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During the whole of last week, great impatience was manifested for the arrival of this day so dear to Free-men, and our kind superintendent, seeing the intense anxiety of all to give expression to our great patriotism, yielded to our ardent wishes, and gave us permission to anticipate the day. Ac-cordingly Saturday, July 3, was patriotically and enthusiastically observed.

At sunrise we were notified by the loud and prolonged ringing of the bell, to prepare for the impressive observances of the day, and the "note of preparation" so early sounded, was responded to with cheerful alacrity. It had been deemed advisable to "reserve our fire" of rockets and of cannon "till the witching hour of night," and not indulge, at early dawn, in fillibusteric demonstrations, by raw recruits, dangerous alike to life and limb. After the summary of a well-ordered breakfast, our ever-attentive supervisors, assisted by active amateurs in the art tonsorial, proceeded with easy-moving elbow and with steady nerve, to smooth the faces of the sterner sex, or to give to the already well-appointed the formal cut appropriate to the day. This done we array ourselves in our best in the ample and well-furnished reading--room speak to one another of heroic deeds done in other days; rehearse the story of the hard-fought field, of strongholds impetuou-sly stormed and taken, the deadly onset, the momentary retreat, the rallying cry, the renewed assault, the shout of victory which brings a smile even upon the face of the soldier dying on the field; all these are spoken of, and honor to these who "fight-ing fell in freedom's cause" is the sovereign sentiment in every breast. At 10 o'clock, the tolling of the bell announces that the time has come for public mention of all these stirring incidents, for prayer to Almighty God that He will give us a spirit of humble thankfulness for all these blessings, and of praise also to Him, in whose name and by whose guidance the armies of our country marched forward to victory. Arrived in the chapel, we meditate in silence for a time on all these great events. On either hand, our National banners hang in graceful drapery from the lofty walls and inspire our hearts with sentiments of admiration, similar to those aroused in the breast of citizen at sight of all the stately decorations of the Pantheon, pride of ancient Rome. From our pleasing meditation, we were aroused by the deep-toned music of the organ, directed and controlled by a master-hand, welcoming the entrance of our Superintendent and his esteemed assistant., together with our beloved Pastor, and the Orator and Reader of the day. A momentary stillness ensues when again the soothing music steals upon the ravished ear, lulling our senses into sweet forgetfulness of all our sorrows, and anon arousing in us by outporing strains of music, and "concord of sweet sounds," an ardent wish to do such a deeds as will place our names pre-eminently fair among the immortal few "that were not born to die." Soon our beloved Pastor, keeper of a sorrowing flock, with humble accents and appropriate speech, implores the mercy of our Father in Heaven, and tells us with many thanks to their Divine Author, of all the benefits bestowed upon us, and asks in all the earnestness of devotional affection, that we may be ever grateful to God for all his goodness. And now the Choir, with more than Calliopean melody, celebrate in sounding verse, the day dedicated to freedom, and bring to mind the deeds done by our forefathers in the olden time, in a manner at once delicate and impressive, worthy even of fair "Polymneia" (muse of memory) herself. "Nam verum fateamur, amat Polyemnia verum." Then the Declaration of Independence, embodying the spirit of freedom handed down to us by those who rendered their names immortal by its construction and execution, and who were ready in their day and generation to ratify it even by the spilling of their blood, is read by Mr. Boyd, in an exceedingly beautiful and impressive manner, both by reason of the deliberate distinctness of his utterance, his calm and collected demeanor, and the musical intonation and modulation of his voice. It is impossible longer to suppress the applause, and acclamation long and loud burst forth, the spontaneous tribute of hearts grateful for the elegant accomplishing of this department of the day's proceedings. And now the Orator rises before us, stately and commanding in appearance, attention is at once fixed upon him, and right well and nobly does he do the duty assigned to him. With melting eloquence, he tells us of deeds of chivalrous daring done at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker's Hill, and moves us even unto tears by the recital of a tale told in brilliant language, and so fraught with incidents of personal daring and heroic firmness that we are proud of our forefathers, and proud too of him who is here with us to tell so eloquently of all their valor and their virtues. Passing from the consideration of these glorious deeds of other days, he mourns with true feeling and pathos, the death of the Statesman, "Henry Clay." A nation has been recently and suddenly plunged in grief, and the Orator stands before us and bewails our common loss with moving eloquence, and in manner more beautifully affecting than the plaintive, melancholy song of Pamphus, mourning at the tomb of Linus.

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THE ORATION.

Reason, an emanation of the Divinity that pervades creation, sheds around its radiance, and invests with the habilaments of glory or of shame, every member of the human family.

It is represented as a throned monarch whose sway is despotic, whose power is sought, whose influence is universal, and whose dethronement is attended with most unhappy consequences.

Essentially all the devotees of reason are monarchists, and the unreasonable ones are the opposites, who are exclusively anarchists or republicans. While the one are the strict constructionists, the others are of that liberal class of politicians, some of whom are here present, and who on this Sabath-Day of Freedom, like all good patriots meet to express their respect for the Institutions their fathers founded, and to offer an oblation on the altar of God and Freedom.

While the friends of reason have their devoted attachments, and Thomas Paine promulged an age of reason, yet if reasons were as plenty as blackberries at Taney, no reason is required for a recurrence to some of those events, which although as familiar as our prayers, are still as often neglected and committed in their remembrance to the contingencies of haste, convenience or caprice.

Pardon us, if we beg you to approach sacred altar, on this occasion, with unusual devotion, to cast up your prayers for the health, happiness and prosperity of America, and for the extended utility of her interests, and for the permanency of those in particular that nurture the domestic affections and aims, and to remember the expense at which they were instituted.

From the Tea patty in Boston to the shedding of blood at Lexington, Bunker-Hill Princeton, and the burnings of Norwalk and Fairfield, and the conflicts of Monmouth and Yorktown, with the innumerable places of resort and contest during the seven years war of the Colonies, we are constantly reminded of inconceivable agonies, endured for a relief from the oppression arising from a throne which was occupied by a monarch dethroned of the essential attributes of good government and human rights.

A long line of illustrious persons pass athwart the vision in a panoramic effulgence, irradiated from those principles of immortal virtue, for which our fathers contended with so much effect, and the value of which is constantly exhibited in the routine of this powerful republic.

The engagements of those who laid the foundation of this Republic, were of a peculiar and an exalted cast, and were accompanied by numerous duties, the performance of which were attended by imminent perils, and almost continuous privations, showing what a noble nature they possessed. How like the Martyrs of Religion who could rejoice in it above the flames and tortures of their foes. So they, through persecutions and oppressions, laid down the glove, and engaged in a conflict of unparalleled chivalry for doctrines that had long slumbered amid the ruins of Athens and Rome.

How, think you, did our Continentals compare with the polished Grecian and noble Roman? They might have lacked the exterior polish. But oh! their hearts, their minds were far above and beyond the ancients. The heathenish inculcations of a more refined age mingled not with the Heaven inspiring examples of Washington and Hamilton, and the wisdom of our Franklin and Sherman puts to the blush the rude patriotism of a Solon and Lycurgus.

If there were an echoing gallery of departed times. If the voices of the myriads who have fallen in battle, or endured the privations and miseries could now salute your ears, what would be their say?

Just what the page of History, by the hand of faithfulness relates, and the end still kept more distinctly in view, by a careful perusal of those records of antiquity, transmitting as heir-looms the deeds of our valorous ancestors, in which will be woven the fabric of continuity in the forms of interest exhibited in a Republican Country.

We have ever the romantic idea of a halo of patriots, surrounding the former scenes of action, and holding an indirect influence on the conduct of mankind.

Even if the spirits of Washington, Hamilton, LaFayette, Montgomery, McDonough, Greene, Pickens, or Graham, do not hover over us, one thing is certain, that their God and Creator as well as ours still exists in the same most glorious field of majesty, and penetrates with his unerring wisdom the abodes of oppression and determined misrule, instituting means whereby the people sustain themselves in the primary assemblies as well as in the perfected and more exalted congregations, and chiefly in those ornaments of hearth and home, which are the inspirations of men's exertions to personal accomplishments, and thus "in the aggregate" forming an union of societies affiliated and constant.

Does it afford exultation to the heart of an American, as he beholds this vastly extended empire branching forth into innumerable avenues of splendor and intelligence?

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Does the heart Beat quicker that there are Thirty-one States teeming with industry and independent circumstances?

Twenty millions of people; pursuing in brotherly regard their varied engagements, cultivating religion, the arts and sciences, and all along the water courses planting the standards of freemen, in the institutions which have arisen as if by magic in the far distant regions.

Does it thrill the heart with gratitude to God that amid the dreadful chapters of an ever varying world, there is a bright page in American History, a radiant light illuminating the path of society, and like the lamps in darkness to a traveller keep their effulgence a little before him, to arouse a care of that dark future of which all may dread.

Does sorrow melt the heart as the heart discovers its long catalogue of woes. It. may. But grief has its luxury, and learns that in misfortunes's school were drilled the sires who founded this government and reared these tabernacles, holy to freedom, the very sight of which is eye salve to the oppressed and blinded European.

"Joyfully celebrate the Fourth of July."' exclaims the illustrious Mr. John Adams, "by bonfires, by ringing of bells, by huzzas, and by every demonstration that a triumphant people can command."

Mr. Governeur Morris, once exclaimed in a moment of depression, as addressed to such men as Mr. Adams, and his compeers: "Happy! thrice happy illustrious chieftains, that ye died in the bright day of your national glory." Ah! if he had lived until now, if the good patriots and statesmen who founded the government could now survey its conditions and prospects, witness its ships bearing its flag to every clime, behold her citizens, in every region of the earth, with their characteristic promptness, sagacity and adventure, advancing their own and the general weal, and one at least in the metropolis of the northern country, by his own wealth contributing to the hospitable enjoyment of life, and successfully competing with the proudest capitalists of that seat of riches and science.

Our fathers would rejoice that although there may have been unfavorable circumstances under whose aspect our public men may have been or are viewed, yet take them for all in all, who have past away with the colonial revolution, and we may never see their like again.

Their incorruptible virtue, their indomitable courage, their tender humanity, their expensive benevolence and patriotism, their heart-rending sufferings, their intelligence and wisdom formed a character that like Edystone Light House on a Solitary Rock, against which the Ocean dashes its waves, and reflects its constant and unflickering light amid the storm and calm. And do we rejoice, that the Puritans with their heroic virtues, the Hugenots with their hallowed chivalry, founded this nation? That over these boundaries and extent the human mind ranges with wonder and delight; that the light of Savage Barbarity has been extinguished, and that the sweet, the alluring ray of virtuous Liberty illuminates the homes of independence? That away over the hills and mountains, where the wild deer and animals were the chase of the Indian, and the war-whoop the sweetest music even of this beautiful valley, there are now the matchless glories of unexampled progress, the luxuries of an independence derived from the stern impulse of the unconquered and inconquerable virtues of heroism and trust.

Wisdom did not die with our fathers, if it should perchance with their children, and the improvements we behold, the wants and fields, the cottages and palaces of America are only the inevitable consequence of their descent.

Does this generation exult in their adventure, and laugh at the prudeness of the times that tried men's souls? Their exultation is indeed changed into lamentation, that the power and influence of their exertions comes looming on the astonished sight of their wondrous children, in these beautiful institutions, where polished friends and dear relations mingle into bliss, and around whose sanctity braveness waves its stars and stripes in token of the sure inheritance, and of the safety with which they are founded and exist.

The tall oaks that have grown from acorns our fathers planted, will always be a standing reproof to the versatility of the seasons, and a beacon against the superstitious bigotry and horrid delusion on which ancient republics have stumbled.

The truest glory of this republic is not in its vastness, but in the heraldry of the people's inheritance. I need not tell you what that is. Ye all do know, and in some degree appreciate. In the alacrity and zeal with which it rears its altars and firesides, and perpetuates, in all the germs of worth transmitted from the nurseries of Plymouth and Yorktown.

When this country was discovered by Columbus, there was a set of barbarians who had their own forms, religion and customs. With a wonderful extent of territory, all the romance of the forest was exhibited, and would have doubtless remained "about the same," had not there appeared another band of Eastern Magii to witness the birth of freedom on this continent, and which, from its swaddling clothes, was committed to the high impulse of angelic virtues, that have ripened into maturity, and have with some degree of imperfection been transmitted through countless channels of art and knowledge.

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Natural advantages are not always prognostics of success, and this country would now have been a wilderness for the savage and wild animals, had not the improvements suggested by the colonists been carried out by successful enterprize and valor.

Of the importance of that which can acts accomplish so much as you now behold, naught need now be said. It would be trespassing on the usual intelligence of assemblies, to point you to the ever fresh memorials of principles of justice and equality, that render this nation a band of ancient brethren whose only object is to promote general happiness by taking good care of themselves.

You may see herein what is accomplished by individual enterprize and by public benevolence. Lessons of great utility are here taught by induction. And this great edifice is a memento of the triumph of moral causes over physical in promoting objects of use and benefit.

Take away these self-sacrificing and devoted friends of humanity, and what would be the splendor of architecture, or the conveniences of genius? What, but the substance to the form, the shell to the nutrition.

It may be asked what have these children of misfortune to do with celebrations of this day? Much every way. Chiefly because they are reminded of their obligations, and aroused to a sense of duty incumbent and personal and obligatory, and an abiding and realizing sense of the importance of intellectual freedom first of all, and a control of it to the purposes of good intent, and to an immediate enlistment in the ranks of freemen, which are constantly diminishing, and needeth a constant supply of patriotism and virtue, which we honestly trust may ever be found among you, respected friends of Asylumia.

Within a brief period in the history of "Our Country," thirteen generals, some of the greatest that ever lived, have passed away -

"How sleep the brave? By all their country's wishes blessed."

And within a briefer moment hath Heaven taken to itself one of the noblest citizens, purest patriots, and greatest statesmen of the nation or the age, Mr. Henry Clay, whose history is read in a nation's eyes, and whose identity with it has rendered him actually a part of that country itself. Being of the same age with the government, he grew with its growth unto perfection, and stood forth its champion in the hour of peril, an architect and builder to an extent of genius unrivalled.

An Orator, whose commanding eloquence rivetted listening and admiring Senates; a Statesman, whose skill outwitted the Diplomacy of England; a Patriot, whose self-devotion caused a harmony and love in a wider circle of personally attached friends than ever falls to the lot of mortals, needeth not the idle adulation of the paragraph, or the fulsome panegyric of the eulogist. His interests, his worth, his whole self is known to nil of his countrymen, and their unavailing regrets at his departure will only be stilled by the fiat of a just being with whom are the issues of life and death. Through a long life, it were wondeful -sic- that he hid committed no errors. An anecdote, illustrative of him is related: During a canvass, some thirty-five years since, a bill passed Congress styled the Compensation Bill, which, though deemed by some of the wisest Statesmen, politic and proper, in Mr. Clay's Congressional District, there was great opposition, and one of his old constituents met him at the Hustings, with "well Harry, I cannot vote for you again." "Why not?" said Mr. Clay. "Ah," said the constituent, "you voted for that miserable Compensation Bill." "Indeed I did," said Mr. Clay, "and did a conscientious act of matured duty. But my old friend, have you a good rifle ?" "Yes, as good as was ever fired." "Did you ever miss fire?" "Oh! often, when my judgement was in its pride." -- "What did you do then, asked Mr. Clay, "did you break your rifle against the first log you met, or did you examine the lock, pick it, and try it again?" "Ah," said the Constituent, "I tried it again," and perceiving the object of Mr. Clay's inquiry, immediately extended his hand to him, with "Ah, Harry, I'll try you again." Mr. Clay was re-elected."

During his illness he was possessed and firm in his fortitude. The chamber where he was ill was attended with unusual interest, as from it issued the maxims of prudence and patriotism, that the honesty of the scenes could not permit to be questioned. -- He was sensible of his gradual and great change, and was pronounced by his accomplished spiritual adviser and friend prepared for it. Once he undertook to walk across the chamber, when the Physician cautioned him that he would faint. -- "Ah! indeed," said he, "and has it come to this?" His composure unto his life's end, and he made his request to repose his remains in Lexington cemetery in the bosom of his refined constituents and early and close friends. -- Earthly governments seem unstable. -- Earth's best and noblest are gathering rapidly unto their everlasting rest --

"Lord, shall it be forever said, The race of man was only made For sickness, sorrow and the grave? Are not thy servants day by day Sent to their graves and turned to clay Lord, where's thy kindness to the just."

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Thank God, his kingdom is eternal and stable, and that there is enough for all, enough for each, enough forevermore, within its happy realms, and that the humblest heart that palpitates within this great family may be a fit subject for the palace of the King of Kings.

And now, an Ode, replete with patriotic expressions, and elegant in its conception and construction is sung with its usually powerful effect by the Choir, the deep-toned bass and the melodious tenor of the gentlemen, and the clear silvery-toned air ringing from the ruby lips of the fairest of the fair, are blended together in one continued torrent of harmony, which defies imitation, and would strike all competition dumb and dead forever. The blessing of our Heavenly Father is again invoked with meekness and solemnity, and the benediction being pronounced, we descend to our apartments highly gratified with our noble entertainment. A repast is now prepared for us which is worthy of the day, and we set down with cheerful hearts and keen appetites to do it justice. Meanwhile the busy and mysterious conduct of our Supervisor gives promise that something of great importance is yet to be enacted --

Ere the shard-born beetle hath, With his drowsy hum, Rung out nights yawning peal, There shall be done a deed of fearful note.

Dinner done, we enjoyed ourselves, for a time in pleasing conversation, and at 3 o'clock are suddenly summoned to the outer Hall. -- We obey the call with alacrity, when "Head of Confucius!" what a sight is there! heaps of mammoth oranges, bushels of nuts and raisins, and gallons of cool iced lemonade await us. The ladies are there too in all their loveliness, and as we gaze upon them we almost involuntarily exclaim "return oh truant reason to thy throne!" -- Here too, our Supervisor fairly outshines himself, he seems to possess the power of ubiquity, he is flitting about continually like another "Ganymedes." Do you want any thing? Name it, and it is yours. Are ye looking wistfully at those oranges, they are instantly before you, take another they'll not hurt you. Really he too is happy, we enjoy ourselves, he knows it, and is glad of it. While here, a thought occurs to us exceedingly creditable to him, that although we have known him to administer a world of physic, we have never yet heard him recommend any of it. All partake of the luscious fruits freely, notwithstanding which there is enough and to spare. At this time, Mr. Boyd reads the following regular toasts in his usually clear and distinct style.