MR. PRESIDENT,--It is now six years since I had the honor of meeting my Republican fellow-citizens of Massachusetts in State Convention, drawn together from all parts of our beloved Commonwealth,--and then also, I remember well, it was at this good city of Worcester. Returning, at last, with restored health, to the activities of public life, I am happy again in this opportunity. It is pleasant to look into the faces of friends, and to feel the sympathy of kindred hearts. Nor can I disguise the satisfaction which I find at being here in Worcester,--early and constant home of the Republican cause. When other places, even in Massachusetts, were indifferent for Freedom, Worcester was earnest; and when the cause was defeated in other counties, here, under the lead of an eminent citizen, now the ornament of the bench,[168] it triumphed by brilliant majorities; so that Worcester became known, not only throughout Massachusetts, but everywhere, throughout the country, as our impregnable stronghold. Long since, while America was yet an unsettled wilderness, an English poet depicted a county of our motherland as “That shire which we _the heart of England_ well may call”;[169] and this ancient verse furnishes a descriptive phrase which has been aptly applied to our Worcester, “the heart,” as it is the central county, of the Commonwealth. But though truly belonging to Worcester on this account, I have always been glad to believe that it only justly depicted her as the “heart” of our cause,--here at least in Massachusetts. * * * * *