Mr. President, I dwell with pleasure on the considerations to which an occasion like this gives birth. It is good for us to be here. Whatever has a tendency to make two great nations forget those things in which they differ, and remember those only in which they have a common interest, is a benefit to them both. Whatever makes the hearts of two countries beat in unison, makes them more enamored of harmony, more sensitive to discord. Honor to the men of genius who made two hemispheres thrill to the same electric touch, who at the same time, and with the same potent spell, are ruling the hearts of men in the mountains of Scotland, the forests of Canada, the hillsides of New England, the prairies of Illinois, and the burning plains of India. Their influence, so far as it extends, is a peaceful and a humanizing one. When you have instructed two men with the same wisdom, and charmed them with the same wit, you have established between them a bond of sympathy, however slight, and made it so much the more difficult to set them at variance. When I remember the history of England, how much she has done for law, liberty, virtue and religion--for all that beautifies and dignifies life--when I realize how much that is most valuable and characteristic in our own institutions is borrowed from her--when I recall our obligations to her matchless literature, I feel a throb of gratitude that "Chatham's language is my mother-tongue," and my heart warms to the land of my fathers. I embrace with peculiar satisfaction every consideration that tends to give us an unity of spirit in the bond of peace--to make us blind to each other's faults, and kind to each other's virtues. I feel all the force of the fine lines of one whom we have the honor to receive as a guest this evening:-- "Though ages long have passed Since our fathers left their home, Their pilot in the blast, O'er untravelled seas to roam, Yet lives the blood of England in our veins. And shall we not proclaim That blood of honest fame, Which no tyranny can tame By its chains? "While the manners, while the arts That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts,-- Between, let ocean roll, Our joint communion breaking with the sun. Yet still from either beach The voice of blood shall reach, More audible than speech-- We are one."