world's galaxy of great men! In the realm of poetry, Goldsmith and Tom Moore; of oratory, Sheridan, Emmett, Grattan, O'Connell, Burke, and in later years Charles Stewart Parnell, whose thrilling words I heard a third of a century ago, pleading the cause of his oppressed countrymen.

The obligation of America to Ireland for men who have aided in fighting her battles and framing her laws cannot be measured by words. In the British possessions to the northward, in the old city of Quebec, there is one spot dear to the American heart that where fell the brave Montgomery, fighting the battles of his adopted country. What schoolboy is not familiar with the story of gallant Phil Sheridan and "Winchester twenty miles away"? Illinoisans will never forget Shields, the hero of two wars, the senator from three States. It was an Irish-American poet of a neighboring State who wrote of our fallen soldiers words that will live while we have a country and a language:

"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few."

The achievements of representatives of this race along every pathway of useful and honorable endeavor are a part of our own history. We honor to-day the far-away island, the deeds and sacrifices of whose sons have added so brilliant a chapter to American history. From the assembling of the First Continental Congress to the present hour, in every legislative hall the Irishman has been a factor. His bones have whitened every American battlefield from the first conflict with the British regulars to the closing hour of our struggle with Spain.

The love of liberty is deeply ingrained into the very life of the Irishman. The history of his country is that of a gallant people struggling for a larger measure of freedom. His most precious heritage is the record of his countrymen, who upon the battlefield and upon the scaffold have sealed their devotion to liberty with their blood. With such men it was a living faith that

"Whether on the scaffold high
Or in the battle's van

The fittest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man."

With a history reaching into the far past, every page of which tells of the struggle for liberty, it is not strange that the sympathies of the Irishman are with the oppressed everywhere on God's footstool. Irishmen, in common with libertyloving men everywhere, looked with abhorrence upon the attempt of a great European power to establish monarchy upon the ruins of republics.

May we not confidently abide in the hope that brighter days are in waiting for the beautiful island and her gallant people? I close with the words: "God bless old Ireland!"

XXXIII

THE BLIND CHAPLAIN

DR. MILBURN'S SOLEMNITY IN PRAYER HIS VENERABLE APPOWERS · HIS CUSTOM

PEARANCE

HIS CONVERSATIONAL

OF PRAYING FOR SICK MEMBERS.

Ν

O Senator who ever sat under the ministrations of Dr.

N Milburn, the blind chaplain, can ever forget his earnest

and solemn invocation. When rolling from his tongue, each word of the Lord's Prayer seemed to weigh a pound. His venerable appearance and sightless eyes gave a tinge of pathetic emphasis to his every utterance. He was a man of rare gifts; in early life, before the entire failure of his sight, he had known much of active service in his sacred calling upon Western circuits. He had been the fellow-laborer of Cartwright, Bascom, and other eminent Methodist ministers of the early times.

Dr. Milburn was the Chaplain of the House during the Mexican War, and often a guest at the Executive Mansion when Mr. Polk was President. He knew well many of the leading statesmen of that period. He possessed rare conversational powers; and notwithstanding his blindness, poverty, and utter loneliness, he remained the pleasing, entertaining gentleman to the last.

It was the custom of the good Chaplain, with the aid of a faithful monitor, to keep thoroughly advised as to the health of the senators and their families. The bare mention, in the morning paper, of any ill having befallen any statesman of whom he was, for the time, the official spiritual shepherd, was the unfailing precursor of special and affectionate mention at the next convening of the Senate. Moreover, in the discharge of this sacred duty, his invariable habit was to designate the object of his special invocation as "the Senior Senator" or "Junior Senator," carefully giving the name of his State. It is within the realm of probability that since

the first humble petition was breathed, there has never been an apparently more prompt answer to prayer than that now to be related.

The Morning Post contained an item to the effect that Senator Voorhees was ill. During the accustomed invocation which preceded the opening of the session, an earnest petition ascended for "the Senior Senator from Indiana," that he might "soon be restored to his wonted health, and permitted to return to the seat so long and so honorably occupied."

A moment later, the touching invocation being ended, and the Senate duly in session, the stately form of "the Senior Senator from Indiana" promptly emerged from the cloakroom, and quietly resumed the seat he had "so long and so honorably occupied."

XXXIV

A MEMORABLE CENTENNIAL

CAPITOL

GEORGE WASHINGTON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE PROGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY- - NOTABLE MEN WHO WERE CONSPICUOUS AT THE NATION'S BIRTH - CONGRESS HELD AT VARIOUS PLACES BEFORE 1800-THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FORMED NECESSITY FOR ENLARGING THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON - A DOCUMENT BY WEBSTER DEPOSITED BENEATH THE CORNER-STONE OF THE ADDITIONS - HIGH DEBATES HELD

IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE PRESENT LOCATION OF THE SENATE CHAMBER GREAT INCREASE OF POPULATION, TERRITORY, AND COMMERCE THE TWO DIVISIONS OF CONGRESS.

ON

-

N the eighteenth day of September, 1893, the first centennial of the laying of the corner-stone of the national Capitol was celebrated by appropriate ceremonies in Washington City.

President Cleveland presided, and seated upon the platform were the members of his Cabinet, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Foreign Ambassadors.

The oration was delivered by the Hon. William Wirt Henry, of Richmond, Virginia, grandson of Patrick Henry. The addresses which followed were by myself, representing the Senate; Speaker Crisp, representing the House; and Justice Brown, the Supreme Court. I spoke as follows:

"This day and this hour mark the close of a century of our national history. No ordinary event has called us together. Standing in the presence of this august assemblage of the people, upon the spot where Washington stood, we solemnly commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the laying of the corner-stone of the nation's Capitol.