to them on every Western wind, and should the fact be established beyond question that the entire people were capable of self-government they would be most likely to follow the example thus set them. This caused the monarchs of Europe to wear uneasy crowns as they sat upon their tottering thrones. And they said, "A violent internal commotion will rend this country asunder, and its disrupted States will form rival independencies, and thus the power which we fear will ere long overshadow us will be destroyed." This they said and this they sincerely hoped. There seemed to be the prospect of a speedy realization of their fond anticipations, for there had been one dark spot upon our otherwise fair escutcheon. It stood out bold and black and repulsive, and made us a by-word to the nations. It was this: While we proclaimed universal liberty in our immortal Declaration of Independence, there was at the same time within our own borders a race of serfs cut off from all these inalienable rights which we had demanded for every

man.

How to deal with this forbidding question, which we had inherited from the mother country, was a perplexing one to our wisest and best statesmen. Good men of all shades of political opinion could not fail to see the fearful cloud, small and inauspicious at first, but spreading wider and wider still was threatening our destruction. The contest must come sooner or later. Political extremists in either section of the country hastened it to its final issue. An appeal to arms, rash as it was wicked, was made. The flag of our common country was insulted and disgraced, the authority of the government despised and its rightful allegiance set aside. Nothing in all the world would give more satisfaction to the enemies of civil liberty in the Eastern continent than to see the rebellion prove a success. And so they threw the whole force of their sympathy and moral aid, under cover of a pretended neutrality, on the side of those who sought to overthrow the government. In this they were disappointed. The unrighteous appeal to arms was most disastrous to those who made it. The authority of the government was asserted by the overthrow of the armed rebellion. The strength of the citizen soldiery which the nation could call into the field was appalling to other nationalities. More than two millions of names were borne upon the muster rolls of the United States army, a greater force than Napoleon could command in the height of his power. The grand review of the army at the close of the war was a spectacle unequaled in history. One hundred and eighty thousand strong, they marched past the President and the generals of the army, and that, too, when

many thousands of soldiers equally brave, were scattered throughout the South. Never before had the world seen such a sight. But these men were ready to stack their arms, park their artillery, and return to the avocations of peace. In an incredibly short time they were disbanded; and to-day you will find them in the workshops, the fields, the stores, and all the marts of trade throughout our land, from its one extreme to the other.

Those questions which were left to be solved as the outgrowth of the war are too new and too recent for us to discuss them without bias by our former opinions. That ultimately they will be wrought out to a successful issue is the hope, yes, the settled belief of every man who recognizes the truth that "God ruleth among the nations of the earth," and "he maketh even the wrath of man to praise him." Is there no design of Providence in all this wonderful history of the past and aspect of the present? This free land, extending from sea to sea, with no abutting nation upon either frontier, capable of sustaining hundreds of millions of inhabitants, offers now a home to the oppressed of the world; and they are hastening to its shores, spreading over its wide extent, and peopling its towns and villages. The Celtic and Teutonic, the Anglo-Saxon and his Germanic cousin, the Scandinavian of Northern Europe and the child of sunny France and Italy. The Asiatic and the African are beneath a common flag to-day. The teeming population of Europe and Asia came of their own accord, the one part across the ocean which laves our Eastern shores, and the other wafted by the softer gales of the Pacific to the golden shores of the west. And now they find an equal home as they strike glad hands across our free America.

The dusky sons of Africa are here as well. They came, it is true, as Joseph came to the land of Egypt, "whose feet they hurt with fetters." But, thank God, those fetters are stricken off to-day. Here there is ample protection for all religions alike, the true and the false. The Protestant and the Catholic, the Mohammedan and Pagan, the Jew and the Christian of every name are on an equal footing before the law. The only conflict there is between them is the conflict of argument and ideas, and with a general diffusion of intelligence among the people the true religion has nothing to fear in the unequal contest with the false. If America in the future will keep her ballot-box pure and her people rightly educated she need fear nothing that that future has in store for her.

The great duty of America to-day is to civilize, to educate and to christianize her people. The first of these results will follow from the other two

united. God has sent the world to our feet for us to enlighten, to instruct, and to convert to him. When the great question came to the church of Christ, "How shall we bring all men to a knowledge of the truth? How shall we send the light of a pure religion to all the world?" God himself answered it by sending the nations to us. Here they are to-day, and we must christianize them or they will paganize us. The Church can do her great part in this work so long as the strong arm of the Government protects the freedom of speech and disseminates the light of intelligence to the masses. These, then, are the bold questions which affect this common humanity of ours, and which America is working out for the world to-day: freedom of person and conscience; universal equality and the brotherhood of the race; the civilization and redemption of all men. If she be true to her trust the grandest place in history awaits her, but if she prove false, she will find written on the walls of her proudest palaces by the finger of Deity, “Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is given to another," which, may heaven forbid!

Let us prize, as we should, the blessed inheritance which has come down to us from the past. Let us remember that the blood of three generations cements the bond which binds this union with its indissoluble chain. The altar of our liberty has been baptized with the richest and the noblest blood which ever flowed in human veins.

The patriots of 1776, of 1812, and of 1861 have vied with each other in sacrifices for a common country, and poured out their blood like water to enrich the soil from which has sprung this tree of liberty. Long may it flourish, striking its roots deeper and deeper still into the earth; higher yet may it lift its towering top into the heavens as its branches, outstretching far and wide, throw their protection over all the land alike. Nor storms, nor tempests' fiercest power can now tear up the giant oak. If e'er it shall decay, the worm which feeds upon its life will be the cause. But may God forbid.

Let us, then, swear renewed fidelity to our institutions, to the Constitution and the laws of our united land. And with that stern old patriot, Andrew Jackson, answer back to the world, "The Union must and shall be preserved."

Our Nation:

THE STORY OF ITS PROGRESS AND GROWTH.

THE earliest settlement that remained permanent in the United States. was at Jamestown, Virginia. Sir Walter Raleigh, who was at one time a great favorite of Elizabeth, the Queen of England, was very much interested in making a settlement in America, and expended a vast amount of money to forward his plans. But his colonies always failed for some cause or another. Sometimes the colonists would return in disgust at the hardships which they had to endure. A part of one colony was murdered by the Indians, and when help came nothing but ruins could be found; and one colony was lost, and its fate is unknown to this day. At last, in 1606, a grant was given by the king to a company who would colonize any part of America claimed by the English and trade with the natives. Under this grant, a company of one hundred and five men set out for Virginia in three vessels. One-half of this number were "gentlemen" of broken fortunes; some were trades-people, and some were servants. There was not a farmer and only a few mechanics among them. There was one man in this band who was a born hero and leader,—John Smith. They came to the James River and laid the foundation of a settlement, which they named Jamestown, in honor of the king. Here were planted the seeds of the first settlement that took root and flourished. The colonists, unaccustomed to toil, erected rude homes in the wilderness and planted a little. When the summer came they were attacked by sickness, and about one-half of them died from disease and starvation; but winter brought them better climate and abundant supplies of game and fish. Smith set out to explore the country, and was captured by the Indians. After puzzling them for a time with the mysteries of the pocket compass and the art of writing, he was rescued from death by Pocahontas, the young daughter of the Indian chief, Powhatan, who had decided to kill him. When Smith

returned from his captivity with the savages, he found his colony on the very point of breaking up. Only thirty-eight were living, and these were making preparations to leave. But the return of their leader inspired them with new hope, and they resumed their work. New colonists joined them from England, but they were of a class known as "vagabond gentlemen, who had packed off to escape worse destinies at home." The reputation of the colony was so bad, that we are told that some, rather than come to Virginia, "chose to be hung, and were." These were the undesirable subjects whom Smith was obliged to rule with an authority that none dared to question. But unfortunately for the colony, Smith was obliged to return to England to procure surgical treatment for an injury caused by an accidental discharge of gunpowder. In six months the colony was again reduced to sixty men, and were making ready to depart, when Lord De la Warr, their new governor, came and prevented them. Once more the settlement was saved on the very verge of dissolution.

Years of quiet growth followed, and a better class of emigrants came. There was a great demand for tobacco,-a new plant unknown to Europe until Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it into England;-and the colonists found it growing in Virginia, and learned its cultivation from the natives. It was in extensive use among the Indians, and was regarded as a medicine. The use of this plant spread in England very rapidly, and created a demand for its supply, and the Virginians found it a most profitable crop to cultivate.

In the absence of money, tobacco became a medium of exchange among the colonists. Salaries of officers and ministers, fines in churches and State, were paid with it. In a few years after the first settlements, a representative government was established. They had a House of Burgesses composed of twenty-two members, who were chosen by the people, with a governor sent out from England. The Anglican church was recognized as the State church, and the colony was divided into parishes. A college was founded, and the Indians were friendly. The first European child born in this region of America was the daughter of one of Raleigh's colonists, named Dare, and she was baptized by the name of Virginia Dare. Pocahontas, who married a young Englishman named Rolfe, went to England with her husband, where she was kindly received by the queen, and made the recipient of many favors. She died at Gravesend, March, 1617, just as she was about to return to America with her husband. She left an infant son, from whom some of the best known families of Virginia are descended.