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Massachusetts Commissioner for the accommodation and 

 entertainment of the people of our state, was the admired 

 resort of multitudes from all quarters of the Union. To 

 myself, as I am sure it is to you, the record of our Com- 

 monwealth on this centennial occasion, is a source of pride, 

 and satisfaction. I trust the new era upon which she has 

 now entered, will be still more radiant than the past, and 

 that she may advance in moral excellence, in intellectual 

 culture, in material prosperity, until the desires of the 

 fathers are all fulfilled, and the law of national life laid 

 down by them shall be supreme among the nations of the 

 earth. 



Rev. Mr. Atwood then addressed the meeting : 



I am reminded that there are elsewhere than in history 

 surprises, changes from high to low, from low to high. 

 We were notified that we were to have a double subject, 

 the outcome of the Centennial year, and the Centennial 

 Exhibition. We have had plenty of fireworks, and I do 

 not know how much will come out of it. The foreigners 

 must have got the impression that we have not abated in 

 our self esteem. If we are so great as a people no one 

 knows it so well as ourselves. One of the ablest of the 

 modern English thinkers said to me there was nothing 

 that startled him so much as the journalism of our coun- 

 try, and among other things the newspaper accounts of 

 the great Exhibition at Philadelphia. It would have been 

 a vast exhibition anywhere. I saw that at Sydenham, that 

 at New York, and that at Paris ; but all together were 

 not so great in space as this. It was indeed a surprise in 

 consideration of the newness of our country. 



I have heard some people, since its close, argue that it 

 was a very foolish undertaking, that it was too expen- 

 sive, etc. I believe one newspaper (in Rutland?) com- 



