its evidences of prosperity, its artistic embellishments, and its
scientific attainments.

I have noticed that men never like a place where they have not behaved
well. Swarthout did not like New York; nor Dr. Webster, Boston. Men
who have free rides in prison-vans never like the city that furnishes
the vehicle.

When I see in history Argos, Rhodes, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, and
several other cities claiming Homer, I conclude that Homer behaved
well.

Let us not war against this pride of city, nor expect to build up
ourselves by pulling others down. Let Boston have its _Common_,
its _Faneuil Hall_, its _Coliseum_, and its _Atlantic Monthly_. Let
Philadelphia talk about its _Mint_, and _Independence Hall_, and
_Girard College_. When I find a man living in either of those places,
who has nothing to say in favor of them, I feel like asking him, "What
mean thing did you do, that you do not like your native city?"

New York is a goodly city. It is one city on both sides of the river.
The East River is only the main artery of its great throbbing life.
After a while four or five bridges will span the water, and we shall
be still more emphatically one than now. When, therefore, I say "New
York city," I mean more than a million of people, including everything
between Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Gowanus. That which tends to elevate
a part, elevates all. That which blasts part, blasts all. Sin is a
giant; and he comes to the Hudson or Connecticut River, and passes it,
as easily as we step across a figure in the carpet. The blessing of
God is an angel; and when it stretches out its two wings, one of them
hovers over that, and the other over this.

In infancy, the great metropolis was laid down by the banks of the
Hudson. Its infancy was as feeble as that of Moses, sleeping in the
bulrushes by the Nile; and like Miriam, there our fathers stood and
watched it. The royal spirit of American commerce came down to the
water to bathe; and there she found it. She took it in her arms,
and the child grew and waxed strong; and the ships of foreign lands
brought gold and spices to its feet; and, stretching itself up into
the proportions of a metropolis, it has looked up to the mountains,
and off upon the sea,--one of the mightiest of the energies of
American civilization.

The character of the founder of a city will be seen for many years in
its inhabitants. Romulus impressed his life upon Rome. The Pilgrims
relax not their hold upon the ci