We, under Providence, are commissioned to carry forward the work they left unfinished.

This land was the home of our fathers and shall be the heritage of our children.  The provincial spirit of our ancestors is being merged into a great national one.  A grand idea of nationality is being deeply rooted in the hearts of the present generation.  We are preparing for all the responsibilities and all the works of a nation, and whether our political union with the mother country becomes weaker or stronger as the years pass by, our love for the old land will never cease.  We are proud of our parentage.  Proud of the Celtic and Saxon blood that courses through our veins.

As our country expands, and as we continue to build, may our love of country widen, and the light of patriotism that brightened and cheered the hearts of our ancestors as they toiled on, brighten and deeper burn in all our hearts, and one grand illumination throw its rays upon the surface of two oceans.

A neighbouring nation may envy our progress and seek our union, but this will only stimulate our energy and strengthen the bonds that bind British Americans together.

Our fathers left us a few disunited provinces, our children will inherit a vast dominion, bounded east and west by the world’s two great seas.

In even less time than it took our ancestors a century ago to travel from Halifax to the mouth of the St John, we can plant our feet on the shore of the Pacific.

The stars and stripes may wave along our Southern boundary, and there shall their proud waves be stayed

    The Eagle may be lord below,
    But the young Lion lord above.

We rest firm in the belief that the decree has gone forth out of the court of heaven, that the flag which was wrapped in its folds around the “Young Lion of the Woods” in his last sleep, shall wave triumphantly over Canada till peoples and nations cease to exist on earth.

The provinces in which the heroic events related in the foregoing chapters occurred, now partake of the fortunes and sentiments and character of a vast country.  They live together with Canada, they flourish with her, and if they are ever called upon to oppose a mightier foe than Red men and Rebels, they will not be found unequal to the occasion.

Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than that which was confided to our ancestors more than a century ago.  It was theirs under providence to commence the foundations on which we are building, and in the record of our social, industrial, educational, political and religious progress we await with confidence the verdict of the world.