Daniel Webster once said: “I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit that is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down.” In this spirit, at least, I can greet and welcome you, and bid you Godspeed in your mission and your work. I beg you, therefore, to accept my hearty congratulations on the prosperity of the denomination you represent, and my cordial well-wishes for your individual welfare and happiness. I sincerely trust that your sessions may be pleasant and profitable, and that you may each and all return to your homes refreshed and strengthened by this fraternal meeting. ADDRESS. Delivered at Clay Center, at a meeting to celebrate the completion of the water works, June 6th, 1885. MR. MAYOR, AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have no doubt that the founders of Clay Center confidently predicted a rapid and substantial growth for the town they had established. The Kansas men who located towns were, as a rule, sanguine and cheerful persons, and no matter how bleak and desolate were their surroundings, nor how unpromising the future really was, the ground in which they planted their stakes seemed to them specially designed, from the beginning of all things, as the site for a prosperous city. Before the first rude frame building was completed, they had drawn on the map of Kansas numerous lines of railway that must and would be built, and they lay down at night to dream delightful dreams of fortunes that were to be realized from corner lots. For nearly thirty years I have been noting these town-building experiments, and at times it has seemed a reckless waste of energy and of enthusiasm. But the wildest anticipations of the town-builders have, in most instances, been more than realized. The map of Kansas is dotted all over with prosperous, steadily-growing towns and cities, where beautiful homes abound, where pleasant school rooms welcome throngs of eager children, where church bells chime, where the roar and clatter of mills and factories blend with the clangor of hurrying trains, where the streets are noisy with commerce, and where business and industrial thrift, and the charms of congenial and intelligent society, unite to make life opulent and happy.