"To-day you are returned again. We devoutly join with you in thanksgiving to Almighty God, that he has spared your honored life, and vouchsafed you the honors of this day. The heavens over you are the same; the same shores; morning comes, and evening, as they did. All else, how changed! What grim batteries crowd the burdened shores! What scenes have filled this air, and disturbed these waters! These shattered heaps of shapeless stone are all that is left of Fort Sumter. Desolation broods in yonder sad city--solemn retribution hath avenged our dishonored banner! You have come back with honor, who departed hence, four years ago, leaving the air sultry with fanaticism. The surging crowds that rolled up their frenzied shouts, as the flag came down, are dead, or scattered, or silent; and their habitations are desolate. Ruin sits in the cradle of treason. Rebellion has perished. But there flies the same flag that was insulted. [Great and prolonged applause.] With starry eyes it looks all over this bay for that banner that supplanted it, and sees it not. [Applause.] You that then, for the day, were humbled, are here again, to triumph once and forever. [Applause.] In the storm of that assault this glorious ensign was often struck; but, memorable fact, not one of its _stars_ was torn out by shot or shell. [Applause.] It was a prophecy. It said, 'Not one State shall be struck from this nation by treason!' The fulfillment is at hand. Lifted to the air, to-day, it proclaims, after four years of war, 'Not a State is blotted out!' [Applause.] Hail to the flag of our fathers, and our flag! Glory to the banner that has gone through four years black with tempests of war, to pilot the nation back to peace without dismemberment! And glory be to God, who, above all hosts and banners, hath ordained victory, and shall ordain peace! [Applause.] "Our nation, under one government, without slavery, has been ordained, and shall stand. There can be peace on no other basis. Reverently, piously, in hopeful patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky, as of old the bow was planted on the cloud; and, with solemn fervor, beseech God to look upon it, and make it the memorial of an everlasting covenant and decree, that never again on this fair land shall a deluge of blood prevail. [Applause.]... "From this pulpit of broken stone we speak forth our earnest greeting to all our land.