Could they but be restored to life and re-endowed with memory and speech, and would they but narrate to us the events in our country's career which they personally witnessed or heard of at the time ot their happening, every chapter of American history from the Lnglish occupation of this province to the present time would be unfolded to our ears.

Upon the choicest spot of the cemetery grounds this monument has been erected: -- upon the very crest, overlooking the southern slope, along whose lower reaches, thick strewn, lie those patriot graves ; and right within the protecting arm of the old redoubt, still plainly to be seen, which with its cannon, in Revolutionary times, frowned over the bridge and pass below.

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MON U.M EXT D E DICAT IO X.

In a special sense we dedicate this monument to the memory of the seventy-six men, whose names are cut upon its sides, and even to the memory of all those " who by their valor sustained the cause of " liberty and independence on these historic fields," that is, anywhere within the old Philipse Manor. They were noble men, though plain, common folk, as indeed were the great mass of the Continentals everywhere. Their character was simple, massive and rugged as, with most appropriate taste, is the monument itself. The free air of these hills taught them the rights of man far better than their manorial master learned the same in schools, camps, and legislative councils. They knew by instinct at least, that governments derive " their just powers from the "consent of the governed," and that there is no such thing as "the "divine right of kings to rule. " The Declaration of Independence, with its grand statement of the right of self-government, its awful arraignment of the tyrant king, and its solemn appeal to "The Supreme "Judge of the world" fell upon their eager ears and went to their responsive hearts as a benediction of heaven-born truth.