lived greatly, even though we have suffered greatly, than to have passed a long life of inglorious ease.  Our generation,—­yes, we ourselves have been a part of great things.  We have suffered greatly and greatly rejoiced; we have drunk deep of the cup of joy and of sorrow; we have tasted the agony of defeat, and we have supped full with the pleasures of victory.  We have proved ourselves equal to great deeds, and have learnt what qualities were in us, which in more peaceful times we ourselves did not suspect.

And, indeed, I would here in closing fain address a few words to such of you, if any such are here, who like myself may nave been soldiers during the War of the Rebellion.  We should never more be partisans.  We have been a part of great events in the service of the common country, we have worn her uniform, we have received her pay and devoted ourselves to the death, if need be, in her service.  When we were blackened by the smoke of Antietam, we did not ask or care whether those who stood shoulder to shoulder beside us, whether he who led us, whether those who sustained us, were Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or radicals; we asked only that they might prove as true as was the steel we grasped, and as brave as we ourselves would fain have been.  When we stood like a wall of stone vomiting fire from the heights of Gettysburg,—­nailed to our position through three long days of mortal Hell,—­did we ask each other whether that brave officer who fell while gallantly leading the counter-charge—­whether that cool gunner steadily serving his piece before us amid the storm of shot and shell—­whether the poor wounded, mangled, gasping comrades, crushed and torn, and dying in agony around us—­had voted for Lincoln or Douglas, for Breckenridge or Bell?  We then were full of other thoughts.  We prized men for what they were worth to the common country of us all, and recked not of empty words.  Was the man true, was he brave, was he earnest, was all we thought of then;—­not, did he vote or think with us, or label himself with our party name?  This lesson let us try to remember.  We cannot give to party all that we once offered to country, but our duty is not yet done.  We are no longer, what we have been, the young guard of the Republic; we have earned an exemption from the dangers of the field and camp, and the old musket or the crossed sabres hang harmless over our winter fires, never more to be grasped in these hands henceforth devoted to more peaceful labors; but the duties of the citizen, and of the citizen who has received his baptism in fire, are still incumbent upon us.  Though young in years, we should remember that henceforth, and as long as we live in the land, we are the ancients,—­the veterans of the Republic.  As such, it is for us to protect in peace what we preserved in war; it is for us to look at all things with a view to the common country and not to the exigencies of party politics; it is for us ever to bear in mind the higher