for the citizens of Boston, this elegant work of art. It will be a most valuable addition to the many beautiful statues that already adorn our avenues and public grounds, and an honor to the donor.

The Mayor received the gift in behalf of the city, and pronounced the following oration.

The exercises were closed with a benediction by Rev. Phillips Brooks.

ORATION,

BY HIS HONOR

FREDERICK O. PRINCE,

MAYOR.

Gentlemen of the City Council:

FELLOW-CITIZENS, - -We place to-day upon its pedestal this pleasing work of art, presented to the City of Boston by our fellow-citizen, the Honorable MOSES KIMBALL. The Municipal Council and the people are grateful to the munificent donor, and I have been requested to express their acknowledgments, and make such dedicatory remarks as seem appropriate to the occasion.

Mr. Kimball has attached a condition to his gift. He requires the city to make provision for its care and protection, and place it where the people "most do congregate," that they may be constantly reminded of the great event it commemorates; for it is his desire, by this memorial bronze, not only to adorn the city and gratify our sense of the beautiful, but to elevate and instruct the popular mind by its

solemn lessons of justice, philanthropy, and patriotism. Thus, in making the gift and directing its location, his liberality and wisdom are equally conspicuous.

The city has agreed to comply with this condition. The site selected is a thoroughfare, and meets the approbation of the considerate donor. May this eloquent memorial endure as long as things made by human hands are permitted to endure; as long as the human mind retains its capacity to know that liberty is the gift of Heaven to man, and that resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.

The desire to record important events, and the great actors therein, by some artistic expression, is such a natural disposition, that all nations, civilized and barbaric, have invoked architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry, to commemorate their eminent sovereigns, soldiers, statesmen, philosophers, orators, poets, and those who have rendered beneficial service to the State and to humanity. Gratitude, pride, and affection, are not satisfied to trust such commemoration to a vehicle so uncertain as tradition. The historic page informs only the student and the lettered; but all can read and understand, with more or less appreciation, the language of art. The popular mind comprehends more readily an idea in the concrete than the abstract, -an idea expressed

by sensuous forms than by words, however eloquent. Art performs its highest office when it perpetuates heroic action. National monuments are epic lessons to future generations. They instruct, admonish, delight, and inspire. That which we dedicate to-day speaks of the most important act in our annals, and commemorates one of the great eras of the Republic, the emancipation of four millions of slaves!

It is fitting and appropriate that we should come here to Faneuil Hall and have our dedicatory exercises. The associations of this venerable and historic place accord with the solemn character of the occasion. The walls which heard those denunciations of tyranny that led to the immortal declaration -"All men are created free," should echo our thanksgiving that all men throughout our broad doof every race and color are at last free, and witness the consecration of the sculpture which commemorates the event.

main

SLAVERY NOW INDEFENSIBLE.

The occasion does not require me to enter at length into the causes which led to the great civil war. I do not propose to discuss the right, moral or legal, of one man to have property in another; nor shall I have much to say upon the nature and influence of slavery, or the political or economic conse