fourth finger, and my body, which is indicated by the fifth finger, shall be separated from every claim of the All Holy, and be deprived eternally and forever of the refreshing sight of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hereby can every Christian perceive and understand what is the meaning and effect of a false oath, and take heed against it, for the salvation of the soul. God guard us all eternally and forever from sorrow and grief: Amen!” The Landsgemeinde at Uri is attended with much more display and elaborate ceremonial than that of Appenzell, and a description of it is here taken from Mr. Freeman’s essay on the “Growth of the English Constitution:” “It is one of the opening days of May; it is the morning of Sunday; for men there deem that the better the day the better the deed; they deem that the Creator cannot be more truly honored than in using, in his sphere and in his presence, the highest of the gifts which he has bestowed on man. From the market-place of Altdorf, the little capital of the Canton, the procession makes its way to the place of meeting at Bözlingen. First marches the little army of the Canton, an army whose weapons never can be used save to drive back an invader from their lands. Over their heads floats the banner, the bull’s head of Uri, the ensign which led men to victory on the fields of Sempach and Morgarten. And before them all, on the shoulders of men clad in a garb of ages past, are borne the famous horns[50] whose blast struck such dread into the fearless heart of Charles of Burgundy. Then, with their lictors before them, come the magistrates of the commonwealth on horseback, the chief magistrate, the Landammann, with his sword by his side. The people follow the chiefs whom they have chosen to the place of meeting, a circle in a green meadow, with a pine forest rising above their head, and a mighty spur of the mountain-range facing them on the other side of the valley. The multitude of freemen take their seats around the chief ruler of the commonwealth, whose term of office comes that day to an end. The assembly opens; a short space is first given to prayer, silent prayer, offered up by each man in the temple of God’s own rearing. Then comes the business of the day. Thus year by year, on some bright morning of the springtide, the sovereign people, not intrusting its rights to a few of its own number, but discharging them itself in the majesty of its corporate person, meets in the open market-place or in the green meadow at the mountain’s foot, to frame the laws to which it yields obedience as its own work, to choose rulers whom it can afford to greet with reverence as drawing their commission from itself. You may there gaze and feel what none can feel but those who have seen with their own eyes, what none can feel in its fulness more than once in a lifetime, the thrill of looking for the first time face to face on freedom in its purest and most ancient form.”