my delight to discharge according to my ability, wherever I exist. And whilst the recollection of its claims oppresses me with a sense of my unworthiness, I am consoled by the hope that no time and no change can deprive me of the satisfaction of pursuing and exercising its highest functions.'

1

II

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

AT CONCORD, ON THE SECOND CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN, SEPTEMBER 12, 1835

BULKELEY, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Merriam, Flint,
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm

Saying, 'Tis mine, my children's and my name's.'

Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs.

I WILL have never a noble,
No lineage counted great;

Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
Shall constitute a state.

Lo now! if these poor men
Can govern the land and sea
And make just laws below the sun,
As planets faithful be.

I cause from every creature
His proper good to flow:
As much as he is and doeth,
So much he shall bestow.

HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

F

ELLOW CITIZENS: The town of Concord begins, this day, the third century of its history. By a common consent, the people of New England, for a few years past, as the second centennial anniversary of each of its early settlements arrived, have seen fit to observe the day. You have thought it becoming to commemorate the planting of the first inland town. The sentiment is just, and the practice is wise. Our ears shall not be deaf to the voice of time. We will review the deeds of our fathers, and pass that just verdict on them we expect from posterity on our own.

And yet, in the eternity of Nature, how recent our antiquities appear! The imagination is impatient of a cycle so short. Who can tell how many thousand years, every day, the clouds have shaded these fields with their purple awning? The river, by whose banks most of us were born, every winter, for ages, has spread its crust of ice over the great meadows which, in ages, it had formed. But the little society of men who now, for a few years, fish in this river, plough the fields it washes, mow the grass and