These are the men whom the Fourth of July invites us to respect and to imitate;--the James Otises and the Warrens, the Franklins and the Adamses, the Patrick Henrys and the Jeffersons, and him whom I may not name in the plural number, brightest of the bright and purest of the pure,--Washington himself. But let us be sure to imitate them, (or strive to do so) in all their great principles, in both parts of their noble and comprehensive policy. Let us reverence them as they reverenced their predecessors,--not seeking to build up the future on the ruins of all that had gone before, nor yet to bind down the living, breathing, burning present to the mouldering relics of the dead past,--but deducing the rule of a bold and safe progress, from the records of a wise and glorious experience. E. Everett. LXXXVIII. THE SAME CONCLUDED. We live at an era as eventful, in my judgment, as that of '76 though in a different way. We have no foreign yoke to throw off but in the discharge of the duty devolved upon us by Providence, we have to carry the republican independence which our fathers achieved, with all the organized institutions of an enlightened community, institutions of religion, law, education, charity, art, and all the thousand graces of the higher culture, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Sierra Nevada; perhaps, in time around the circuit of the Antilles; perhaps to the archipelagoes of the Central Pacific. The pioneers are on the way. Who can tell how far and fast they will travel? Who, that compares the North America of 1753, but a century ago, and numbering but little over a million of souls of European origin; or still more the North America of 1653, when there was certainly not a fifth part of that number; who that compares this with the North America of 1853, its twenty-two millions of European origin, and its thirty-one States, will venture to assign limits to our growth; will dare to compute the time-table of our railway progress, or lift so much as a corner of the curtain that hides the crowded events of the coming century? This only we can plainly see; the Old World is rocking to its foundations. From the Gulf of Finland to the Yellow Sea, everything is shaken. The spirit of the age has gone forth to hold his great review, and the kings of the earth are moved to meet him at his coming. The band which holds the great powers of Europe together in one political league, is strained to its utmost tension. The catastrophe may for a while be staved off; but to all appearance they are hurrying to the verge of one of those conflicts which, like those of Pharsalia and Actium, affect the condition of States for twice ten centuries. The Turkish empire, encamped but for four centuries on the frontiers of Europe, and the Chinese monarchy, contemporary with David and Solomon, are alike crumbling.