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2. Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid it, paper; aid it, type;

Aid it, for the hour is ripe,

And our earnest must not slacken
Into play:

Men of thought, and men of action,
CLEAR THE WAY!

IV.

OUR SAGES AND HEROES.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

I.

To the sages who spoke, to the heroes who bled,
To the day and the deed, strike the harp-strings of glory!
Let the song of the ransomed remember the dead,
And the tongue of the eloquent hallow the story!
O'er the bones of the bold

Be that story long told,

And on Fame's golden tablets their triumphs enrolled, Who on Freedom's green hills Freedom's banner unfurled, And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world!

II.

They are gone, mighty men ; and they sleep in their fame! Shall we ever forget them? Oh, never! no, never! Let our sons learn from us to embalm each great name, And the anthem send down, "Independence forever!" Wake, wake, heart and tongue!

Keep the theme ever young;

Let their deeds through the long line of ages be sung, Who on Freedom's green hills Freedom's banner unfurled, And the beacon-fire raised that gave light to the world!

V.

THE AMERICAN UNION.

WEBSTER.

WHEN my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once-glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterward;" but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, - LIBERTY AND UNION, Now and forever, one and inSEPARABLE!

VI.

EXPULSION FROM PARADISE.

MILTON.

O UNEXPECTED stroke! worse than of death!
Must I leave thee, Paradise? thus leave

Thee, native soil? these happy walks and shades,

Fit haunt of gods, where I had hoped to spend
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day

That must be mortal to us both? O flowers!
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand.
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,—
Who now shall rear ye to the sun,

or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet,- from thee
How shall I part? and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

VII.

WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT.

R. C. WINTHROP.

1. THE wide-spread Republic is the true monument to Washington. Maintain its independence; uphold its Constitution; preserve its union; defend its liberty; let it stand before the world in all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order, equality, and freedom to all within its boundaries, and shedding light, and hope, and joy upon the pathway of human liberty throughout the world, and Washington needs no other monument. Other structures may fitly testify our veneration for him: this, this alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind.

2. Nor does he need even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged Union may fall; star

by star its glories may expire; stone by stone its columns and its Capitol may molder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals may be forgotten: but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those tongues prolong the fame, of GEORGE WASHINGTON !

VIII.

THE LORD OUR PROVIDER.

WORDSWORTH.

AUTHOR of being, life-sustaining King,

Lo! Want's dependent eye from Thee implores
The seasons, which provide nutritious stores:
Give to her prayers the renovating Spring,
And Summer-heats all perfecting, that bring

The fruits which Autumn from a thousand stores
Selecteth provident, when Earth adores

Her God, and all her vales exulting sing.
Without Thy blessing, the submissive steer
Bends to the plowman's galling yoke in vain ;
Without Thy blessing on the varied year,

Can the swarth reaper grasp the golden grain'?
Without Thy blessing, all is black and drear;
With it, the joys of Eden bloom again.

IX.

MORAL AND REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES.

EDWARD EVERETT.

1. WAR may stride over the land with the crushing step of a giant; pestilence may steal over it like an invisible curse, reaching its victim silently and unseen, unpeopling