The exercises of the day at the stand where Hon. N. B. Smith presided in his dignified and excellent manner, were opened by the choir's singing to the air of "Bruce's Address," the

Thankful to our God above,

For their deeds of matchless love,

Their example let us prove,

While on earth we stay."

PRAYER.

A fervent and impressive prayer was offered to the Throne of Grace, by Rev. ROBERT G. WILLIAMS, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Woodbury.

The Emigrants from Woodbury were then "Welcomed Home again," by Nathaniel Smith, Esq., of Woodbury:

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WHO ARE HERE AS RETURNED EMIGRANTS:

We have learned, as the preparations for this our Bi-Centennial Celebration progressed, that many of you would to-day revisit the scenes of your childhood; and have feared that among you there might be some whose old homesteads no longer echoed to familiar voices,—whose relations had gone out from among us, to a newer or a better land. Lest, therefore, any here should be sad for the lack of kindly greeting in their native valley, the citizens of Ancient Woodbury have directed me to bid you in their name, a CORDIAL WELCOME HOME AGAIN!

"We have invited you to unite with us in reviewing a history which is our mutual inheritance,---a past whose story is written all over these hills and valleys. Around us, smiling meadows and cheerful homes speak of the patient, unobtrusive toil that has wrought this "Dwelling in a Wood." Moss, gathered and gathering on the tomb-stones in our grave-yards, tells how long ago the early builders began to fall asleep. Their homes are our possession-their memory a legacy to all.

"We are happy to see you here, not only on account of the pleasure your presence adds to the general enjoyment; but more especially because your coming assures us that our history, and song, and services, are not the result of mere local pride, but that you esteem them, as we do, a proper tribute to departed worth, an expression of gratitude justly due from us on such an anniversary, to the noble and the good who have gone before. We commemorate no ordinary struggles and necessities of frontier life. We rehearse the fortitude and success of no common adventurers. Were those whose memory we are here to honor,

mere first settlers, actuated by no higher motive than usually leads such into the wilderness, our theme would perhaps be unworthy of this occasion. The pioneer is rarely a man of exalted virtue. Hardy, courageous, and uncouth, he resembles those lichens, which, forerunners of vegetation, fix themselves on the barren rock, by their acids disintegrate its surface and assimilate its substance, till the soil adheres, the grasses grow, and waving flowers succeed them. Not such were the Puritan fathers. They were holy Pilgrims, and the place they sought became a shrine.

"To such a spot you return to-day-return to meet cheerful faces and hospitable dwellings. How different was their coming!

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They followed God's guidance into the wilderness, and brought His worship with them. Hardships were before, dangers around them: but they encountered all in that spirit, which instead of choosing castles, towers, or beasts of prey, the emblems of conquest and pride, for armorial bearings, placed three vines upon a shield, and wrote beneath,

Qui Transtulit Sustinet."

"Behold to-day how He has 'sustained!' See it in these fruitful valleys! Read it in this happy throng! Truly it is not wonderful that a past thus begun and thus resulting, should move us to unite in public rejoicing. Let other and older nations do homage to conquerors and triumph in their battle-fields, New England celebrates her centuries, which bring down the Puritan's blessing to ever increasing thousands in her land of peace,

"Welcome, then, sons and daughters of Ancient Woodbury, who return as emigrants to-day-welcome to the land of your fathers, to the scene where we unite to do honor to their memory! How longsoever you have been absent, though you meet with few familiar faces, we greet you as old acquaintances, as near relations. And knowing that the child of New England never forgets his birth place, though you have your habitations elsewhere, returning here, we bid you welcome HOME."

A historical address was then delivered by the author of this work, who introduced his subject as follows:

"We stand this day upon the grave of two hundred years. We have come with solemn awe and reverent tread to commune with the long buried past. We are assembled, on this anniversary

morn, for the first time, in the long lapse of two centuries, to commemorate the deeds of our departed sires. We are come,

after years of absence from the old firesides, to recall the memories and renew the associations of former days. Some of us come to look upon the old homesteads among the hills, and breathe a sigh over the moss-grown graves of ancestors long since gone to their rest. Some of us come to view the hallowed spot on which our eyes first saw the light; where we, in the hours of innocent childhood, received a father's and a mother's blessing, and where we, could we have our wish, at the close of a well-spent life, would yield our tired spirits up to the Giver of all good. We are this day surrounded with the results of all the labors of the past, and occupy the proud positions long years ago so nobly adorned by the sainted fathers and mothers who planted this fertile territory, and who, having ceased from their labors, have 'ascended into glory.' They have passed away to the land of spirits like the dissolving of a sunset cloud into the cerulean tints of heavenstealing from existence like the strain of ocean-music, when it dies away, slowly and sweetly, upon the moonlit waters. We do well, on this glad day of liberty, to celebrate their lofty achievements, and do meet honor to their deathless names. If those re. vered spirits, who have so long enjoyed their sacred repose, can look down through the veil that obscures our view of Heaven, they will approve, with a smile of love, the design of our assembling here. And when, on the morrow, you shall leave this place to revisit it no more forever, you will feel that it has been good for you to have been here on this glad occasion."

Then followed a rapidly sketched epitome of the history of the town. The old first mill stone of 1681, being placed on a table, was used for a reading desk-rude memorial of the early days which has escaped the ravages of "time's effacing finger!" During the progress of this address various ancient articles were exhibited to the audience, some of which were thus described;

"Here is the ball which buried itself in the groin of Col. Hinman, where it remained for the long period of thirty-three years, when it was extracted by Dr. Anthony Burritt. On its passage it hit a bayonet by his side, cutting and flattening the edge as you And here is another Revolutionary relic, aye, a relic of the first days of the colony, two hundred years ago. It has been handed down from father to son, from its first known owner, Capt.

see.

John Minor, the Indian interpreter, and is known to be at least 220 years old. By closer inspection, I see the manufacturer's date upon the barrel is 1624. It was used in the Pequot war, in all the French and Indian wars, and in the war of the Revolution. It is said to have caused, first and last, the death of forty red men, and from this circumstance has been familiarly known as the 'forty Indian gun.' And here is still another relic of two centuries ago the old arm chair of Col. Benjamin Hinman, brought from Stratford, and formerly the property of Francis Stiles. Here, too, is his pipe of peace, presented to him at the peace of 1783, with a request that he would smoke it as often as the 4th of July should return-a request with which he faithfully complied. Here, too, is a chair used by Gen. Washington at New York.”

After recounting the various historical events in the proud history of the old town, the address closed with some reflections growing out of the circumstances attending the occasion:

"Thus have we wandered through the flowery fields of the past, plucking here and there a sweet garland of wild flowers by the wayside, and another in the cultivated gardens of advancing. civilization, as best suited our purpose. We have endeavored, in our humble way, duly to reverence and honor the past. We have traced with pious toil the varying tints, the lights and shadows of the pioneer life of our sainted fathers, who occupied these seats. before us. We have rendered them a willing and a filial tribute of love, duty and recollection. There is a pure and unalloyed pleasure in wandering amid the scenes and incidents of the long buried past. There is a sad, though ennobling interest in seeking the faintest recorded trace of the early fathers. The eye has kindled at the ancient glories, and the soul has been warmed with a placid flow of tender heart sympathies. In the wealth of the past, full well have we traced 'God's hand in history.' No inquiries can be more interesting to the intelligent student seeking guidance from the light of former days, and desiring above all to emulate that sublime intermixture of the true principles of stability and progress, so happily blended in the history of our forefathers. The feelings that prompt these filial inquiries are just and natural-they give birth to some of the dearest charities of life, and fortify some of its sternest virtues. The principle that prompts them lies deep within our nature.

"While rendering, therefore, due homage to the past, and