built too much upon the exploits of our ancestors,
reposed too long upon their laurels, forgetting that their efforts were
but the initiatory step in the great contest that was to be carried on
by succeeding generations; forgetting that we have still a destiny to
work out for ourselves, a niche to secure in the great temple of
humanity, obstacles to surmount, difficulties to overcome, bitter and
deadly foes to vanquish. And how totally devoid of heart have been even
our celebrations of our great national birthday and holiday! While we
have amused ourselves with the explosion of crackers and blowing off of
our neighbors' arms by premature discharges of rusty cannon, while we
have rent the air with squibs, shouts, and exclamations, and listened to
the periodical and hackneyed outbursts of oratorical gas, how few of us
have remembered the deep significance of the day, and felt our hearts
swell with genuine patriotic emotion! How few of us have realized that
we were celebrating not merely the establishing of a form of government,
the severing of galling bonds which bound us to the servitude of the old
world, not merely the birthday of independence and of a nation, but the
birthday of an immortal principle, whose beneficent effects were not
more for us than for the generations of all succeeding time! The masses
saw in that day but an universal _fete_, a day of national relaxation
and enjoyment, and neither thought or cared much about its deep meaning;
while to the few, the thinking men alone, appeared the principle which
underlay all this festivity and vociferation. Henceforth this will not
be so. We have lived so long and so undisturbed in the enjoyment of our
political blessings, that we have not appreciated our favored lot; but
now, when for the first time in our history treason has boldly lifted
its head, and traitors have endeavored to deprive us of all our most
cherished blessings--to strike at the very root of all that is good and
pure in our political system--now for the first time do we see those
blessings in their true light, and realize their inestimable value. Now
that the prestige of our greatness threatens to depart from us, do we
first see the glorious destiny which the great God of nature has marked
out for us. Now for the first time do we realize that we have a purpose
in life--that we are the exponents of one of the great truths of the
universe itself, and appreciate the awful responsibility that rests upon
u