Our very origin teaches us union. We have sprung from so many races that it is throbbing in our very life-pulse, and is written on the red tablets of our hearts. It runs and dances in our blood, tingles along our nerves, colors our thoughts, tones our emotions, and determines our affections. All the old and bitter European animosities die in us, for its Peoples are fused in our _one_ life pulse. A little child of our own household now unites in the sacred oneness of American life, English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Saxon, Bohemian, and Polish nationalities. What lessons we have in our multiform descent, if we will but heed them; what inner teachings of sympathy and love, if we will but learn them! Distinctive nationalities, giving such beautiful variety to the _earth_, here join in the individual, imparting the greatest complexity and variety to internal _character_. Such nationalities, still existing unimpaired abroad, are here formed into _one_ of unequalled breadth and grandeur; their scattered rays of light are here concentrated into _one_ great focus; the blood of the various Peoples pours through _one_ great heart, and the common gifts, hopes, creeds of the separated and warring nations meet in the holy mystery of _one_ grand national life. Here, indeed, is the widest variety in the closest unity, the life of the warring Past melting into that of the myriad-pulsed Present, the certain hope of a harmonious Future. The maturity and highest powers of other nations being necessary as its germs, what wonder that our nationality should be the latest born on earth, or that in view of the broad love stirring in its soul, because of its manifold descent, its first articulate accents should be ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL! This is a union in the laboratory of assimilative nature, such as has never before been dreamed of, vital and all embracing, weaving into one palpitating mesh the very fibres of being itself. The union of long-jarring nations is consummated, perfected in us, and shall not we, the children of all climes, be _one_ in our own marvellous nationality? 'Divide and conquer' is old strategy, but despots and tyrants strike in vain at this wondrous mingling of all Peoples in one great PEOPLE, where the People are the Sovereigns; for this UNION is spun in the loom of Eternal Destiny, throbs in each linking life-pulse, is knit into our very nature, and kindles in the close unity and sanctity of our national life under the creative breath of God himself. Palsied be the hand armed to strike the multitudinously mingled life of Humanity as it circles through our glorious Union! 'Peace on earth, good will to men,' chime out the Christmas bells from old Trinity!