, deer, and game, was
a scene of plenty. The Indian has vanished from its banks with the game
that he pursued. The valley numbers as many states now as it did white
men then; a busy, enterprising, adventurous, population, numbering its
millions, has swept away the unprogressive and unassimilating red man.
The languages of the Illinois, the Quapaw, the Tonica, the Natchez, the
Ouma, are heard no more by the banks of the great water; no calumet now
throws round the traveller its charmed power; the white banner of France
floated long to the breeze, but with the flag of England and the
standard of Spain all disappeared we may say within a century. For fifty
years one single flag met the eye, and appealed to the heart of the
inhabitants of the shores of the Mississippi.[45] Two now divide it: let
us hope that the altered flag may soon resume its original form, and
meet the heart's warm response at the month as at the source of the
Mississippi.

[Footnote 45: In allusion to the Rebellion.]

* * * * *

=_John Gorham Palfrey, 1796-._= (Manual, pp. 504, 532.)

From the "History of New England."

=_149._= HAPPINESS OF WINTHROP'S CLOSING YEARS.

He was greatly privileged in living so long. Just before he died, that
ecclesiastical arrangement had been made, which he might naturally
hope would preserve the churches of New England in purity, peace, and
strength, to remote times. Religious and political dissensions, which
had disturbed and threatened the infant Church and the forming
State, appeared to be effectually composed. The tribunals, carefully
constituted for the administration of impartial and speedy justice,
understood and did their duty, and commanded respect. The education of
the generations which were to succeed had been provided for with an
enlightened care. The College had bountifully contributed its ripe
first-fruits to the public service; and the novel system of a universal
provision of the elements of knowledge at the public cost, had been
inaugurated with all circumstances of encouragement.

A generation was coming forward which remembered nothing of what
Englishmen had suffered in New England for want of the necessaries
and comforts of life. The occupations of industry were various and
remunerative. Land was cheap, and the culture of it yielded no penurious
reward to the husbandman; while he who chose to sell his labor was at
least at liberty to place his own estimate upon i