While the exalted heroism of the illustrious men who, in the Cabinet and field, defied and baffled the whole power of the British empire, excites the admiration of mankind, the consciousness that the founders of American Independence were not allured into that deadly struggle by the lust of dominion and power, by the seductions of interest and ambition, or by the dazzling dreams of glory and renown, excites far higher and holier emotions. Theirs was not a contest of interest, of ambition or of glory,--theirs was a contest for principle, for the inherent and indefeasible rights of humanity. They accepted the bloody issues of civil war, rather than surrender the liberties of the people. When the terrific struggle began, which was not to be closed until the power of England on the North American continent was broken, they reverently "appealed to the supreme Ruler of the universe for the rectitude of their intentions;" and when it closed with the Independence of America achieved, they avowed to mankind in the sincerity of profound conviction that they "had contended for the rights of human nature." They "deduced from universal principles," in the words of the brilliant and philosophic Bancroft, "a bill of rights as old as creation and as wide as humanity." They embodied in this bill of rights, the promulgation of which made this day immortal in history, these sublime ideas: "all men are created equal;" "endowed by their creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." The embodiment of these ideas, these self-evident truths, which "are as old as creation, and as wide as humanity," into the organic law of Independent America, associated the names of the founders of national independence with the general cause of human liberty, development and progress. They were champions of American Independence,--they were, also, the champions of the sacred rights of human nature, and mankind proudly claims them, in the words of Mirabeau, "as the heroes of humanity." OLD AGE.--_Theodore Parker._ The old man loves the sunshine and fire--the arm-chair and the shady nook. A rude wind would jostle the full-grown apple from its bough, full ripe, full colored, too. The internal characteristics correspond. General activity is less. Salient love of new things and of persons, which hit the young man's heart, fades away. He thinks the old is better. He is not venturesome; he keeps at home. Passion once stung him into quickened life; now, that gadfly is no more buzzing in his ears.