happy state of our country during a long succession of ages yet to come.

We are encouraged in this animating hope by the numerous advantages arising to us, in a peculiar manner, from the happy revolution we commemorate this day; they are conspicuous in every quarter to which the view can be directed.

If we turn our attention to the strong hope of every community, the rising generation, the world has yet enjoyed nothing equal to their advantages and future prospects.

The road to honors, riches, usefulness, and fame, in this happy country, is open equally to all. The equality of citizens in its true sense must raise the most lively hopes, prompt the noblest exertions, and secure a certainty of success to all, who shall excel in the service of their country, without respect of persons.

The meanest citizen of America educates his beloved child with a well-founded hope that if he should become equal to the task he may rationally aspire to the command of our armies, a place in the cabinet, or even to the filling of the presidential chair; he stands on equal ground in regard to the first honors of the state with the richest of his fellow citizens.

The child of the poorest laborer, by enjoying the means of education (afforded in almost every corner of this happy land), is trained up for and is encouraged to look forward to a share in the legislation of the Union or of a particular State with as much confidence as the noblest subject of an established monarchy.

This is a peculiar happiness of our highly favored republic among the nations of the earth, proceeding from the successful revolution in which we this day rejoice.

Suffer me, ye fair daughters of New Jersey! to call on you also in a special manner to add your invigorating smiles to

the mirth and festivity of this day. Our happiness can be but half complete if you refuse to crown the whole with your kind approbation.

Have you not at all times and do you not still continue to participate deeply in the multiplied blessings of our common country? Raised from the humiliating state of your sex in most other countries, you also breathe the sacred air of freedom and nobly unite your exertions for the general good.

The rights of women are no longer strange sounds to an American ear; they are now heard as familiar terms in every part of the United States; and I devoutly hope that the day is not far distant when we shall find them dignifying, in a distinguishing code, the jurisprudence of the several States in the Union.

But in your domestic character do you not also enjoy the most delightful contemplations arising from the Revolution of Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-six?

Can you look on the children of your tenderest care, and reflect on the cheerful prospects opening upon them through life, without feeling the most lively emotions of gratitude for the inestimable privileges conferred on the citizens of America? Are not your resolutions strengthened and your endeavors redoubled to furnish them with every qualification, both mental and personal, for the future service of a country thus rendered dear to you?

But your share of the joy of this day does not rise from a single source. To whom are we more indebted for the origin of our present happiness than to your delicate and discerning sex? In vain did Columbus, our great founder and discoverer, after settling the principles of his sound philosophy, apply to the wise men of his country. In vain did he solicit, in strains of the most suppliant humiliation, the different

thrones of Europe, when kings considered themselves as God's vicegerents here below; despised by the ignorant—traduced by the malevolent-contemned by the great-laughed at by pretended philosophers—and trifled with by the arrogance of ministers and their hirelings; all his hopes and those of a New World had, at last, sunk in despair, and we, this day, might have mingled our fate with the slaves of the Old World, had not the penetrating wisdom and persevering magnanimity of the fair but undaunted Isabella, the ornament of your sex, and the jealousy of ours, saved this Western World from the oblivion of more than five thousand years. Did she employ the excess of useless treasures in this happy adventure? No! after the refusal of her husband-despising the appendages of brilliant royalty when compared with the general good of mankind, her enlarged mind, incapable of being confined by the shackles of the age, found a resource in her costly jewels, which she freely offered as a pledge to accomplish the glorious discovery of the fourth quarter of the globe!

To your sex, then, ladies, are we obliged to yield the palm: had this great event depended altogether on our sex, it is not easy to guess what our united fate had been at this moment. Instead of our present agreeable employment, we might have been hewers of wood and drawers of water to some mighty Pharaoh whose tender mercies would have been cruelty. Your right, then, my fair auditory, to a large portion of the general joy, must be acknowledged to be of a superior kind.

Do you, my worthy fellow citizens of every description, wish for more lasting matter of pleasure and satisfaction in contemplating the great events brought to your minds this day? Extend, then, your views to a distant period of future time. Look forward a few years, and behold our extended forests (now a pathless wilderness) converted into fruitful

fields and busy towns. Take into view the pleasing shores of our immense lakes, united to the Atlantic States by a thousand winding canals, and beautified with rising cities, crowded with innumerable peaceful fleets, transporting the rich produce from one coast to another.

Add to all this, what must most please every humane and benevolent mind, the ample provision thus made by the God of all flesh for the reception of the nations of the earth flying from the tyranny and oppression of the despots of the Old World, and say if the prophecies of ancient times are not hastening to a fulfilment, when this wilderness shall blossom as a rose, the heathen be given to the Great Redeemer as his inheritance, and these uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.

Who knows but the country for which we have fought and bled may hereafter become a theatre of greater events than yet have been known to mankind?

May these invigorating prospects lead us to the exercise of every virtue, religious, moral, and political. May we be roused to a circumspect conduct,-to an exact obedience to the laws of our own making,—to the preservation of the spirit and principles of our truly invaluable constitution,— to respect and attention to magistrates of our own choice; and finally, by our example as well as precept, add to the real happiness of our fellow men and the particular glory of our common country.

And may these great principles in the end become instrumental in bringing about that happy state of the world when, from every human breast, joined by the grand chorus of the skies, shall arise with the profoundest reverence that divinely celestial anthem of universal praise,-"Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth; good will toward men.'

WARREN

JOSE

JOSEPH WARREN, an American patriot, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, June 11, 1741, and after receiving a college education at Harvard studied medicine and began to practise in Boston in 1762. He took an active interest in existing political affairs and was long a prominent member of a secret society of Boston lovers of liberty. In 1772, on the second anniversary of the "Boston Massacre," he was chosen to deliver the civic oration and in 1775 was again the orator of the occasion. In 1775 he was president of the Provincial Congress. After the battle of Lexington he organized the volunteers and received a major-general's commission. At the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, he fought as a volunteer and was instantly killed by a ball which struck him in the head at the moment the retreat began. Warren was a man of great force of character and his death was a severe loss to the patriotic cause.

ORATION ON THE BOSTON MASSACRE

[Dr. Warren was undaunted by the threats of the British who had vowed to take the life of anyone daring to deliver an oration upon the anniversary of the Boston massacre. Upon March 6, 1775, the Old South Church being filled to overflowing, Warren made his entrance from the rear of the building through the pulpit window, and unmoved by the array of soldiers and officers before him delivered the oration with a firm and determined purpose.]

Y EVER-HONORED FELLOW CITIZENS,-It is

M2

not without the most humiliating conviction of my want of ability that I now appear before you: but the sense I have of the obligation I am under to obey the calls of my country at all times, together with an animating recollection of your indulgence exhibited upon so many occasions, has induced me once more, undeserving as I am, to throw myself upon that candor which looks with kindness on the feeblest efforts of an honest mind.

You will not now expect the elegance, the learning, the fire, the enrapturing strains of eloquence, which charmed you