It is very hard for us to put ourselves in the place of men of a century ago, and to think their thoughts and surround ourselves in imagination with their environment; we naturally carry back much of the nineteenth century into the eighteenth. We know the America of to-day, a vigorous, healthy, prosperous, mighty nation, reaching from sea to sea, filled with a busy people, adorned with the achievements of a hundred years, hallowed by many sacred memories. The American flag has floated proudly through the smoke of battle in every quarter of the world, and for a hundred years men have seen in it the symbol of a country and a fatherland. It is difficult for us to realize that, before 1776, these influences had no power; there was then no nation, no country, no fatherland, no flag, nothing but a number of not over-prosperous colonies, with but little love or liking for one another. Even the strongest Americans did not venture to use the word _nation_ or its derivatives, but called their congress, even after the formal separation from England, simply the Continental Congress. The very considerations which show us how wonderful and even sublime were the faith and the devotion of the leaders of the American revolution, will also show us how natural it was, how almost inevitable it was, that other men, whose connection with England was closer and more intimate, whose habits of mind were conservative rather than progressive, who had been brought up to fear God and honor the king and to think more about their duties than about their rights, should cling with devotion to the cause of the mother-country and condemn the revolution as a “parricidal rebellion.”