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"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

PEARANCE

HIS VENERABLE APHIS CONVERSATIONAL POWERS - HIS CUSTOM

OF PRAYING FOR SICK MEMBERS.

O Senator who ever sat under the ministrations of Dr.

NR

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."

CAPITOL

XXXIV

A MEMORABLE CENTENNIAL

-

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.

"It is well that this day has been set apart as a national holiday, that all public business has been suspended, and that the President and his Cabinet, the members of the great Court, and of the Congress, unite with their countrymen in doing honor to the memory of the men who, one hundred years ago, at this hour, and upon this spot, put in place the corner-stone of the Capitol of the American Republic. The century rolls back, and we stand in the presence of the grandest and most imposing figure known to any age or country. Washington, as Grand Master of Free and Accepted Masons, clothed in the symbolic garments of that venerable Order, wearing the apron and the sash wrought by the hands of the wife of the beloved La Fayette, impressively and in accordance with the time-honored usages of that Order, is laying his hands upon the corner-stone of the future and permanent Capitol of his country. The solemn ceremonies of the hour were conducted by Washington, not only in his office of Grand Master of Free Masons, but in his yet more august office of President of the United States. Assisting him in the fitting observance of these impressive rites, were representatives of the Masonic Lodges of Virginia and Maryland, while around him stood men whose honored names live with his in history the men who, on field and in council, had aided first in achieving independence, and then in the yet more difficult task of garnering, by wise legislation, the fruits of victory. Truly, the centennial of an event so fraught with interest should not pass unnoticed.

"History furnishes no parallel to the century whose close we now commemorate. Among all the centuries it stands alone. With hearts filled with gratitude to the God of our fathers, it is well that we recall something of the progress of the young Republic, since the masterful hour when Washington laid his hands upon the foundation-stone of yonder Capitol.

"The seven years of colonial struggle for liberty had terminated in glorious victory. Independence had been achieved. The Articles of Confederation, binding the Colonies together in a mere league of friendship, had given place

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