untrammeled expression. It comes to us like the rude block out of which he had carved an exquisite statue full of life and grace, to be inserted, perchance, in some drama, ever as we find another marvelous essay on death interjected into "Measure for Measure."

If Shakespeare is to be dethroned, there is left little doubt to those familiar with his other works, and the circumstantial and internal evidences that Francis Bacon wrote the plays, or most of them, and probably some, if not all, of the sonnets. Such a result would be especially desirable, as disproving again the too prevalent theory that mere genius without severe study and labor, can produce elaborate and learned works. It would prove again that golden rule: "There is no Royal road to Knowledge," and that the plays were not of the production of heaven-born genius and intuition; but of genius and ability molded and developed by intense industry and wisely directed effort, and that the author followed his own advice, put into the mouth of one of his characters, "Take pains, be perfect."

It would also prove again that the days of miracles, and the divine right to rule and of heavenly inspirations to a chosen few, were forever past—a lesson not yet fully learned -and that the reign of law is now inaugurated, and that in all the departments of soul, spirit, intellect and body, nothing of value is ever reached without worthy and commensurate toil. This does not interfere with our firm belief that some have great gifts by nature or heredity, and that there are grades of genius. But if this controversy shall result in one more proof that nothing very desirable in this life is ever obtained without great and persistent effort, it will be a signal victory for the spirit of the age. If Shakespeare is to still hold the wreath of fame, it will be a victory for the miraculous, as no one claims a particle of genius for him outside of these controverted works. While if it is to eventually rest upon the head of Francis Bacon, it will repose there in accordance with all law, and the survival of the fittest, and because by heredity, by nature, and honest, persistent and wisely-directed labor, it was well earned.

VII.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITIZEN SOVEREIGN AND HIS COUNTRY-CULTURE AND MORALITY THE WATCHWORDS OF THE CENTURY.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Before we can celebrate, in a becoming manner, any important event in individual or national life, we must have some adequate conception of what was its origin, what forces conspired for its production, and whether its principles are such as to commend themselves to our serious attention and admiration. Happy for us, that this Centennial anniversary of our nation's civil and political liberty is one of marked policy and peculiar interest, and I should be recreant to the distinguished trust you have imposed on me, did I not, with all my heart, congratulate you upon the privilege of joining in its celebration of mingling in the grand allelujah of praise that is ascending at this moment from innumerable voices, and from millions of hearts that beat high with enthusiastic gratitude and love, from every hamlet and village, and throbbing city, all over our glad land—of giving vent to our joy in the sweet strains of music that float over the broad prairies and encircle the mountain peaks from ocean to ocean, and the booming of the peaceful cannon that wakes the sacred memories of hundreds of hard-fought battles for the nation's life, and in every expression of thought and emotion, through which our noble people can to-day manifest their love, adoration, gratitude and praise, to a wise Father and a kind Providence, which has given and preserved to us such a blessed heritage. Nor would we limit our congratulations, but mingle them with all the heroic and earnest souled-the pure in heart and true in life-those who can sympathize with our national aspirations and hopes-who know of our sacrifices to maintain our thought and life, and who can to-day, the wide world over, appreciate our marvelous achievements,

in every direction of thought, experience, of action and attainment, during this hundred years of our national life.

We come to celebrate the political birth of our people as a civil power among the nations, and, as becoming honest citizens of a great and rapidly growing republic, to consider whence it came and whither it tends. We come, not so much to exalt and magnify the results of the century, as to drink deep draughts from the springs of its power-to do reverent homage to the grand names that shine so clearly upon every page of its history, and whose lives and deaths have placed it foremost among the nations of the earth.

We come to gather fresh inspiration from the sacred memories of the past, forever hallowed by the most wonderful devotion to duty and principle; to shed new luster upon the shining names of the faithful and successful; to drop a tear of sympathy upon the cold and neglected grave of those who, through a misconception of where lay the paths that lead upward, or through failing strength or want of wisdom, perished without the seal of victory upon their brows.

We come to gather fresh enthusiasm from the battlefield of the past; from amid the faded and torn emblems of those struggles-for the conflicts of the future, and to learn, if possible, how noble, how grand, and how exalted a privilege it is to live and die for others, and to become enrolled among the select few, whose names the passage of centuries and the mutations of time can never obliterate from the memories of the race. We come to study the causes that have made this the most conspicuous century of the world's history-made its record the brightest page in the book of time. A hundred years is a long time in the life of an individual, but a brief period in the history of a nation. Experience teaches that far more time and force is needed to overthrow long and deepseated forms and prejudices than is necessary to cultivate and develop new ideas and systems upon a virgin soil. And, though we, as a nation, were signally favored in location and extent of domain; and though we had no established forms of government inherent to our continent to overthrow, nor any kinds of civilization or religion to overcome, yet this does not in the least detract from the most excellent work of the fathers of the continental and revolutionary period, but rather enhances it; for it is much easier to modify or demolish old forms than to originate and establish the new.

Stephen, you will remember, was stoned to death for following a new Christ, and for changing the laws and customs that Moses gave the Jews. His has been the fate of the world's most advanced reformers, before and since his time. Even Columbus, the discoverer of our new world, diedworn out in chains, disgraced, and ignorant of the fact that he had discovered a new continent. De Soto, the discoverer of the Mississippi in 1541, received a grave and a restingplace beneath its muddy waters, which was all it and the new world had to give to this famous adventurer.

THE PRINCIPLES OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

The Indians inhabiting our continent when our experiment began, presented no great obstacle to the development of our ideal form of government; yet, the whole world besides was utterly hostile to such a theory, and was prepared to combine at any time, to crush it out whenever it threatened to become an established fact. The divine right to rule, claimed by the kings and sovereigns of the race, had been the conceded form of government, with few minor exceptions and concessions, from the earliest written history of the Jews and Egyptians down to the beginning of the century; and, by a majority of the race, it was supposed to be in direct opposition to God himself to support any but the king and his royal representatives, so thoroughly had the old Jewish idea of the sovereignty of God and the "thus saith the Lord," claimed by the kings, implanted itself in the hearts of all Bible loving and Christian people. They seem to have followed this tendency of all unlettered men in every age, and to have read the Old Testament far more than the New; to have dwelt among the shadows, and to have practiced reverence and fear more than to have dwelt in the sunshine of love and affection, and to have forgotten that Christ himself rent the vail of the temple and established the altar of praise and worship in the heart of every man, and announced the doctrine from Jerusalem and Calvary, in his life and death, that our nation and this century have crystallized into a fact and a permanent form of government: that all men are brothers-free and equal-and that man is accountable, first to God, his maker, and then equally to every man as his brother. This doctrine has had a partial expression in

powerful minorities all down the pathway of the race, but it has been met with the sword of the royalists in every instance, and in all the centuries, and its life blood has attested its fidelity whenever it had sufficient force to become antagonistic to the reigning power of the world. Greece and Rome, of the ancient nations, are most conspicuous for their prominence in, and powerful in their proximate approach to the practice of this doctrine. The one ruled the world by its genius and intellectual achievements, and the other, by its intellectual, physical and military power. For over two thousand years, these republics, battling like giants with the darkened powers around them, shine like bright stars, shedding a halo of glory that dazzles and bewilders us even at the present day. With all the world's accumulated stores of knowledge, of the arts, the sciences, and culture of every age, we still seek for wisdom among their ruins, and drink deep at those sources of legislative, military, poetic and artistic inspiration.

So essential is a knowledge of their literature considered by the educators of to-day, that no man is considered educated who cannot read the native tongue of these mighty nationalities, and have their strong and subtle thought in the very words of their expression. No man is deemed an artist unless he is familiar with the master productions of these people. All our theology is tinctured with their views and their dicta; and every court, in the daily routine of its common law, uses the very terms and forms of their practice; while the doctors can scarcely give us a pill or a powder that has not a Latin name or sign inscribed upon it. And yet it was all clear-cut intellect and cold, physical power that gave them their place among the nations, and that has so effectually embalmed their memories on the pages of all subsequent history. There was no warm, throbbing brotherly love conspicuous in their national life. They elevated the physical and intellectual man of their educated classes to the highest degree of perfection, and reduced all government to a science of forces. Yet the power of caste was felt among them, and the moanings of the slave were heard amid the splendor of their achievements, and the elements of perpetuity were not theirs. Their great cities have sunk into the earth. Their wonderful artists and scholars and statesmen have slept for centuries amid the common dust of their native soil. The