DELIVERED BEFORE THE

CITY GOVERNMENT

AND

CITIZENS OF BOSTON,

IN

MUSIC HALL, JULY 5, 1875.

BY

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

BOSTON:

ROCKWELL AND CHURCHILL, CITY PRINTERS,

No. 39 ARCH STREET.

CITY OF BOSTON.

IN BOARD OF ALDERMEN, July 6, 1875.

Ordered, That the thanks of the City Council be presented to Rev. JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE for the very interesting and instructive Oration delivered by him before the municipal authorities on the occasion of the observance of the ninety-ninth anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence; and that he be requested to furnish a copy thereof for publication.

Passed; sent down for concurrence.

ORATION.

It is an old custom, as you know, in many of our Congregational churches, to have what is called a preparatory lecture, the purpose of which is to prepare the minds of those who are to commune, so that they shall partake of that feast of brotherly love in the right spirit. I consider my little speech to-day, this ninety-ninth anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, to be a kind of preparatory lecture for the great feast to be held next year in Philadelphia. On the 4th of July, 1876, the thirtyseven sister States of this Republic, after a hundred years' experience of free institutions, will meet to thank God, and take courage. Certainly it is one of those happy coincidences which seem something more than mere accidents, that the people of this great Union, so long divided, and now so happily reunited, shall inaugurate the new century of freedom and union, henceforth one and inseparable, by giving and receiving the hand of fellowship, in the CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE. Freedom and union; for without freedom, what is union worth, and without union,