Their lives still speak. As we look into the past, with the blessings of a century upon us, may we learn its lessons! May our citizenship be nobler from the example of our forefathers! Bless those who have planned these centennial exercises, and all who shall participate therein; and crown us all with thy grace and heavenly benediction, through Jesus Christ. Amen. At the close of the invocation, "Hail Columbia" was rendered by the band and choir, the audience joining in the chorus. Prayer was then offered by Rev. Dr. FURBER, of the First Church, where the meeting in favor of independence was held: — O thou eternal and unchangeable God, with reverence would we look upward unto thee, who, through all the changes that occur in the affairs of men and of nations, art forever the same. One generation goeth, and another cometh; but thou changest not. We look back over the generations that have preceded us, and see from what feeble beginnings we have become a great and mighty nation; and we desire to acknowledge, in all our growth and prosperity, thy ruling and helping hand. Thou didst bring a vine out of England. Thou didst cast out the heathen, and plant it. Thou preparedest room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root; and it has filled the land. Thou didst plant here a Christian people, with an undying love of freedom, law, and truth in their hearts, and in all their ways thou didst guide them as with a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Their sense of personal dignity and of God-given rights was from thee, their sleepless vigilance, and their heroic. constancy in resisting the aggressions of arbitrary power. Their lofty determination to secure for themselves and for us those inestimable blessings of unfettered liberty, which so few of the nations of the earth have ever enjoyed, thou didst inspire in their hearts. And when the stand was taken, and the declaration made, which announced to the world the birth of a nation, thou didst gird them with strength for the conflict which ensued. Thou didst teach their hands to war, and their fingers to fight; thou didst raise up for them a leader and commander whom they followed with unbounded confidence and unfaltering affection; and by him thou didst lead them triumphantly through the stormy sea of war, reddened with their blood, and strewn with the wreck of untold treasure; and, when the long-sought liberty was achieved, it was in the hands. of a people whom thou hadst prepared for it by the long severity of discipline through which they had passed. We give thanks for the conspicuous part which was borne in the struggle by this ancient Commonwealth; for the example and influence of that apostle of liberty whose fiery words on the floor of Congress stirred the hearts of men to their depths; and for the readiness with which the people of the Commonwealth responded, far and near, to the bugle-call of his voice and the voices of his compatriots. We rejoice, that, in that momentous crisis, the response of our own beloved town was heard; that, in the sanctuary where our fathers worshipped, they solemnly and with one voice pledged their fortunes and their lives to the sacred. cause of freedom, and from that time forth redeemed their pledge with their toils, their sacrifices, and their blood. As we, their posterity, come into the inheritance which |