The men who planted the signals of American civilization upon that sacred Rock by Plymouth Bay were Englishmen, and so were the men who struck the coast a little lower down, calling their haven of rest after the great Republican commoner, and founding by Hampton Roads a race of heroes and statesmen, the mention of whose names brings a thrill to every heart. The South claims Lincoln, the immortal, for its own; the North has no right to reject Stonewall Jackson, the one typical Puritan soldier of the war, for its own! Nor will it! The time is coming, is almost here, when hanging above a mantel-board in fair New England—glorifying many a cottage in the sunny South—shall be seen bound together, in everlasting love and honor, two cross swords carried to battle respectively by the grandfather who wore the blue and the grandfather who wore the gray. God bless our country’s flag! and God be with us now and ever. God in the roof-tree’s shade and God on the highway, God in the winds and waves, and God in our hearts! ENGLAND AND THE FOURTH OF JULY BY W. T. STEAD (From _The Independent_.) I wish with all my heart that we could adopt the Fourth of July as the Festival Day of the whole English-speaking race. If this suggestion should seem strange to Americans, it is not unfamiliar to many Englishmen. We consider that the triumph of the American revolt against George III was a vindication of the essentially English idea of democratic self-government, and we believe that we have benefited by it almost as much as the Americans. It taught us a lesson which made the British Colonial Empire a possibility, and if we are now involved in a suicidal war in South Africa, it is largely because our Government has forgotten the principles of George Washington, and has gone back to the principles of George III. For some years past I have presided at a distinctly British celebration of the Fourth of July at my brother’s settlement in Southeast London, at Browning Hall, and I have always repudiated the idea that Americans should be allowed to monopolize the Fourth of July. It is one of the great days of the English-speaking race in the celebration of which all members of the English-speaking nations should participate. SOME EARLY INDEPENDENCE DAY ADDRESSES ADDRESS OF JOEL BARLOW (JULY 4, 1787) (At Hartford, Conn.) On the anniversary of so great an event as the birth of the empire in which we live, none will question the propriety of passing a few moments in contemplating the various objects suggested to the mind by the important occasion; and while the nourishment, the growth, and even the existence of our empire depend upon the united efforts of an extensive and divided people, the duties of this day ascend from amusement and congratulation to a serious patriotic employment.