Part 80 (1/2)

”Music by the Band.

”Music, 'America' Sung by the Glee Club and Audience.

”Benediction by Rev. A. B. Kendig.

”JUDGE HUBBARD'S ADDRESS

”Judge Hubbard's address was so fine that we reproduce it entire. He spoke as follows:

”My Countrymen, and Comrades of the Army of the Union:

”Courage and bravery always challenge admiration, but when combined with exalted patriotism, they command the affection and grat.i.tude of mankind.

”The highest earthly care of man is to preserve as long as possible this life, and therefore the greatest human sacrifice is to give this life for one's country.

”History is full of examples of this sacrifice in all time, and yet its frequency has never lessened the appreciation of it.

”Patriotism--love of country, makes a great nation possible.

Without it men would live isolated, or in mere tribes, and powerless.

”The intellectual development of man shows him at once how weak and insignificant he is alone, and he seeks, by a combination of great numbers, to attain not only great power, but even immortality. We all know that our own lives are short, but the life of a nation may be so long, that we are apt to make delusion that it may be immortal, real.

”The natural love and anxiety we have for our children, who are to live after us, extend to and embrace the country and the government in which they are to live.

”Hence, we may be said to have two lives, an individual and a national one; and the latter commands the former in proportion to its increased span. We value everything somewhat in proportion to its power to last.

”The study and contemplation of the national life, of which we are a part is always a matter of interest and solicitude.

”On every hand men are seemingly wholly engaged in devising and planning for their individual prosperity and happiness, and silently but surely national prosperity and greatness follow these individual efforts. It is only when the nation stands in immediate peril, that we become aware how much greater our anxiety is for it, than even for ourselves.

”You who can recall the thrill of horror, of anxiety, and of grim determination that came over you when the news first came that Sumter was fired upon, and the Stars and Stripes were shot away, can tell, but I can not describe what boundless sacrifices the national life is capable of calling forth.

”How quick we found what a pride and what an interest we had in the magnitude, power, and prosperity of our country, and how firmly we were attached to its beneficent government.

”The history of modern civilization in Europe has shown a constant struggle for many years for what they call the balance of power.

”Five leading nations, speaking five different languages, and having different modes of thought and life, have watched and emulated each other, and each at times has had the reputation of being the most powerful. Fifty years ago France was foremost, today Prussia is the first power in Europe. These changes may be traced almost indefinitely.

”In all the past, the national life, the national pride has grown with the growth of civilization.

”It would be impossible that a nation should become great or powerful without a national self-love that wrought glowing pictures of its manifest destiny.

”We find ourselves possessed of a country whose productive extent is far greater than all Europe, with its 300 million population, put together.

”Beginning a little less than a hundred years ago with a population of three million, it has doubled every twenty-five years, if we shall reach forty-eight million in 1875, which scarcely admits of a doubt. The whole emigration added is less than six million.

”At the same rate of increase for the next one hundred years our population will reach the enormous figures of seven hundred and sixty-eight millions. But suppose we shall touch the resistance, namely the lack of territory to supply so great a population with food; yet we may safely estimate reaching five hundred million, and the population equally distributed will then be about equal in density to the present population of Ma.s.sachusetts.

”I have neither time nor is it necessary to describe the variety of climate embracing the tropic and the temperate zones, nor the vastness, nor the fertility, nor the mineral and coal resources of our country.