not changed since the dear friend, over whose grave the grass has grown these twenty years, looked last upon it. The sun’s face is not familiar. Few are the times we look steadily at it, and then it is disguised; the memory of it is associated with smoked glass, eclipses and strange phenomena. The stars, as individuals, are too small, too much alike, for us to feel acquainted with. But the moon—why, her face, each feature of it, is as familiar as the face of our dearest friend and next door neighbor; and as it looks to us to-night, so have all mankind seen it since the foundations of the earth were laid. It is the same broad, pure, serene, changeless face; always smiling the same thoughtful, pitying smile. The world has changed beneath, but as she looked to Adam, so looks the moon to us, this glorious August night; and were the innumerable dead to rise to-night, that face would be the sole familiar object to greet the eyes of the astonished host. And while we speak—this moment—how strange, how diverse the scenes she looks down upon and illuminates. As she slowly ascends our heavens, the early rising Moslem in Hindostan sees her pale face in the western sky, as in his morning devotions he bows his head toward Mecca and the tomb of his prophet. The western sides of the eternal pyramids glow in her brilliant light, as they have been wont to do for thousands of years. She is riding above the heads of wild Arabs, traversing in the cooler night, the sparkling, heated sands of the Great Desert. The fountain springs of the Niger and the Nile she spies out, and in them sees her image. The jungles of unknown Ethiopia are illuminated by her presence. The waves of the Mediterranean sparkle in her light, as they dash against the shores of Holy Palestine, of classic Greece, of storied Italy, and of hoary, ancient Egypt. She looks steadily down into the crater of Vesuvius. The ice-clad summit of Mont Blanc stands ghost-like, and catches first the silvery radiance of her beams. All Europe lies in deep sleep and varied beauty beneath her. All over the broad Atlantic the white sails of a thousand ships are glittering in her rays. On she comes, over Columbus’ track, and the New World, from where Sir John Franklin lies imbedded in northern ice to the stormy Horn, hails her coming—not as but a few hundred years since. Now the steeples of New York, Havana, and Rio catch the silvery light. On, on she rides. In an hour the Father of Waters will be glowing beneath her vertical rays. A few hours more she will shine upon the snow-tops of the Rocky Mountains, and the western shores of our vast territory, and the eyes of our distant, gold-seeking friends, and our bold seamen on the wide Pacific, will be brightened by her presence. And then she will bid us good-night, and speed her way above the countless islands, coral-reefs, and tranquil waters of that far spreading sea, to spy out the secrets of jealous Japan and curious China.