEACE, and CONCORD.

ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP.

THE BENNINGTON MONUMENT BEGUN.

(From Address delivered August 16, 1887.)

WE gather on this anniversary day to lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall fitly commemorate the great event known in our history as the battle of Bennington. The story has been often told by sire to son, and by grandsire to wondering grandchildren gathered at his knee. It was from these homes about us that so many went out to meet and stay the invader. It is in many of these peaceful homes that their kindred and descendants now live. At each recurring anniversary the story has been rehearsed anew, a theme fruitful of impassioned oratory, an inspiration to the poet, and embalmed by the historian.

The summer of 1777 was a season of gloom and depression in the American colonies. They were scattered, incoherent, without funds and appliances to cope with the rich and powerful mother-country. The Tories were exultant. The timid were halting between two. The leaders, even, were despondent. On the 6th of July Burgoyne captured Ticonderoga, and on the next day, at Hubbardton, routed the rear-guard of our retreating army. At this critical moment the Council of Safety, then the provisional government of Vermont, appealed to Massachusetts and New Hampshire for aid.

Right nobly did they respond, and "Ho, to the borders!" rang through the hills of New Hampshire and echoed along the valleys of Berkshire and Worcester. John Stark with stalwart men from the granite hills came marching across the mountains. Colonel Simonds rallied the men from Berkshire, and Warner, Herrick, Williams, and Brush, with their Vermonters, came also.

Probably few, if any, of those engaged in the battle began to measure the momentous consequences which hung upon its issue. Our fathers "builded better than they knew." The moral quality of their action lies in their ready, unselfish loyalty to a perilous duty and their prompt response to its call at the risk of life itself.

Did time serve, I might dwell upon the personal characteristics of the men who then dwelt in this region, of their manly fortitude

in time of trial, of the wisdom and moderation which marked their deliberations, of the courage with which they confronted all adversaries, of their respect for rightful authority, and their hatred of its abuse. I might tell how they braved the dangers of the frontier forest and subdued it to the uses of advancing civilization, how civil order prevailed while yet there was no organized power, legislative, executive, or judicial, by which those functions could be exercised, and yet, such was the self-governing capacity of those pioneers, for the most part plain farmers, that without the ordinary appliances for the maintenance of private rights, public rights, and public order, they held them secure, gave of their scanty means, without stint, and offered themselves a ready sacrifice in support of the common cause. Of all this, Ticonderoga, Hubbardton, Bennington, and Saratoga will stand as witnesses forever.

They were no carpet-knights nor plumed cavaliers playing fantastic tricks of knight-errantry. They were grim fighters, and they fought in their every-day clothes. Every patriot bullet was winged and instinct with the loftiest inspiration of a courage born of faith in God and in His eternal principles of justice, and in deathless devotion to country. That word country meant far more to them than it did to the Greeks at Marathon. To them, country stood for the people, secure in all natural rights, and all the social and civil free institutions essential to their preservation. They were living epistles of a new faith. They were yeomen, warriors, statesmen. They were fit founders of a new system of government, so well epitomized by the immortal Lincoln as a "government of the people, for the people, by the people." In this faith they lived, and for its triumphant establishment they fought and conquered on yonder hill-side. The honor of their grand achievement is the glorious inheritance of the three New England States represented here to-day, from whose valleys and hill-sides their patriotic sons so swiftly rallied at the call of country. The fruits of their victory are the common heritage of the whole country for all time to come. Their heroic example is for all time. The heroic life or heroic death in a just cause, though apparently hopeless, will some time bear rich harvest in reconversion into successful heroic action inspired by example. We begin now the erection of a majestic and en

during memorial which shall in some degree symbolize our conception of an event fraught with great results.

Let it rise majestic here, girt by these grand mountains and overlooking the graves of the heroic dead. And so may it stand a mute but eloquent witness and memorial to all coming generations, of the battle of Bennington, and of the valor and virtue of the men who crowned the day, whose anniversary we celebrate, with glorious victory.

JOHN W. STEWART.

THE JASPER MONUMENT DEDICATED.

(From Address delivered February 22, 1888.)

PERHAPS no comparatively obscure name has ever gathered about it, after the lapse of a century, so general and tender an interest as that of Sergeant William Jasper. There was nothing in Jasper's birth, education, or circumstances, as far as these are known, calculated to arrest the attention or impress the imagination. He was born in our sister State of South Carolina, of humble parentage, and died an unpretending soldier in the noncommissioned ranks of a rebel army, and died, too, in the very hour of disastrous defeat. Yet there stands not upon this, or any other continent, one monument more worthily erected than the granite column and bronze statue which we are here to unveil.

At Fort Moultrie, on June 28, 1776, he leaped through an embrasure, under furious fire, and recovered, with its shattered staff, the fallen flag of South Carolina. In Georgia, on outpost duty, he released prisoners from the enemy's hands, and distinguished himself by deeds of extraordinary daring. His life was a noble illustration of all the characteristics that adorn the soldier and the patriot. It was an exhibition of all the boasted virtues of the knighthood of olden times. His courage was of the most heroic and elevated type. Patriotism burned with a steadfast and undying flame in his breast. His modesty was as conspicuous as his splendid and unselfish valor. He little thought, when with his dying breath he said, "Tell Mrs. Elliott that I saved the flag she gave me, though I lost my life," that

he was placing in the hands of the historic muse, one of the rarest gems of chivalry that ever sparkled upon her bosom. Indeed, his modest worth, his lofty courage, his self-sacrifice, his disinterestedness, and his touching reverence for womanhood, in the hour of danger and of death, constitute the very essence and glory of chivalry. They illustrate the truth, that genuine greatness of soul is independent of rank, of titles, of station.

You have raised this monument not only to Jasper, but to that vast army of unpretending heroes who, in all armies, have fought and suffered, and without the hope of distinction have forgotten self, braved dangers, faced death unblanched, torn flags from the enemy's hands, and placed their own on hostile breastworks, or gone down to unlettered graves, in the crash and carnage of war.

But, again, this monument will become another bond of sympathy between Ireland and America. Let us regard it, in some sense, as a memorial of the heroic and pathetic struggle waged for self-government by Jasper's father-land, that Niobe of the nations, "songful, soulful, sorrowful Ireland," the echoes of whose woes are in the very heart of Christendom, whose genius and courage have enriched and ennobled every land, and whose irrepressible passion for liberty, growing stronger through centuries of oppression, is the great phenomenon of history.

Lastly, I interpret the purpose of your monument to be the commemoration of those noble attributes of character which Jasper so beautifully illustrated in his life and death. "God save liberty and my country!" was his exclamation as he rescued the flag at Fort Moultrie. And as he closed his eyes upon his struggling country, he desired that his father might be assured that his son had died with a steadfast faith in an immortal life beyond the grave.

My countrymen, the occasion which convenes us allures us to the contemplation of a future of greater concord and more perfect unity. On the heights of Bunker Hill, the gratitude of the North has raised an imposing memorial to the heroes who fell there, in defence of liberty. Here, after the lapse of a century, on the lowlands of Georgia, on the birthday of Washington, we dedicate this monument to another martyr who fell in the cause of our country's independence. Erected on the same