important that we should send up a clear and
strong light which may be seen across the Atlantic. An awful charge of
unfaithfulness to the interests of mankind will be recorded against us
if we suffer this light to be obscured by the mingling vapors of passion
and misrule and sin. But not Europe alone will be influenced by the
character we give to our destiny. The republics of the South have no
other guide toward the establishment of order and freedom than our
example. If this should fail them, the last stay would be torn from
their hope. We are placed under a most solemn obligation, to keep before
them this motive to perseverance in their endeavors to place free
institutions on a sure basis. Shall we leave those wide regions to
despair and anarchy? Better that they had patiently borne a foreign
yoke, though it bowed their necks to the ground.

Citizens of the United States, it has been said of us, with truth, that
we are at the head of the popular party of the world. Shall we be
ashamed of so glorious a rank? or shall we basely desert our place and
throw away our distinction? Forbid it! self-respect, patriotism,
philanthropy. Christians, we believe that God has made us a name and a
praise among the nations. We believe that our religion yields its best
fruit in a free land. Shall we be regardless of our duty as creatures of
the Divine Power and recipients of His goodness? Shall we be indifferent
to the effects which our religion may work in the world? Forbid it! our
gratitude, our faith, our piety. In one way only can we discharge our
duty to the rest of mankind--by the purity and elevation of character
that shall distinguish us as a people. If we sink into luxury, vice, or
moral apathy, our brightness will be lost, our prosperity deprived of
its vital element, and we shall appear disgraced before man, guilty
before God.

ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC.

JAMES A. GARFIELD, American general and statesman; twentieth
President of the United States. Born in Orange, Ohio, November 19,
1831; shot by an assassin, July 2, 1881; died, September 19 in the
same year, at Long Branch, New Jersey. From "Garfield's Words." By
permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers.

The Atlantic is still the great historic sea. Even in its sunken wrecks
might be read the record of modern nations. Who shall say that the
Pacific will not yet become the great historic sea of the future--the
vast amphitheater around