their
forefathers. To multiply instances where it were impossible to adduce
an exception would be to waste your time and abuse your patience; but
in the sacred volume, which contains the substances of our firmest faith
and of our most precious hopes, these passions not only maintain their
highest efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunctions of the
Divine Legislator to his chosen people.

The revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation shooting
up to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which has
characterized the growth of the American people. In the luxuriance of
youth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing and instructive to
look backward upon the helpless days of infancy; but in the continual
and essential changes of a growing subject, the transactions of that
early period would be soon obliterated from the memory but for some
periodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian.
Such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of the
bosom. They are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memory
of our ancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherish the rising
generation. They introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to the
notice and emulation of succeeding times; they are at once testimonials
of our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children.

These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their
cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty.
Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted
and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity, and what event of
weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was
ever selected for this honorary distinction?

In reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generally
been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to
trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers.
It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your
nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of which
the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to
your own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks
at the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness to
behold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous in
accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose