out the world. The echoes of Prentiss's eloquence still linger in the valley of the Mississippi. Breckinridge's body lies under the sod of Kentucky, but he lives among her sons an inspiration and a glory.

And to-day there comes to us, and shall come to those after us, the voice of our dead, solemn with the emphasis of another world, more eloquent than that with which he was wont to charm us; and it says: Children of Georgia. love thy mother. Cherish all that is good and just in her past. Study her highest interests. Discover, protect and foster all that will promote her future. Respect and obey her laws. Guard well her sacred honor. Give your richest treasures and best efforts to her material, social, intellectual and moral advancement until she shines the brightest jewel in the diadem of the republic. Men of the South, sons of the proud cavalier, never lower your standard of private of public honor. Keep the church pure and the State uncorrupted. Be true to yourselves, your country and your God, and fulfill the high destiny that lies before you. Citizens of the republic, love your system of government, study and venerate the constitution, cherish the Union, oppose all sectionalism, promote the weal and maintain the honor of the republic. try saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him. Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies himself ignobly and all things dying curse him."

"Who saves his coun

Illustrious citizen of the State, of the South, of the republic, thou hast taught us to be brave in danger, to be true without the hope of success, to be patriotic in all things. We honor thee for thy matchless eloquence, for thy dauntless courage, for thy lofty patriotism. For the

lessons thou has taught us, for the honorable example thou hast left us, for the faithful service thou hast done us, we dedicate this statue to thy name and memory. Telling of thee it shall animate the young with the highest and worthiest aspirations for distinction; cheer the aged with hopes for the future and strengthen all in the perils that may await us. May it stand enduring as the foundation of yonder Capitol, not more firmly laid in the earth than thy just fame in the memories and hearts of this people. But whether it stand, pointing to the glories of the past, inspiring us with hopes for the future, or fall before some unfriendly storm, thou shalt live, for we this day crown thee with higher honor than forum or Senate can confer. In this "spacious temple of the firmament," lit by the splendor of this unclouded Southern sun, on this august occasion, dignified by the highest officers of municipality and State, and still more by the presence of the most illustrious living as well as the spirits of the most illustrious dead, we come in grand procession, childhood and age, young men and maidens, old men and matrons, from country and village and city, from hovel and cottage and mansion, from shop and mart and office, from every pursuit and rank and station, and with united hearts and voices crown thee with the undying admiration, gratitude and love of thy countrymen.-J. C. C. Black.

[Extract from an address delivered at the unveiling of the Hill monument in Atlanta in 1886.]

THE LAND OF MEMORIES.

If the worst is to befall us; if our most serious apprehensions and gloomiest forebodings are to be realized; if centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free institutions, as established by our common ancestors, is to be subverted and an empire is to be established in place of them; if such is to be the last scene in the great tragic drama now being enacted; then be assured that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own conscience, but by the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe and from all the guilt of so great a crime against humanity. Amidst our own ruins, bereft of fortunes and estates, as well as liberty, with nothing remaining to us but a good name and a public character unsullied and untarnished, we will in our common misfortunes still cling in our affections to "the land of memories" and find expression for our sentiments when surveying the past as well as of our distant hopes when looking to the future, in the grand words of Father Ryan, one of our most eminent divines and one of America's best poets: "A land without ruins is a land without memories; a land without memories is a land without liberty! A land that wears a laurel crown may be fair to see, but twine a few sad cypress leaves around the brow of any land and, be that land beautiless and bleak, it becomes lovely in its consecrated coronet of sorrow, and it wins the sympathy of the heart and history. Crowns of roses fade; crowns of thorns endure! Calvaries and crucifixes take deepest hold upon humanity! The triumph of might are transient; they pass away and are forgot

ten; the sufferings of right are graven deepest on the chronicles of nations!"

"Yes, give me a land where the ruins are spread

And the living tread light on the hearts of the dead;
Yes, give me a land that is blest by the dust,
And bright with the deeds of the down-trodden just.
Yes, give me a land that hath legend and lays
Enshrining the memories of long-vanished days;
Yes, give me a land that hath story and song
To tell of the strife of the right with the wrong;
Yes, give me the land with a grave in each spot
And names in the graves that shall not be forgot.
Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb,
There's a grandeur in graves, there's a glory in gloom!
For out of the gloom future brightness is born,
As after the night looms the sunrise of morn;
And the graves of the dead with the grass overgrown
May yet form the footstool of Liberty's throne,
And each single wreck in the war-path of might
Shall yet be a rock in the temple of right!"

-Alexander H. Stephens.

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.

The first step toward local or general harmony is the banishment from our breasts of every feeling and sentiment calculated to stir the discord of the past. Nothing could be more injurious or mischievous to the future of this country than the agitation at present of questions which divided the people anterior to or during the existence of the late war.

On no occasion, and especially in the bestowment of office, ought such differences of opinion in the past ever to

be mentioned either for or against any one, otherwise equally entitled to confidence. These ideas or sentiments of other times and circumstances are not the germs from which hopeful organizations can now arise.

Let all differences of opinion, touching errors or supposed errors, of the head or heart, on the part of any in the past, growing out of these matters, be at once and forever in the dark bosom of oblivion buried. Let there be no crimination or recrimination on account of acts of other days; no canvassing of past conduct or motives.

Great disasters are upon us and upon the whole country; and without inquiring how these originated or at whose door the fault should be laid, let us now as common sharers of common misfortunes, on all occasions, consult only as to the best means, under the circumstances as we find them, to secure the best ends toward future amelioration.

Good government is what we want. This should be the leading desire and the controlling object with all; and I need not assure you, if this can be attained, that our desolated fields, our towns and villages and cities, now in ruins, will soon, like the Phoenix, rise again from the ashes; and all our waste-places will again, at no distant day, blossoms as the rose.—Alexander H. Stephens.