"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it come. I repeat it, let it come. "Our brethren are already in the field; why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased by the price of chains and slavery? "Forbid it, Almighty God! "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Liberty or give me Death!" The patriotism of the cavaliers of Virginia was fermenting to overflowing, while that of the Puritans of Massachusetts was boiling with intense heat as the stamp-stampers and tea-tossers of Boston prepared for a deadly reception to the robbers and murders of King George on the plains of Lexington and Concord on the 19th of April, 1775. Never can I forget the midnight ride I took with PAUL REVERE, on beholding the two lanterns displayed on the belfry of the "Old North Church"; I told the tale to Mr. Longfellow, and he forthwith immortalized the heroic Paul: _"A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet; That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light The fate of a nation was riding that night, And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight Kindled the land into flame with its heat._ _"You know the rest, in the books you have read, How the British regulars fired and fled-- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farm yard wall, Chasing the 'Red Coats' down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again, Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load._ _"So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm; A cry of defiance, and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door And a word that shall echo forevermore! For born on the night wind of the past, Through all our history to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere."_ How my soul thrills with recollection when I think where I stood in Carpenters Hall, Philadelphia, on the 4th of July, 1776, among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and heard that grandest of human productions proclaimed to the world. Each of the fifty-six signers was a modern Moses in himself, and to-day their heroic statues, in imperishable bronze, should stand aloft on the shining marble copings of the National Capitol. The glowing features and earnest, eloquent tones of