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bliss, where clinging wife and child were twined and binding them to life's rare felicities. Out of the sunny smiles of another love, rich in promised, but nameless in unconsummated fruition, so sweet, so holy that the angels wept when they saw it withered and crushed, when the light of joyance in a maiden's breast was quenched forever. Out of all this stepped, into the darkness which lies between us and the half-dreaded effulgence beyond.

It was not their time for rest and sleep,

Their hearts beat high and strong.
In their fresh veins the blood of youth
Was singing its hot, sweet song.

The opening heavens bent over them,
'Mid flowers their lithe feet trod;

Their lives lay vivid with light, and blest

With the smiles of women and God.

We do well to "preserve a broad approach of fame and everringing avenues of song" to our slain comrades, and to exalt the principles for which they made such infinite but willing self-sacrifice. They died in the flush of their beautiful youth, that the Union might live, that the flag might be apotheosized, that the black man might be free. They were the martyrs of a holy cause, and already jubilant humanity has affirmed that they did not die in vain. Not only has our own land been regenerated, disenthralled and ennobled, but all lands have been christened from the fountain of that precious blood to a new birth of freedom. Mankind has been advanced centuries by the issues of our conflict. In all civilized nations the political or social centers of gravity have been shifted, and those which resist the process are now shaking in the throes of a portentous revolution. The world is sweeping onward with the impulse it received when the great rebel. lion collapsed at Appomattox. Royal bludgeons and imperial columbiads cannot silence the tuneful pleadings of liberty. For every victim smitten down a thousand avengers will spring from the bloody dust to carry on his evangel. While thus the martyrdom of our unreturning dead has reared a mountain from which all the drift-boulders of progress have since been quarried, that mountain has been to us the veritable shadow of a great rock in a weary land. We live in an age on ages telling, and in a country crowned with an abiding benediction. We may be called upon to war with hissing hydras, and wrestle with menacing giants,

but the promise of final victory is sure. Here a welcome and a home have been prepared for liberty and learning; high, white altars, built for the services of a religion undefiled. And if, from the midst of these surroundings we but lift our gladdened eyes, we may see the beauteous smiles of Justice, as she comes to reign, on her brow a circlet of bridal pearls, and her feet in the dew of the millennial morning. Standing to-day the inheritors of the more peaceful conflicts bequeathed us by the martyrs of our generation, we may behold our glorified comrades, marshaled in long battalions on the heavenly ramparts, and know that with dimless ardor they fervidly cheer us on. They did not die in vain-green be their memory forever. And they are worthy all the praise we can bestow. But our feeble voice of eulogy is drowned in the notes that thrill through all the air, and the pale flicker of our incense fades in the blaze of a celestial splendor. Painfully conscious of the incompetence of our infinite minds to estimate their infinite sacrifice; painfully conscious that all we can say falls far short of justice to their noble deeds, let us do what we know they would have us do garner in our souls the instruction, the inspiration and the faith which the contemplation yields, and leave them to their angel-guarded sleep.

No fear of them! In our lower field

Let us toil with arms unstained;

That at last we be worthy to stand with them,

On the shining heights they've gained.

We shall meet and greet, in closing ranks
Of Time's declining Sun,

When the bugles of God shall sound recall,
And the battle of life be won,

The President:-I will proceed.

NINTH TOAST.-The Golden Northwest.

Response by Rt. Rev. Bishop IRELAND.

I don't know what that toast means. California used to be the "Golden Northwest," but it is not the only golden Northwest I assure you. This sentiment will be responded to by one who knows whereof he speaks, for he has been long associated with it-Bishop Ireland. [Applause.]

Bishop Ireland:-Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: The golden Northwest! It is a theme worthy of poet and orator. Myself

a child of the Northwest, a loyal admirer of its charms, familiar from long intercourse with its pure sky and its healthgiving atmosphere, its rushing rivers and its sparkling lakes, its prairies and its forests, I fear to reply to a toast in its honor lest my hearers remembering my infirm words be led to esteem it below its merits. I will not then describe the Northwest.

There is no need that I do picture it this evening. Our distinguished guests are in the Northwest. We have but to say: Look around you and see our great and prosperous land. The iron steeds are harnessed up, impatient to carry you hence with the swiftness of fabled chariots farther toward the setting sun, that you may enjoy fullest opportunity to feast your eyes upon our broad acres and their rich vestures of ripening grain. Wherever you go, you will find the country deserving in truth its appellation-"The golden Northwest." The purpled hue of the harvest fields now yielding up their treasures before the sickles of busy husbandmen mirrors the millions of solid gold, which, from all parts of the world, will soon pour into the hands of its favored sons in exchange for its products. It is no mere metaphor to say that the Northwest feeds the world, and in return it receives from the world tribute to its royalty. Let us whisper en passant to our veteran soldiers that, should grim-visaged war again darken the land, they need not dread deficiencies in the commissariat, the Northwest will surpass in its generous supply of food all possible demands. This is no doubt important encouragement to officers who in the past, on more than one occasion, very likely, were seriously troubled to find for their men a very necessary material of courage, abundant food. The elements of good fighting abound in more ways than one through the golden Northwest. Our illustrious guests while traversing the Northwest will be asked to admire no strange country. The Northwest is their own. They have paid for this, as well as for other parts of the Union, the highest price -their blood shed upon hundreds of battlefields. By their bravery they have saved to liberty, to prosperity, to the development of all its wondrous powers, this Northwest, no less than States farther east or south. We joyously proclaim them our liberators, our sovereigns, and we sincerely beg them to consider themselves entirely at home among us. I speak unselfishly in my praises of our veteran warriors. I am not one of them. I never drew sword, or ordered a charge for the salvation of the

country. Often, it is true, on tented fields, I cheered by soothing words the tired soldier. And in religion's name I pointed toward heaven, where he should see the reward of duty loyally performed and of sacrifice patiently suffered. I belong to the peaceful and peace-bearing wing of the army-the non-combatants. But slight as must have been the military honor attaching to the office of chaplain, it has ever since been a cause of deep pride to me that even to that slight extent did I participate in the labors and victories of the great war. I speak to-night as a citizen of America, as one among the fifty million for whom without our soldiers there would be no longer a united America: and as such I wish to raise my voice to do honor to the saviors of my country. Had soldiers been less brave, commanders less skilled and daring, the empires and monarchies of the old world would to-day direct the finger of scorn toward pigmy American commonwealths; scattered and broken fragments of a once proud and ambitious constellation; warnings to nations struggling for self-government, held up as proofs that there is no room upon earth for noble republics, liberty's cherished daughters. I believe that too much honor can not be paid to our warriors, and I do pray that the proverbial ingratitude of ancient republics toward benefactors may never be recorded of fair Columbia.

Were it not for the victories of our soldiers, the republic would have been for us a sad memory of a past that at one time seemed pregnant with mighty hopes. Our sole token of love for it possible to-day would have been to drop a silent tear over its ruins, and exclaim in bitter anguish, "Fuit Ilium." And what would Minnesota or the entire Northwest have been? What would any one State of the Union have been? The State is strong and great because the life blood of the whole nation pulsates through it. Each star in the majestic group dazzles us because it glows with the combined brilliancy of the entire constellation. The United States are to-day the powerful nation, whose sons surpass in liberty, in wealth, in social happiness men of all other climes, whose mandate the first principalities of Europe receive in obedient spirit, because from Atlantic to Pacific, from source to mouth of our great river, along iron-paved highways nearly four thousand' miles in length, the one flag flutters to the breeze, intact and unsullied-the immortal stars and stripes. Our fellow Americans of the South realize now this truth. Had they succeeded in their

rash undertaking they would have dimmed forever the glories of the Southern States, and checked fatally within them the flow of warm life. They are learning to know as saviors those whom at one time they believed to be their foes, and Americans from the lakes to the gulf are again bound in the strong ties of a common brotherhood. The army has saved to the world at large the most perfect form of government the human mind has ever devised— that form under which each part has its own fullness of life and liberty; and all parts combine into one magnificent unity, the source of new strength and new brilliancy for each part—“ E Pluribus Unum." In your journey through the Northwest, distinguished guests, you will find richer treasures than its fertile prairies and its copious harvests-men worthy of all those gifts of heaven; men, the living elements in the building up of a nation. You will find through the Northwest true and loyal American citizens. They will never fail in their duty to the country. In days gone by, from frontier settlements where home war was waging against the wild Indian, numerous regiments went forth to save the Union, and the officers of the Army of the Tennessee will bear testimony that the soldiers of the Northwest never disgraced their flag. What was done then would to-day, if need there were, be done a hundred fold. Our people are gathered from all lands of the globe, but whatever their special race characteristics, so soon as they have touched our soil, they derive from it new life and become Americans to the very depths of their souls. I thank you, gentlemen, for listening to my words; I am honored much by being permitted to take public part in these festivities. One of the chief virtues which my religion inspires and teaches is loyalty to country, and as a priest of holy church I rejoice to be among men so distinguished as our guests of this evening by their patriotism and their sacrifices for liberty.

MUSIC by the Band.

The President:-Ladies and gentlemen, I shall expedite business as much as possible, and I wish to encourage all who are still present to remain during the responses to the remaining toasts.

I know the orators whom I commend to your attention. The tenth of our regular toasts, "The Grand Army of the Republic," was to be respoaded to by Captain J. P. Rea. He is reported to me as absent, but I can say to you that there are in this country

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