24 MR. Oliver's address. 



forum, — the true and reliable defenders of her rights and of her 

 soil. My heart glows within me with an honest pride for you, 

 and because of you, when my memory runs back over the his- 

 tory of my native land, 



" The bright and the beautiful land of my birth, 



The home of the homeless, all over the earth." — Street's Poems. 



" That land of every land the pride, 



Beloved by Heaven, o'er aU the world beside." — Montgomery. 



When I read in her records, the lives of those who planted 

 the colonies, embryo states, then, — but now in the full vigor of 

 maturity, — of those, who in succession of time, while they 

 tilled the soil, bought, or acquired by conquest, from its abo- 

 riginal owners, wore the rifle slung at their backs, and the 

 powder-horn by their sides, to defend that soil and their homes 

 and its loved tenants from the fire and the knife of the savage, 

 who, when he had parted with his birthright, sought to stay 

 the increase and spread of the newly known white skins ; — of 

 those, who, while they worshiped God in the simple temples 

 they had erected for his honor, were equally ready with the 

 earnest prayer, the solemn psalm, or the protecting musket, — 

 " praising God and keeping their powder dry," — as Cromwell 

 once gave sagacious directions to his soldiers, — of those who 

 stood the brunt and fought through the horrid battles of the 

 French and Indian wars, side by side with the best troops of 

 England, — of those, who improving upon the strategy and 

 tactics which this association in arms with British officers and 

 soldiers had taught them, exhibited their military scholarship 

 in the seven years' war of the Revolution, to such high de- 

 gree, that the admiring world awarded them the medal of their 

 country's liberty. Farmers were they, with Farmers for lead- 

 ers, and all led by Farmer Washington — and there is not a bat- 

 tle-field, from Lexington to Saratoga and to Yorktown, that 

 did not drink to repletion the blood of farmers ; — when I read, 

 I say, the history of all this, my bosom glows with an hon- 

 est pride, — words of fitting admiration fail my tongue, and I 

 can only thank God for an ancestry of so true nobility. And 

 should the time ever come, which God in mercy prevent, 



I 



