MR. Oliver's address. 43 



exhaust, no pen can do it equal justice, no persuasion of force- 

 ful argument can too strongly urge that we all enlist with ear- 

 nest devotion in its behalf. I pray God that we may ever be 

 an agricultural people, farmers farming their own farms, — for 

 if such, we can never be an enslaved people, we can never be 

 a people of caste, we can never know the unfortunate ex- 

 tremes of inordinate wealth and desolate penury. The reali- 

 zation of the prayer of Agur, shall be seen in the midst of us, 

 in that just and equal balance of condition, wherein are to be 

 found the purest happiness, the surest contentment, the most 

 persistent exercise of all practical goodness ; the most quiet, 

 refined and enduring happiness of home, and the wisest ad- 

 ministration of public affairs. That will be the enviable lot 

 of our people, and these all will originate with, and depend 

 upon the influence of the people of the farms, and are to be 

 sustained by them, the guardians of the liberty, the conserva- 

 tors of the public peace, the unfailing supply to meet the coun- 

 try's wants, the sure source of the country's prosperity, — the 

 race among whom virtue delights to dwell, and with whom, as 

 rightly said the great Roman Bard, Justice, when she forsook 

 all other spots of earth, to return to her native heaven, pro- 

 longed her latest stay. 



" Be your race known, in coming time, to fame, 



New honors adding to your country's name." — VirgiVs ^neid. 



The men of Greece held annual gatherings to celebrate their 

 solemn games. The greatest, the wisest, the best, came up 

 to these high festivals. Yoa, 



" Even the gods that walked their skies," — Anacreon. 

 descended to preside and to encourage. The victors in the 

 chariot and horse and foot-races, the boxing and wrestling 

 matches; in the throw of the dart and the discus, were crown- 

 ed with triumphal wreaths, and loaded with substantial and 

 enduring honors. 



You have gathered here to a higher festival, to sublimer 

 spectacles, for a nobler and more blessed purpose. For it is 

 not to a contest of physical strength, having reference to suc- 

 cess in fight, — but to a moral struggle, a friendly competition, 

 to know who are to prove most successful in securing to Coun- 



