"Thanks to the improved and humanised spirit--or, should I not rather say, the chastened and pacific civilization of the age in which we live,--that laurels gathered upon the field of mortal strife, and bedewed with the tears of the Widow and the Orphan, are regarded now, not with admiration but with horror--that the armed warrior, reeking with the gore of murdered thousands, who, in the age that is just passing away, would have been hailed with noisy acclamation by the senseless crowd, is now regarded only as the savage commissioner of an unsparing oppression, or at best as the ghostly executioner of an unpitying justice.--He who would embalm his name in the grateful remembrance of coming generations--he who would secure for himself a niche in the temple of undying fame--he who would hew out for himself a monument of which his country may boast--he who would entail upon heirs a name which they may be proud to wear, must seek some other field than that of battle as the theatre of his exploits. "Still, we honour the heroes of the age that has passed. No slander can tarnish their hard-earned fame--no morbid sentimentalism sully their peerless glory--no mean detraction abate the disinterestedness of their conduct. They bowed to the spirit of their age: and, acting up to the light afforded them, they yielded to the dictates of an honest conscience. While assembled here to-day, on this festal occasion, to commemorate the event for which the founders of our infant Republic toiled, and fought, and bled, we seem to behold the forms of the departed ones mingling in our assembly: we seem to behold them taking their seats by the side of their venerable compeers yet spared among us: watching with intense anxiety the emotions which agitate our bosoms, and marking the character of the resolves which the occasion is ripening. Rest in peace, ye venerable shades! And ye, their living representatives--calm be the evening of your days. We honour you. And though no sculptured marble transmit your fame, a nobler monument shall be yours--the happy hearts of unborn millions shall be the shrine in which your names will be treasured. In your high example--in your noble disinterestedness--in your entire subordination of every thought, and act, and scheme, and interest, to the heaven-born purpose of human regeneration and human elevation, we hear the language of encouragement.