What land has heroes like to ours? Their names are as the lightning’s gleams, When, on the darkling cloud that lowers, In blinding majesty it streams. Great Washington, the man of faith, Who conquered doubt with patient might; Warren and Putnam, true till death, The “Swamp Fox,” eager for the fight. See Major Molly’s woman hand Drive home the murderous cannon ball; How bravely Lydia Darrach planned, For home and country risking all. A glorious list, and without end; Forgotten were both sex and age; Their names in radiant luster blend, And shine like stars on history’s page. Like stars to light the firmament, And show the world what men may do Who, as God’s messengers, are sent And to their mission still are true. No end had they to seek or gain; Their work was there before their sight; There lay their duty, stern and plain, To dare and suffer for the right. The right that conquered, and whose power Is shown in our broad land to-day; Shown in this bright and prosperous hour, When peace and plenty gild our way; Shown in the glorious song that swells The hearts of men from South to North, And in its rapturous accents tell The story of our glorious Fourth. HOW THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOULD BE CELEBRATED BY JULIA WARD HOWE I have been invited to present some hints as to the proper observance of our great national holiday, the Fourth of July, and the false education implied by warlike celebrations in a nation whose corner stone is peace and whose freedom is a standing protest against old-world militarism. The topic carries me back in thought to days of childhood, when, in my native city of New York, the endless crackling of torpedoes, the explosion of firecrackers and the booming of cannon, made the day one of joyous confusion and fatigue, culminating in a distant view of the city fireworks sent up from Castle Garden. It then seemed to be a day wholly devoted to boyish pleasure and mischief, sure to be followed by reports of hairbreadth escapes and injuries more or less serious, sometimes even fatal. The day was one of terror to parents, who, while deeming it unwise to interdict to their sons the enjoyment of gunpowder, dreaded to see them maimed or disfigured for life by some unlooked-for accident. It was not uncommon then, nor is it now, to read of some sudden death, some irretrievable blindness or other injury caused by the explosion of a toy cannon or the misadventure of some fireworks on “the Fourth,” as the day has come to be called.