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THE 
 
 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 
 
 ORATIONS 
 
THE 
 
 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY 
 ORATIONS 
 
 ADDRESSES SERMONS AND POEMS DELIVERED BEFORE 
 THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
 
 1820-188; 
 
 COLLECTED AND EDITED BY 
 
 CEPHAS BRAINERD 
 
 AND 
 
 EVELINE WARNER BRAINERD 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ^be Century Co* 
 
 MCMI 
 

 TWE I. ;«RARY OF 
 
 OOMGRESS, 
 Two Cot'iES Received 
 
 DEC. U 1901 
 
 COPVRiOHT ENTRY 
 
 CLASS ^ XXa N j. 
 Z 3 / ^ 6 
 
 COPY J. ^ 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 
 The New England Society in 
 
 THE City of New York 
 
 The DeVinne Press 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Jonathan Prescott Hall i 
 
 Discourse, 1847 
 
 Horace Bushnell, D.D. 8i 
 
 The Founders, Great in their Unconsciousness, 1849 
 
 Daniel Webster 121 
 
 The Constitution and the Union, 1850 
 
 George S. Hillard 135 
 
 The Past and the Future, 1851 
 
 William Adams, D.D 163 
 
 Address, 1852 
 
 Mark Hopkins, D.D 203 
 
 The Central Principle, 1853 
 
 William Maxwell Evarts 233 
 
 The Heritage of the Pilgrims, 1854 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, M.D 267 
 
 Oration, 1855 
 
 John Pierpont, D.D 303 
 
 The Pilgrims of Plymouth, 1855 
 
 Richard Salter Storrs 327 
 
 The Puritan Scheme of National Growth, 1857 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson 371 
 
 Oration and Response, 1870 
 
 George William Curtis 397 
 
 Oration, 1885 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 
 1847 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 
 (1796-1863.) 
 
 The speaker at the anniversary held at the Tabernacle in 1847 
 was the eminent lawyer J. Prescott Hall. He was of Puritan 
 ancestry, a native of New England, a graduate of Yale, bred to 
 the Connecticut bar, and a member of the legislature of that 
 State. For a time he dropped his profession, turning to manu- 
 facturing interests. Being called to argue a case in connection 
 with these before the Supreme Court of the United States, his 
 abilities so impressed the opposing counsel, Mr. Webster, that 
 he inquired where Mr. Hall was practising. On learning that 
 his adversary had given up the bar for manufacture, Mr. Web- 
 ster said : "Young man, you have too much talent to waste it 
 in greasing cotton-spindles." 
 
 Thus influenced, Mr. Hall entered into partnership with his 
 brother, David Priestly Hall, then in practice in New York. 
 Later, J. Prescott Hall became the partner of Charles Butler, 
 and subsequently of William M. Evarts. From the adminis- 
 tration of President Taylor, Mr. Hall received the office of 
 District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He 
 was a man of brilliant mental powers and of splendid presence. 
 From a short sketch by Rowland Hall, Esq., is quoted the fol- 
 lowing description. "As a lawyer, without great application he 
 easily reached and held his position as a leader of the bar; 
 possessed of great nimbleness both of mind and speech, he 
 shone greatly as a speaker even in that day of great orators. 
 He was honest, sincere, the foe of hypocrisy, and full of a sar- 
 castic wit, from which pretence of every kind recoiled abashed." 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 TO trace the rise and progress of communities; to 
 follow the fortunes and elucidate the character of 
 those who have laid the foundation of new associations ; 
 to preserve from decay the memory of illustrious men, 
 who have transferred from one hemisphere to another, 
 the arts of peace, the blessings of liberty, and the con- 
 solations of religion; belong perhaps, to the province 
 of history, rather than to a brief address, upon a special 
 occasion. And yet, we who are now assembled, may 
 with strict propriety, and not without a sense of just 
 pride, cast our eyes back upon the events of the last two 
 centuries, while we contemplate the ancestry from 
 which we are sprung, and the causes which have led to 
 our being here, this day, to present our grateful offer- 
 ings upon the altar of our national existence. 
 
 "Difficilis est (says the learned Grotius,) rerum ges- 
 tarum narratio : quae absentem, f ugiunt ; presentem, 
 trahunt." It is difficult to give a correct narrative of 
 events ; they escape the observation of those who were 
 not witnesses ; while those who were present, are drawn 
 away by their force, or become parties in the scene. 
 
 But the story of our origin, as a people, is not ob- 
 scure. We are not compelled, like other nations, to 
 trace back our race through rude ages of barbarism, to 
 the dim uncertainty of tradition and fable. The foun- 
 dations of society in New England and the origin of its 
 
 3 
 
4 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Institutions, both civil and religious, may be correctly 
 ascertained ; for their history has been written and pub- 
 lished to the whole world. 
 
 In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the Goddess 
 of Wisdom is fabled to have sprung into existence from 
 the head of Jupiter, completely armed and all perfect. 
 In like manner, the first settlements of New England 
 came into being, as communities, with all the attributes 
 of organized society, and all the restraints of good gov- 
 ernment and subordination. 
 
 The day which we now celebrate, is a memorable one, 
 in the annals of our country; a day never to be forgot- 
 ten or disregarded. If the fourth of July, 1776, was, 
 in the estimation of the patriotic John Adams, a mem- 
 orable epoch, to be commemorated as the day of deliv- 
 erance, to be solemnized with pomp, shows, bonfires 
 and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the 
 other, how much more is the 226. of December, 1620, 
 which marks the period when the national existence of 
 New England began, to be held in remembrance by us 
 and our successors, "from that time forward forever!" 
 
 We are here assembled, Gentlemen of the New Eng- 
 land Society, to celebrate this great occasion. To say 
 to those who have gone before us, if in the mysterious 
 ties which bind the present and the past together, such 
 communications can be held, that we have not forgotten 
 the days of their labor and sorrow; that the history of 
 their perilous fortunes has not been blotted out, nor that 
 of their self-devotion gone into oblivion; that their 
 children, grateful for the sacrifices which they endured, 
 full of admiration at their example, proud of a descent 
 from such illustrious progenitors, year by year assem- 
 ble themselves together to commemorate the great 
 events of past centuries, that their fathers' names may 
 not be forgotten or lost from among men. 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 5 
 
 This Society, of which we are members, was not 
 founded upon narrow, or sectional predilections. Hav- 
 ing its beginning in wise and generous purposes, its 
 chief object is, and ever has been, to connect the natives 
 of New England and their descendants with the early- 
 history of their country; that, by the considerations of 
 a common ancestry, the emotions of a natural sym- 
 pathy might be excited, and the bonds of union 
 strengthened ; and thus, that the descendants of those, 
 who braved the same dangers, to attain the same ends, 
 might be led to kindly thoughts of one another; and 
 finally to kindly acts and benevolent associations. 
 
 We do not arrogate to ourselves, or assert for our- 
 selves, any superiority over the inhabitants of any other 
 part of the country, either in the manner of our origin, 
 or in our progress towards maturity. Conceding to all 
 sections of the Union a beginning equally as respect- 
 able, a progress equally honorable, and a present condi- 
 tion quite as prosperous as our own, we, nevertheless, 
 have a right, without offence to others, to consider our 
 family relations, and as the children of common pa- 
 rents, to assemble ourselves together, on an occasion 
 like the present, and look back with grateful remem- 
 brance upon those who, through peril, hardship and 
 privation, subdued the wilderness for our benefit and 
 laid here the foundations of law, order and religion so 
 broad and deep, that we may erect superstructures upon 
 them, massive and high, without endangering the solid 
 basis beneath. 
 
 Look back upon the origin of the first settlements of 
 New England, and tell me in what annals, other than 
 our own, can you find the history of a people, who, sur- 
 rounded at home by the comforts of social life; suf- 
 fering no intolerable evils from the tyranny of gov- 
 ernment; weighed down by no excessive burthens; 
 
6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 iintempted by prospects of gain ; unswayed by the lust 
 of conquest; abandoned, nevertheless, all that home, 
 kindred and country could offer, for the sole purpose of 
 enjoying an unrestrained liberty of thinking and acting 
 upon the great rights of conscience, free from the domi- 
 nation of ecclesiastical control. Look at them assem- 
 bled upon the shores of their native, their beautiful 
 Island, prepared to undergo all the hardship and perils 
 of voluntary exile ! Whose cheek blanches ; whose 
 eye grows dim as they look upon the waste of waters 
 which shuts them out from the distant and unknown 
 shores? Why should they leave this pleasant land? 
 Why should they desert their tranquil homes? What 
 dire necessity drives them forth? It is not poverty 
 goading the Irishman to fairer scenes and more fruitful 
 climes; it is not the Pole, scourged forth by the iron 
 whip of a military tyranny ; nor the blue-eyed German, 
 escaping from the grinding exactions of a toilsome 
 and hopeless, because unrewarded labor. 
 
 No, none of these motives impels or drives them for- 
 ward : but they are drawn by an impulse more powerful 
 than the love of home, or parents, or country. It is 
 the still small voice of conscience, which tells them of 
 a duty higher and purer and holier than all these; and 
 in obedience to its dictates, they must go forth to wor- 
 ship the God of their fathers in the wilderness. 
 
 *Tt is not the least debt" (says Sir Walter Raleigh,) 
 "we owe unto history, that it hath made us acquainted 
 with our dead ancestors, and delivered us their memory 
 and fame. Besides, we gather out of it a policy no less 
 wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of 
 other men's fore-passed mercies with our own like 
 errors and ill-deservings." 
 
 The history of our ancestors is indeed of inestimable 
 worth to their descendants; though by it, our "ill-de- 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 7 
 
 servings" may, perhaps, stand out in more prominent 
 relief against their fore-past mercies. But their ex- 
 ample remains for all time to come. Simple, unpre- 
 tending, high-minded and pure of purpose, the Pil- 
 grims of New England went forth for great objects, to 
 be attempted at first by inconsiderable means. 
 
 And who composed this devoted band, these Pilgrims 
 in the desert? Were they an ignorant and fanatical 
 sect, enticed from their homes by ambitious leaders, 
 taking advantage of a newly-awakened religious enthu- 
 siasm, for the accomplishment of their own selfish ob- 
 jects? or were they educated and well-informed men, 
 of large experience, prudent, sagacious and wise ? 
 
 The early settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Con- 
 necticut and New Haven, (for at the first, these Colo- 
 nies were separate and independent jurisdictions,) 
 numbered among their ranks many individuals eminent 
 for their learning, and distinguished by their personal 
 condition. Mr. Carver, the first Governor of Ply- 
 mouth, was a gentleman well known, and of elevated 
 character, who originally had a good estate in Eng- 
 land; but being among the earliest emigrants to Ley- 
 den and America, and one of their principal agents, he 
 liberally used his fortune for the benefit of his asso- 
 ciates; setting a most illustrious example of patience, 
 self-denial and generosity, through long years devoted 
 to the good of others, and the advancement of that 
 cause, for which he staked, and finally sacrificed, his 
 life. William Bradford, a name never to be men- 
 tioned without honor by a descendant of the Pilgrims, 
 although in some degree a self-taught scholar, was 
 nevertheless familiar with the Dutch and French lan- 
 guages, and attained to a considerable intimacy with 
 the Latin and Greek. But that he might "see the an- 
 cient oracles of God in their native beauty," he applied 
 
8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 himself, in his leisure moments, to the study of Hebrew ; 
 and through his whole life was much devoted to literary 
 pursuits ; although he inherited a good landed property 
 from his father, and was educated for the manly em- 
 ployments of agriculture; yet, in his early youth, hav- 
 ing his mind deeply impressed with its responsibilities 
 to a higher power, he passed over to Holland to join 
 the little band of non-conformists who had chosen an 
 asylum there against the ecclesiastical tyranny of King 
 James. Mr. Cotton, one of the most learned men of 
 his time, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 where he was eminently distinguished for his scholastic 
 attainments. He wrote Latin with elegance, was a 
 critic in Greek, and so well skilled in the Hebrew 
 tongue that he could discourse in that language. 
 Brewster, the steadfast and devout elder, who, in the 
 midst of want, if not absolute famine, gave thanks to 
 God that his family were permitted "to suck of the 
 abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the 
 sand," also educated at the University of Cambridge, 
 was at one time connected with the British Embassy in 
 Holland. Higginson was a graduate from Emanuel 
 College. Eaton and Hopkins had been eminent mer- 
 chants in London. Mr. Davenport, a student of Ox- 
 ford, and a minister of great fame at home, was also a 
 distinguished scholar, eminent alike for learning and 
 virtue. Edward Winslow, the brave man who offered 
 himself as a hostage for his Colony in their first inter- 
 view with the savage monarch of Mount Hope, pos- 
 sessed both fortune and information. In his travels on 
 the Continent of Europe, becoming acquainted with Mr. 
 Robinson, he adopted his sentiments and finally joined 
 the emigrants who came to Plymouth; and after per- 
 forming for them the most signal services, in the midst 
 of great and boldly encountered dangers, he at last 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 9 
 
 laid down his life for his country in that unfortunate 
 expedition fitted out by Cromwell against the Spaniards 
 in the West Indies. Mr. Hooker, a most eloquent di- 
 vine, and one of the founders of the Colony of Con- 
 necticut, was educated at Cambridge in England. His 
 command of language was so great, that, like Whitfield, 
 he usually delivered his discourses without reference to 
 notes; while his expressive countenance and personal 
 demeanor, added a majesty to his presence, which com- 
 manded at once the respect and admiration of his hear- 
 ers. Mr. Stone, at one time an associate with Mr. 
 Hooker, and a graduate of the same University, was 
 one of the most accurate logicians of his day, celebrated 
 not only for acuteness, but also for wit, humor and 
 pleasantry. And it may be here observed, that many 
 of the learned persons whose names are now men- 
 tioned, have left to their posterity most striking evi- 
 dences of their attainments, in the various works for 
 which they were, in their own times, particularly dis- 
 tinguished. Winthrop, a name prolific in illustrious 
 men — a gentleman of education and bred to the law, 
 inherited from his ancestors an estate of six hundred 
 pounds a year : an income, which would be accounted 
 even in these less frugal days, quite competent to main- 
 tain the condition in which he was born. Eminent 
 himself, he transmitted his name and fame, through 
 two chief magistrates of Connecticut, son and grand- 
 son ; and finally, the same blood coming down to a Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor of Massachusetts, flows, through him, 
 in the veins of the distinguished representative from 
 Boston, who now presides over the popular branch of 
 the American Congress. In one word — not to swell 
 the long catalogue — if we look at the whole body of 
 the emigrants by the Mayflower and Speedwell, the 
 Arbella, the Ambrose, the Talbot and the Jewel, we can 
 
lo NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 nowhere find names more eminent for prudence and 
 forecast, or more remarkable for intelligence, enterprise 
 and courage. If Lord Chatham, while speaking of the 
 renowned Patriots of our Independence, could say, that 
 he never had heard or read of any body of men supe- 
 rior to the Congress at Philadelphia, what may we not 
 say of those, who, on the bleak shores of New England, 
 in the midst of the desolations of winter, surrounded by 
 perils and want, could, nevertheless, so far subdue 
 themselves to the elements, and the elements to them, 
 as not to venture forth from the dreary prison of their 
 ship, until they had combined themselves together for 
 their better order and preservation, by framing a gen- 
 eral law for the good government of the Colony ? And 
 this too in the most perfect spirit of liberty and equality. 
 
 In what other records of man's history do you find 
 such evidences of just subordination, and solemn pur- 
 pose; such moral and such Christian elevation? The 
 very name by which they designated themselves is sig- 
 nificant of their character, and marks at once their cour- 
 age and humility. "And the time being come (says 
 Governor Bradford,) that they must depart, they were 
 accompanied to a town, sundry miles off, called Delft 
 Haven, where the ship lay ready to receive them. So 
 they left that goodly and pleasant City which had been 
 their resting-place near twelve years. But they knew 
 they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those 
 things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest 
 country, and quieted their spirits !" 
 
 What words of pathos and simplicity! They knew 
 they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those 
 things! Yes, they were indeed Pilgrims. Pilgrims 
 bound on no ordinary journey, to lay the foundation of 
 no ordinary society, to establish a name not soon to fade 
 away; for while admiration of purity and excellence 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL ii 
 
 shall endure, so long as respect for departed worth shall 
 remain among their descendants, so long shall the name 
 of "Pilgrim" be honored and revered. 
 
 Among the many remarkable qualities with which 
 Providence, for its own wise ends, seems to have en- 
 dued the character of our ancestors, I know of none 
 more striking or admirable than their love of order, and 
 their submission to those just restraints whereby so- 
 ciety is held together, property respected, personal se- 
 curity guarded, and public liberty preserved. 
 
 From the very first, the necessity for such submission 
 was apparent to their minds. Recollect, that before 
 they left the ship which had conveyed them safely 
 across the boisterous waves of the Atlantic, borne up in 
 the "hollow of that hand" which never ceased to sup- 
 port them, they projected, formed and signed, the first 
 compact for liberal government, under equal laws, of 
 which we have any record. 
 
 No men ever understood better than they, the proper 
 foundations of republican government, or the just prin- 
 ciples by which alone true liberty and equality can be 
 maintained. "The best part of a community," said 
 Governor Winthrop, in a letter to the people of Con- 
 necticut, "is always the least; and of that least, the 
 wiser are still less." "There is," said he on another 
 occasion, "a liberty of corrupt nature, which is incon- 
 sistent with authority, impatient of restraint, the enemy 
 of truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are 
 bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal 
 liberty, which consists in every one's enjoying his prop- 
 erty and having the benefit of the laws of his country ; 
 a liberty of that only which is just and good ; for this 
 liberty, you are to stand with your lives" 
 
 Wise legislator of the old time, just, sagacious and 
 true ! did your prophetic gaze pierce forward two cen- 
 
12 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 tiiries to our times, for this picture of democratic free- 
 dom ; to view and describe a liberty of corrupt nature, 
 inconsistent with authority, impatient of restraint, the 
 enemy of truth and peace? If haply, you should have 
 beheld such scenes in your vision, and turned your eyes 
 from the prospect, dim and suffused with tears, look 
 once again, and you shall yet behold the better portion 
 of your descendants, "standing with their lives," for 
 that liberty, which is just and good, which gives to 
 every one the enjoyment of his own property, and the 
 benefit of the laws of his country. 
 
 It should not be forgotten, perhaps, that when the 
 project for the settlement of New England was first en- 
 tertained the state of public sentiment in the land of our 
 ancestors began to be favorable to the commencement 
 of such an enterprise. It was at the close of the reign 
 of James the First, when men's minds were agitated by 
 new views of their rights and privileges. The iron 
 sway of the last Henry had been in some measure for- 
 gotten, while that of his stern and lion-hearted daugh- 
 ter had lost a large portion of its influence, during the 
 weak and undignified, yet assuming administration of 
 the learned, but contemptible, Scottish king. His sub- 
 jects had at this period, begun to think for themselves. 
 The reforms of Luther had spread their influence be- 
 yond the sea and over the land. The bigotry of Papal 
 power was not able to subdue or keep down the awak- 
 ened spirit of inquiry. A deep sense of religious obli- 
 gation, in a large class of English thinkers, had taken 
 the place of forms and masses, of indulgences and dis- 
 pensations. The accountability of man, as an indi- 
 vidual, had become impressed upon the minds of the 
 devout and reflecting. Although the time for the en- 
 joyment of religious freedom in their own land had not 
 yet come, yet the waves of public opinion had begun to 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 13 
 
 move and heave in a manner v^hich indicated that the 
 great internal power which caused the agitation, could 
 not long be pent up or restrained. When a true reli- 
 gious sentiment takes possession of the soul, it becomes 
 superior to all other considerations. A sympathetic 
 communication extends the feeling from mind to mind 
 and from heart to heart. In the depth of its fervor 
 all other objects are comparatively forgotten. The 
 strength of kings, the influence of forms, and the re- 
 wards of obedience to power, have lost their influence. 
 The soul becomes poised upon itself. Not dreading its 
 obligation to men, while those of a paramount nature 
 are before it, it cuts aloof from all worldly consider- 
 ations, and "holds itself responsible only to its God." 
 
 That this sentiment was the exciting cause of the 
 first removal of our ancestors to Holland, and of their 
 subsequent emigration to New England, has been con- 
 ceded by most historians who have written upon the 
 subject, and may be assumed as the basis of all our 
 speculations upon those extraordinary movements com- 
 menced by the independent churches on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. Indeed it has been supposed, and not 
 unfrequently asserted, that the first settlers at Ply- 
 mouth, went thither, for the exclusive purpose of en- 
 joying their religious opinions and practices in their 
 own way, unmolested by civil control, or ecclesiastical 
 domination. That this was the iirst object of those 
 who left England, and passed over to Holland, in 1608, 
 is undoubtedly true; but that it was their only motive 
 for leaving Holland, and coming to New England, can- 
 not well be ; for from the moment when the reformation 
 of Luther had taken permanent hold of the Low Coun- 
 tries, in the year 1573; from that moment, the Dutch, 
 with a wise policy, granted a free, absolute and uncon- 
 trolled liberty of conscience, to all religions and all 
 
14 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 sects; so that the Non-Conformist of England could 
 there meet the Catholic of Spain, the Jew of Syria, and 
 the Pagan of heathen lands, upon the equal platform of 
 free toleration. So far, then, as liberty of conscience 
 was concerned, there was no cause of complaint in Hol- 
 land. The free exercise of every man's religious opin- 
 ions and practices, was thoroughly guarded; and the 
 church of Mr. Robinson might have remained safely in 
 Leyden, if their only desire had been to worship the 
 God of their fathers, in their own mode, and according 
 to the dictates of their own consciences. Indeed the 
 liberality of Dutch sentiment, in this behalf, was such 
 as to excite the ridicule of their neighbors, who in- 
 timated that their tolerance was the effect, not of liberal 
 principles acting upon religious subjects, but of an in- 
 difference towards religion itself, in all its forms and 
 in every aspect. Amsterdam was denominated by 
 Bishop Hall, a "common harbour of all opinions;" 
 others called it "a cage for unclean birds," to which 
 "all strange religions flocked." And Beaumont and 
 Fletcher introduce a pedant in one of their plays as say- 
 ing: 'T am a schoolmaster, sir, and would fain confer 
 with you about erecting four new sects of religion at 
 Amsterdam." 
 
 What then were the causes which first moved the 
 Pilgrims in Holland to cast their eyes towards the set- 
 ting sun, with the design of establishing new institu- 
 tions in an unknown country, remote, barbarous and 
 wild? What feelings were those which swelled in the 
 hearts of those conscientious and brave men, to encoun- 
 ter hardship in all its forms, disease, famine and death, 
 with their wives and children, among savage tribes, on 
 rock-bound shores ? 
 
 Doubtless, the religious sentiment was the control- 
 ling and first moving cause; but it seems not to have 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 15 
 
 been the only one; — for, as I have before observed, if 
 the free enjoyment of their own rehgion in their own 
 way, was the sole motive, then there was no reason for 
 leaving Holland, where their persons, their property 
 and opinions, were absolutely protected by the law of 
 that land. They left England, it is true, for this one 
 cause; but they left Holland for that and for other 
 causes, which the Pilgrims themselves have set forth, 
 in their own language, so that they might be known of 
 all men, and respected by their descendants. I repeat 
 again, that the first and leading motive ; that which lay 
 at the foundation of all their designs and actions, was 
 the religious sentiment and feeling, which glowed in 
 their hearts, and imparted an energy to their conduct, 
 unknown to common men, unfelt by ordinary minds. 
 But there was also a feeling of human misery, as stran- 
 gers in a strange land; a yearning after kindred asso- 
 ciations, and a love of their own country, which no exile 
 among a strange people could subdue, no absence could 
 make them forget, no estrangement by time could over- 
 come. Hear the reasons for their enterprise, assigned 
 by one who was with them from the beginning, and 
 knew all their designs and all their motives. 
 
 "They had come," says Governor Bradford, "to a 
 country where they saw many goodly cities, strongly 
 walled, and filled with armed men;" but they heard, 
 also, "a strange and uncouth language," and beheld 
 manners and customs, so far differing from the vil- 
 lages wherein they were born, and bred, and had so 
 long lived, that it seemed to them as if they were come 
 into a new world. But these were not things which 
 much took up their thoughts, for they had other work 
 on hand ; and it was not long before they saw the grim 
 and grisled face of poverty coming upon them, like an 
 armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter, 
 
1 6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 and from whom they could not fly. After having lived 
 in Holland about eleven or twelve years, in the agita- 
 tion of their thoughts, and after much discourse, they 
 began to incline to the conclusion of removal to some 
 other place, not out of any new fangledness, or other 
 such like giddy humour, by which men are sometimes 
 transported, but for sundry weighty and solid reasons. 
 
 And first; they found by experience, the hardness of 
 the place and country to be such, that few would come 
 to them, and fewer abide with them; for many that 
 came and desired to remain, could not endure the great 
 labor they were contented to undergo. So severe, in- 
 deed, were their sufferings, that many who desired to 
 enjoy the ordinances of God in their purity, and the 
 liberty of the Gospel with them, yet preferred prisons 
 in England, rather than liberty in Holland, with these 
 afflictions. But it was thought that if a better and 
 easier place of living could be had, it would take away 
 these discouragements. 
 
 Secondly; they saw that, although the people gener- 
 ally bore their difficulties with cheerfulness and cour- 
 age, while in the best of their strength, yet old age had 
 begun to come on some, which was hastened before its 
 time by their great and continued labors; and it was 
 seen, that within a few years, they must, of necessity, 
 sink under their burthens, or be scattered before them. 
 Adopting, therefore, the proverb, that a "wise man 
 seeth the plague when it cometh, and hideth himself," 
 so they, like skilful and beaten soldiers, fearful of being 
 surrounded by their enemies, unable to fight or fly, 
 thought it better to dislodge betimes to some place of 
 better advantage and less danger, if any such could be 
 found. 
 
 Thirdly ; as necessity was a task-master over them, so 
 they were forced to be such to their servants and chil- 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 17 
 
 dren, which did not only wound the hearts of many a 
 loving father and mother ; so it produced many sad and 
 sorrowful effects. For the children, although willing 
 to bear a part of the burthen of their parents, were 
 oftentimes so oppressed with their heavy labors, that, 
 although their minds were free and willing, yet their 
 bodies became decrepit in their early youth; the vigor 
 of nature being consumed, as it were, in the very bud. 
 But what was more lamentable, and, as they said, of 
 all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was, that many of 
 their children were drawn away by evil examples of 
 the Dutch into dangerous courses ; some becoming sol- 
 diers, others taking upon them far voyages by sea, or 
 other causes tending to dissoluteness ; so that they saw 
 that their posterity would be in danger to degenerate 
 and be corrupted ; wherefore, considering how hard the 
 country was where they lived ; how many, having spent 
 their estate, were forced to return to England; how 
 grievous it was to live from under the protection of 
 the State of England; how like they were to lose 
 their language and their English name; how unable 
 they were to give to their children such education as 
 they themselves had received — they conceived that if 
 God would be pleased to discover some place unto them, 
 even though in America, and give them so much favor 
 with the King and State of England as to have their 
 protection there, where they might enjoy like liberty, 
 and show by example, their tender countrymen, no less 
 burdened than themselves, where they might live and 
 comfortably subsist, free from anti-Christian bondage, 
 keeping their name and nation, and be a means, not 
 only to enlarge the dominions of their native State, but 
 the Church of Christ also; they thought they might 
 more glorify God, do more good to their country, better 
 provide for their posterity, and live to be more re- 
 
1 8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 freshed by their labors, than they ever could in Hol- 
 land. And last, though not least, to use their own lan- 
 guage, "they had great hope and inward zeal of laying 
 some good foundation for the propagating and advanc- 
 ing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ, in those re- 
 mote parts of the world." 
 
 These were the reasons assigned by the Pilgrims 
 themselves for the great and perilous enterprise of ex- 
 ploring and settling a new world. Nor let it be thought 
 that the dangers to be encountered, the hardships to be 
 endured, and the difficulties to be overcome, were not 
 present to their minds and imaginations. "The places 
 upon which their eyes were bent," says Governor Brad- 
 ford, "were some of those impeopled countries of Amer- 
 ica, which are fruitful and fit for habitation; where 
 there were only savage and brutish people, which range 
 up and down, little otherwise than the wild beasts." 
 But when these propositions were made public, the 
 doubting were alarmed and the timid dismayed, alleg- 
 ing things neither unreasonable nor improbable : as that 
 it was a great design, subject to inconceivable perils 
 and dangers ; then the length of the voyage, which the 
 weak bodies of men and women, bowed down by age 
 and toil, could never endure ; the miseries also, to which 
 they would be exposed in the new found country from 
 famine, want and nakedness, and the yet greater dan- 
 gers among a people represented to them as "barbarous, 
 savage, cruel and treacherous : furious in their rage, 
 merciless in their conquests : not content to take away 
 life merely, but delighting to torment men, by flaying 
 them alive, and broiling them on coals." And surely, 
 these things could not but move the brave, and make 
 the timid "to quake and tremble." To these were 
 added, the precedents of ill success in like designs, with 
 the remembrance of the hardships endured in Holland, 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 19 
 
 upon their first removal thither. For the abortive at- 
 tempts to plant in other parts of the country, were well 
 known to the emigrants; so much so, that they were 
 described as being "like the habitations of the foolish, 
 cursed before they had taken root." 
 
 And what answer could be given to objections so 
 obvious and formidable ? Who could observe the perils 
 of the voyage, and yet conceal the hardships to be en- 
 dured, or chase away the visions of hostile savages sur- 
 rounding the feeble adventurers, upon their first land- 
 ing? Nothing like this was attempted ; but in bold and 
 manly language they proclaimed that all great and hon- 
 orable actions were accompanied by difBculties, and 
 must be overcome by answerable courage. The dan- 
 gers were admitted to be great, but not desperate ; the 
 difficulties many, but not invincible; and that all of 
 them, through the help of God, might be borne, or over- 
 come, by fortitude and patience. 
 
 True it was, that such attempts were not to be made, 
 but upon good ground and reason; not rashly, or 
 lightly, for curiosity or the hope of gain. Their ends, 
 they said, were good ; their calling lawful and urgent ; 
 and therefore, they might expect the blessing of God 
 in their proceedings : "yea, although they should lose 
 their lives in this action, yet that they might have com- 
 fort in the same, and their endeavors would be hon- 
 orable." 
 
 Honorable, indeed, were their endeavors ; and thrice 
 honored be their names and memories, who were actu- 
 ated by such high purposes, and sustained by such brave 
 perseverance. 
 
 It will be observed here, with what natural sim- 
 plicity they describe their feelings and disclose their 
 motives of action ; and among them, one, not the least 
 observable, is their love of home, language and coun- 
 
20 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 try ! That mysterious tie, which binds men to the land 
 of their birth; that innate sympathy with the accents of 
 our early days, which neither time nor distance can 
 destroy; that yearning after kindred associations, 
 which will not be denied; that homesickness of the 
 heart, when banished from the scenes of its youth and 
 affections, which not even the great Roman orator 
 could endure; these, all these, are most observable in 
 the character and feelings of our ancestors. 
 
 They lived in Holland, "as men in exile and in a 
 poor condition," But they seem to have felt as if their 
 banishment were removed, if again they could be placed 
 in connection with their native country, and under the 
 protection of its power. On those western shores, to 
 which they had turned their eyes, they would be objects 
 of solicitude to their distant friends and relatives. 
 Subjects of the same king, obedient to the same parlia- 
 ment, they would be Englishmen still, though English- 
 men in a distant land. Their habitations might indeed 
 be changed, but their country would remain the same. 
 Exiles no more, for they were a part of the British Em- 
 pire; and the flag which floated over their heads was 
 the same banner which had waved on the fields of their 
 fathers' fame, "May not," exclaims Governor Brad- 
 ford, "and ought not, the children of these fathers 
 rightly say, 'our fathers were Englishmen which came 
 over the great ocean, and were ready to perish in this 
 wilderness' ?" 
 
 Our ancestors were proud of their nation, and they 
 could not suffer the ties which bound them to the spot 
 where they were born to be entirely severed. English- 
 men by birth; Englishmen they would live and die. 
 The sun, when he rose, came from their native land, 
 and had warmed its soil by his early beams. The stars 
 of night had been gazed upon by them under the broad 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 21 
 
 canopy of heaven, while standing by the doors of their 
 fathers ; and their relatives and friends in a far-distant 
 land, would breathe a prayer for their safety and suc- 
 cess as members still of the same great family ; and thus 
 their nationality itself would be preserved. 
 
 Then again, the language of their youth would not 
 be forgotten or lost, but would be preserved and ex- 
 tended far and wide, over new and boundless regions ; 
 and this, too, was a matter of pleasing anxiety to them. 
 
 And which of us of New England origin, now here 
 assembled, is there, who is not ready to thank those 
 wise and thoughtful men, for the great gift of that 
 noble tongue, in which our mothers first taught us to 
 speak? Who would not lament if it had been con- 
 founded and lost in the hard jargon of Holland ? Who 
 would alter it, that he might "babble a dialect of 
 France?" W^ho would change its terse and manly ac- 
 cents for the soft voice of Italy, or the sonorous periods 
 of Spain ? No ; if we — 
 
 "Would delight our private hours 
 With music or with poem, where so soon 
 As in our native language, can we find 
 That solace?" 
 
 Language of Shakspeare and of Milton ! Language 
 of the Pilgrims ! Having sounded its loud alarums in 
 the great cause of freedom on its native shores, from 
 the tongues of Burke, of Fox, and of Chatham, it has 
 been echoed across the Atlantic and poured out in 
 thunders from the lips of Webster, of Clay, and Cal- 
 houn ! Language of free-born men ! It has fixed its 
 abode upon this western continent, here to remain, and 
 advance, and spread out, until its voice shall have been 
 heard in every valley and on every hill-top, between the 
 
22 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 rising and the setting sun. Nor shall its sounds cease 
 to echo and vibrate in its new abode, while man shall 
 retain the power of self-government, and the love of 
 liberty be cherished in his bosom. 
 
 Observe, also, the great forecast of our ancestors in 
 their anxiety to give their children that education 
 which should fit them to be Englishmen, speaking the 
 English language, protected by English laws, and en- 
 joying English liberty. All these were precious in 
 their eyes; and if they could have but one privilege 
 more, the liberty of enjoying the forms of their own 
 religion in their own way ; then, though seas were put 
 between them and their native land, they were no 
 longer exiles, no longer wanderers without a home, 
 without a country. 
 
 In pursuance of this design, they procured the prin- 
 cipal Secretary of State, "to move his Majesty, King 
 James, by a private motion, to give way to such a peo- 
 ple, who could not so comfortably live under the gov- 
 ernment of another State, to enjoy their liberty of con- 
 science under his gracious protection in America, 
 where they would endeavor the advancement of his 
 Majesty's dominions, in the enlargement of the Gos- 
 pel by all due means." This, his Majesty said was a 
 good and honest motive ; and asking what profits might 
 arise in the part they intended 'twas answered, "fish- 
 ing." To which he replied with his ordinary assever- 
 ation, "So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade, 'twas 
 the Apostles' own calling." 
 
 Upon this hint, for the pedantic trifler would not in 
 plain terms grant the favor thus sought, they ol:)tained 
 from the Virginia Company that patent, which fur- 
 nished the title under which our ancestors undertook 
 the greatest enterprise in the annals of their race. 
 
 This Company, it appears, was ready to grant them 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 23 
 
 a patent with ample privileges, and was desirous that 
 they should undertake the expedition; "but the King 
 would only connive at them," says Bradford; "he 
 would not molest them if they carried themselves peace- 
 ably, but he would not tolerate them, by public author- 
 ity, under his seal." Although not satisfied with this 
 Royal manifestation of kindness, they concluded, nev- 
 ertheless, to act upon it, considering, that "if there was 
 no security in the promise thus intimated, there would 
 be no greater certainty in a further confirmation of it. 
 For if afterwards there should be a purpose or desire 
 to wrong them, though they had a seal as broad as the 
 house-floor, it would not serve the turn, for there would 
 be means enough found to recall or reverse it." 
 
 With these resolutions, and under this title, they 
 embarked. But would it give them a fair right to take 
 possession of lands in other regions, by a deed from a 
 Company which had itself obtained its title under a 
 grant from the crown? Upon this subject you must 
 permit me to make a few remarks in defence of the 
 first settlers of New England ; as their occupation of a 
 territory, partially in possession of another race, has 
 been a theme for much reproach upon them, and their 
 sense of justice. 
 
 In the first place, it may be observed, that at the 
 time of the early settlements, it was the universal opin- 
 ion among Europeans, that the discovery of a new 
 country inhabited by races of uncivilized men, gave to 
 the first discoverers an inchoate right of control over 
 it; and upon this foundation lay all the English, 
 French, Spanish, and Portuguese grants. 
 
 Indeed, this is the doctrine of modern times, and has 
 on a late and momentous occasion, been the subject of 
 critical examination by two powerful nations, almost 
 in the attitude of war. The whole controversy con- 
 
24 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 cerning Oregon turned upon the question of discovery 
 and of formal possession, for neither England, nor 
 Spain, nor the United States, had ever occupied the 
 territory to any considerahle extent. Indeed, the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States, with that great 
 jurist. Judge Marshall, at its head, decided not many 
 years ago, that all our land titles in this country, are 
 founded upon grants made by the nations who claimed 
 to have been the first discoverers, and not upon those 
 issued by the Pope, with a liberal hand, to his Catholic 
 children. 
 
 The Northern Continent of America was discovered, 
 as you all well know, in the year 1497, by John Cabot, 
 a Portuguese mariner, then in the service of Henry the 
 VII. of England : and this discovery being carried out 
 by Gosnold, Hudson and Smith, enabled the English 
 crown to claim certain portions of it, as subject to colo- 
 nization and grant, agreeably to the then received no- 
 tions of title. Capt. John Smith, of famous memory, 
 having in the year 1614, ranged along the coast of New 
 England, from Penobscot to Cape Cod, formed a map 
 of the country, which he presented to King James. 
 The impression at that time, and for a considerable 
 period afterwards, was, that this part of the country, 
 so full of unexplored bays and jutting headlands, was 
 an island : and it was thought to resemble the mother 
 country, both in soil and climate, so much, that Smith 
 bestowed upon it the name of New England; which 
 name Prince Charles afterwards graciously confirmed. 
 The country itsMf was described by one of the early 
 writers, as being like England in many particulars: 
 somewhat the same "for heat and cold in summer and 
 winter, champagne ground, but not high mountainous; 
 full of vales and meadow ground, of rivers and sweet 
 springs, as England is. But principally, as far as we 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 25 
 
 can yet find, it is an island, and near about the same 
 quantity of England, being cut out from the mainland 
 in America, as England is from the main of Europe, 
 by a great arm of the sea, which entereth in forty de- 
 grees, and runneth up northwest and by west, and 
 goeth out either into the South Sea or else into the Bay 
 of Canada." The Indians also had the same impres- 
 sion, confidently affirming that either the Dutch or 
 French passed through from sea to sea between Ply- 
 mouth and Virginia. 
 
 ''North America," says the historian, Hubbard, "is, 
 as to its nativity, of the same standing with her two 
 elder sisters, Peru and Mexico, yet was suffered to lie 
 in its swaddling-clothes one whole century of years; 
 nature having promised no such dowry of rich mines 
 of silver and gold to them who would espouse her for 
 their own, as she did unto the other two; which pos- 
 sibly was the reason why she was not so hastily courted 
 by her first discoverers." 
 
 For more than a century, then, after the first discov- 
 ery of the Northern continent, and for a like period 
 after its whole coast had been traced, from Newfound- 
 land to the southern point of Florida, the territory of 
 what is now called New England remained almost un- 
 touched by the foot of European adventure. The cu- 
 pidity of mankind was not tempted to invade her neg- 
 lected shores, by mines of gold, or treasures of silver. 
 The silent forests threaded only by their wild and 
 aboriginal inhabitants, were untrodden by the armed 
 heel of the Spanish warrior, who had long before 
 scaled the Andes, red with the blood of conquest ; unas- 
 sailed by the adventurous Portuguese, who had dou- 
 bled the Cape of Good Hope; and disregarded by that 
 monarch who had furnished Cabot with the means of 
 pointing out this wide country to Europe. 
 
26 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 It is not perhaps expedient, or profitable, to go back 
 to abstract theories as to the rights of possession ; free, 
 absokite and exclusive possession, which belonged to 
 those who occupied, and from time immemorial had 
 occupied the soil upon which we now stand. But it 
 has always seemed to me a question in morals, not al- 
 together clear, that bands of roaming savages have a 
 right, to shut from the sun all the joyful fruits of the 
 earth, that beasts of chase may lie forever secluded in 
 the depth of their boundless forests. — If this were an 
 original question, I confess that the axe of the wood- 
 man would ring on my ears as pleasantly as the war- 
 whoop of the savage. The quiet villages of New Eng- 
 land seem to me now as beautiful, and as becoming to 
 the fair face of nature, as the wigwams of the Indians. 
 The spires of churches pointing upwards to heaven, as 
 if to invite our contemplations thither, also appear in 
 my eyes, objects quite as worthy of regard, as the vic- 
 tim bound to the stake, and surrounded by tortures 
 intended to tempt the endurance of his steadfast soul. 
 
 The deep solitude of the forest fills the human mind 
 with gloomy thoughts and dark imaginings. Was it 
 intended by the God of nature that this silence should 
 remain forever unbroken? That these recesses should 
 never be penetrated? That the beams of a glorious 
 luminary, should never dispel the pestilential vapor 
 from the swamp, or warm the generous soil into pro- 
 lific and life-supporting returns for its cultivation and 
 improvement? Was it destined by Providence, that 
 ignorance should always prevail in the boundless re- 
 gions of America and that she alone, of all the world, 
 should be shut out from the blessings of civilization, 
 and all the aspirations of hope in the ennobling forms 
 presented by the Christian faith? Had the native In- 
 dian such an exclusive right, in a moral point of view, 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 27 
 
 to the possession and occupancy of millions of acres, 
 not required by his necessities, merely because he hap- 
 pened to be upon the soil when it was first seen by the 
 adventurous, yet civilized European ? Could the suffer- 
 ing thousands of Ireland and Germany be, at this time, 
 with justice excluded by the natives from a participa- 
 tion in the blessings and enjoyments which may be 
 afforded by the unoccupied wastes of this vast conti- 
 nent? Was a country capable of sustaining millions 
 of human beings in comfort and competency, to be 
 restricted to the use of a few thousands of savages, 
 dressed in skins, and roaming over their broad lands, 
 in pursuit of the deer, the beaver, and the buffalo ? 
 
 It seems to me, there is no law of morals, no rule of 
 right, no command of religion, according to any form 
 or manner of belief, — which does or can assert, or 
 maintain, any such title to an absolute, exclusive, ad- 
 verse possession, on the part of the aborigines. They 
 had claims, beyond doubt, which were to be respected 
 and upheld. They could not, with any show of jus- 
 tice, be driven altogether from the graves of their fa- 
 thers; but our ancestors could fairly claim a right to 
 participate in that occupancy which the Creator in- 
 tended for all his creatures. The hunter state was not 
 that which was originally established for man; and it 
 was only when he had fallen and become degenerate, 
 that, assimilating himself to the tiger and wolf, man 
 became himself a prowling beast of prey. No ! These 
 fair regions were not destined for eternal solitudes. 
 Savages with their victims were not to occupy, exclu- 
 sively and forever, the thousand hills of the cattle, and 
 all the pleasant valleys of the husbandman. A better 
 and a nobler use was reserved for them. Ignorance 
 was to be banished before the face of civilization; the 
 ferocity of the untamed hunter, was to be softened 
 
28 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 clown by the combined influence of knowledge and reli- 
 gion; the trees of the forest were to give place to the 
 olive and the vine ; the rose was to blush and the violet 
 to bloom where the briar and the thorn claimed occu- 
 pation; and the fair face of nature was to shine out in 
 all that beauty for which it was originally created, 
 
 **God," said our ancestors, "had brought a vine into 
 this wilderness; had cast out the heathen and planted 
 it; and had also made room for it; and he caused it to 
 take root, and it filled the land ; so that it had sent forth 
 its boughs to the sea, and its branches to the river." 
 
 But irrespective of such considerations, the first set- 
 tlers of New England were always regardful of the 
 rights of the natives and endeavored upon all occasions 
 to protect them in their just privileges, while at the 
 same time they restrained their ferocity, and checked 
 their aggressions. It is well known to you all, as a 
 matter of familiar history, that antecedently to the ar- 
 rival of the Mayflower at Plymouth, the whole coun- 
 try, bordering upon that coast, and extending far in- 
 land, had been so desolated by a pestilence that it was 
 nearly, if not quite depopulated; and it was several 
 months after their first landing at Cape Cod, before the 
 Pilgrims had an opportunity of speaking with Samo- 
 set, the first native with whom they held parley. He 
 informed them that about four years before their ar- 
 rival, all the inhabitants of that vicinity had died of an 
 extraordinary disease, and that there was "neither man, 
 nor woman, nor child remaining." "Indeed," says an 
 early writer, "we found none; so, there was none to 
 hinder our possession, or lay claim unto it." 
 
 The great patent, issued by King James, in 1620, 
 recites that he had been given certainly to know, that 
 the country about to be occupied had been depopulated, 
 so that there was not left, for many leagues together, 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 29 
 
 any that did claim or challenge any interest therein ; 
 and therefore, says the Charter, it was supposed that 
 the appointed time was come, "that those large and 
 goodly territories, deserted as it were, by their natural 
 inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such 
 as should, by the powerful arm of God, be directed and 
 conducted thither." And the grant was made in terms, 
 for "the enlargement of the Christian religion, to 
 stretch out the bounds of the king's dominions, and to 
 replenish those deserts with people, governed by laws, 
 and for the more peaceable commerce of all, who 
 should have occasion to traffic in those territories." 
 
 It seems that the country lying between Plymouth 
 and the great Narragansett Bay, was under the juris- 
 diction and sway of Mas-sas-so-it, Sachem of the 
 Wampanoags, a tribe residing in the vicinity of Mount 
 Hope, and chief ruler also of all the nations who dwelt 
 between that Bay and the sea. 
 
 This chief went to Plymouth, (which was then 
 called Patuxet by the Indians,) on the 226. of March, 
 1 62 1, with a band of sixty armed men to meet the 
 newly arrived strangers. They saluted him with 
 words of love from King James, desiring to traffic, and 
 make a firm peace with the chief, as their next neigh- 
 bor. This communication was well received by the 
 savage monarch ; and thereupon a treaty of six articles 
 was entered into between the Pilgrims and Massassoit ; 
 which was kept with good faith, on both sides, during 
 his whole life. Indeed, so far as I have been able to 
 discover, the first settlers of Plymouth, of Massachu- 
 setts, of Connecticut, New Haven and Rhode Island, 
 never did usurp any claim of title to the Indian lands, 
 without their free consent, manifested either by gift or 
 purchase. 
 
 It is true that the considerations paid, may seem in- 
 
30 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 considerable, estimating land by its present value; but 
 when one Englishman sold to another, one fourth 
 part of a common sized township, for a wheelbarrow, 
 you may readily imagine that land was in no special 
 estimation with the indolent native, who deemed all 
 employment in its cultivation to be below the dignity 
 of a warrior, and fit only for women. 
 
 The grantees under the New Plymouth patent were 
 expressly instructed by the Company, if the savages 
 claimed any right of inheritance, to obtain their title 
 by purchase ; that "the least scruple of intrusion might 
 be avoided." And in 1676, after the war with King 
 Philip began. Governor Winslow of Plymouth, openly 
 asserted, that before those troubles broke out, the Eng- 
 lish did not possess one foot of land in that Colony, 
 but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase, from 
 the Indian proprietors. "We found," says Cushman, 
 "the place where we lived empty; the people being all 
 dead and gone away, and none living near by eight or 
 ten miles ; and though, in time of hardship, we found 
 some eight bushels of corn hid up in a cave, and knew 
 no owners of it, yet, afterwards learning of the owners > 
 we gave them, in their estimation, double the value of 
 it. Our care also, hath been to maintain peace amongst 
 them, and we have always set ourselves against such of 
 them as used any rebellion or treachery against their 
 own governors ; and when any of them are in want, as 
 often they are, in the winter, when their corn is done, 
 we supply them to our power, and have them in our 
 houses, eating and drinking, and warming themselves ; 
 which thing, though it be something a trouble to us, 
 yet because they should see and take knowledge of our 
 labors, order and diligence, both for this life and a 
 better, we are content to bear it." 
 
 The people of Plymouth procured titles to the land 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 31 
 
 occupied by them from Massassoit, who claimed it all 
 as his own, and that he alone had a right to dispose of 
 it; and it was from him and his sons that the first 
 grants were obtained. "It is mine," said he, "and 
 mine is the sole claim in existence." But his chiefs 
 gave their assent also, and signed deeds, on several oc- 
 casions. Neither was this accomplished, says Winslow, 
 "by threats and blows, or shaking of sword, or sound 
 of trumpet; for as our faculty that way is small, and 
 our strength less, so our warring with them is after an- 
 other manner, namely, by friendly usage, love, peace, 
 honest carriage, and good counsel." 
 
 Indeed, this objection to the occupancy of the coun- 
 try by the first settlers, is as old as their pilgrimage, 
 and was met and answered by them, at the time. 
 
 Mr. Cushman, in his reasons for removing from 
 England to America, given in 1621, states expressly, 
 that he does not put the right of colonization upon that 
 of discovery, which was then assumed by all nations as 
 the foundation of title ; on the contrary, after mention- 
 ing that claim, he passes it by, "lest he should be 
 thought to meddle with that which did not concern him, 
 or was beyond his discerning;" and he places "the right 
 to live in the heathen's country," upon the hope of their 
 conversion, and the unoccupied condition of the coun- 
 try, where "its few inhabitants only ran over the grass 
 like the foxes and wild beasts, without industry, art, 
 science, skill, or faculty to use the land." Then again, 
 he asserts an express grant from Massassoit, with 
 divers of his chiefs, "which was obtained," says he, "by 
 friendly composition." Indeed, the people of Ply- 
 mouth never did, until after Philip's war, claim or ob- 
 tain any lands belonging to the Indians, by violence or 
 conquest. After the defeat and dispersion of the Wam- 
 panoags, fifty-six years after the first settlement, then, 
 
32 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 and not till then, were the lands occupied by them, 
 sequestrated by the conquerors, for the benefit of 
 wounded soldiers, and those who had been ruined by 
 the desolations of that fierce contest. 
 
 And so, too, of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and 
 Rhode Island ; their titles were all derived by deeds and 
 grants from the Indians. In the year 1631, before the 
 country between Boston and Hartford had been ex- 
 plored, a chief living near the banks of the Connecticut, 
 made a journey to Plymouth and Boston, for the ex- 
 press purpose of inviting a settlement on that river. 
 He described the fertility of the soil, and promised, if 
 the English would make a plantation there, he would 
 annually supply them with beaver skins and corn. His 
 object was, amongst other things, to obtain their pro- 
 tection against the Pequots, the most fierce and warlike 
 of the Indian tribes; and when the settlements were 
 afterwards begun upon the Connecticut, the Indian title 
 was extinguished in every case by their own free and 
 voluntary consent, without violence or fraud on the 
 part of the whites. Indeed this could not well be other- 
 wise, for until the subjugation of the Pequots, in the 
 year 1637, the settlers had no power to coerce the In- 
 dians, being themselves but a feeble band, constantly 
 occupied in the cultivation of the land, for the means 
 of subsistence. And this led them, as a matter of neces- 
 sity rather than choice, to seek the banks of rivers 
 which were comparatively free from trees, and better 
 prepared to receive the plough than the hill-sides and 
 the plains. At the close of the year 1636, there were 
 not more than two hundred and fifty men in the towns 
 planted upon the river; and hence, it would have been 
 madness to practise either fraud or violence upon the 
 natives, who were infinitely superior to the settlers, 
 both in numbers and power. 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 33 
 
 And as the plantations extended, so in every case did 
 the colonists begin their labors by purchases of the land 
 from the native occupants, giving fair and satisfactory 
 equivalents in return. If the title of the savage to his 
 native soil was ever disregarded, it was not by the first 
 settlers, or their descendants. On the contrary, when 
 in 1687, the charters granted to the colonists had been 
 vacated by the British Crown, and the title of the 
 planters derided, they put themselves expressly upon 
 the grants furnished by the natives themselves. But 
 Andros, with the haughty insolence of delegated power, 
 declared that Indian deeds were no better than "the 
 scratch of a bear's paw;" and the occupants were ac- 
 tually compelled, in many instances, to take out new 
 patents for their own lands at a heavy charge. I think, 
 therefore, that we may challenge the world to show one 
 instance where our ancestors usurped a title to the land 
 of the Indians, or unjustly expelled them from it. On 
 the contrary, their claims were always conceded and re- 
 spected; and while the right to colonize was asserted, 
 the title of the occupant of the soil was never over- 
 looked or disregarded. 
 
 In this connection we may observe also, that it has 
 not unfrequently been made a subject of charge against 
 the first settlers of New England, that they were op- 
 pressive and unjust towards the aboriginal inhabitants, 
 not only in respect of their lands, but also in their per- 
 sonal and political relations ; that if they did not openly 
 assail the natives with violence, they tempted them, 
 nevertheless, to deeds of outrage, that a pretext might 
 be afforded for their destruction. Poetry has given 
 her aid to this subject; and the most beautiful writer 
 New York has yet produced, has pursued the theme 
 with all the powers of genius and eloquence, in his 
 essays on this vanished race. Carried away by the 
 
34 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 fervor of this author's imagination, one might suppose 
 that our ancestors were httle better than a band of 
 lawless plunderers, who trampled down the rights of 
 the natives, spoiling them of their homes, and devastat- 
 ing their country. Philip of Pokanoket, has furnished 
 a subject, not only for the resistless power of Mr. Irv- 
 ing's description, but for the poetic imaginings of 
 Sands and of Eastburn; and the last of this kingly race 
 is clothed with all the savage virtues of a Homeric 
 hero. 
 
 Such sketches are the work of fancy, not of histor- 
 ical truth and accuracy; for it may be asserted with 
 entire confidence, that for more than half a century 
 after the arrival of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims and 
 their descendants lived in peace and friendship with 
 the natives, undisturbed by outbreaks or lawless ag- 
 gressions. When Massassoit was ill, and thought to 
 be dying, about three years after the first landing of 
 the emigrants, Mr. Winslow was sent by the colony to 
 pay him a visit at his royal residence, near Mount 
 Hope. In the kindest manner this friendly messenger 
 administered to his wants, and finally by his skill and 
 attention restored him to health. In grateful recollec- 
 tion of this, Massassoit disclosed to the Plymouth Col- 
 ony an intention on the part of the Massachusetts In- 
 dians to cut them off by a secret attack. At one time 
 when Massassoit was invaded in his own country, and 
 hard beset by the Narragansetts, he was relieved by the 
 English; the enemy upon their approach, retiring to 
 their own country without resistance. After the death 
 of this chief, his two sons, Wamsutta and Metacomet, 
 named by the English at their own request, Alexander 
 and Philip, went voluntarily to Plymouth to renew the 
 ancient league of friendship between the two nations 
 and pledge again their faith, fidelity and obedience to 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 35 
 
 the English; and for twenty years after the death of 
 Massassoit, peace was preserved between the parties. 
 The same remarks which have been made with regard 
 to the Pokanokets, are equally true when applied to the 
 Narragansetts, — who for the same length of time re- 
 mained at peace with the plantations of Connecticut, 
 Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts. 
 
 During all this period it was doubtless the policy of 
 the first settlers as well as their wish, to preserve pacific 
 relations with their uncivilized neighbors. But this 
 was not done by any poor or fawnmg submission in 
 their weakness, to superior power. Their conduct was 
 always open, bold and manly. 
 
 Canonicus the great chief of the Narragansetts, man- 
 ifested some jealousy of the new comers shortly after 
 their arrival, but chiefly because of the friendly rela- 
 tions which existed between them and his old enemies 
 of Mount Hope. But our fathers knew full well how 
 to deal with the savage, whether he came with the salu- 
 tations of peace, or the war-whoop of his race. Early 
 in the year 1622, a messenger from Canonicus arrived 
 at Plymouth, charged with a gift, at once significant, 
 and dangerous, "a bundle of new arrows, lapped in a 
 rattlesnake's skin." This messenger was at first de- 
 tained, but being considered as a mere herald from his 
 master. Governor Bradford ordered him to be dis- 
 missed with bold threats, "daring them to do their 
 worst;" and when informed by his interpreter that the 
 rattlesnake's skin and arrows portended war and deso- 
 lation, the intrepid governor stuffed the skin with pow- 
 der and shot, and sent it back to Canonicus with the 
 like defiance. "This message," says Winslow, "was 
 sent by an Indian, and delivered in such sort as was no 
 small terror to this savage king, inasmuch as he would 
 not once touch the powder and shot, or suffer it to stay 
 
36 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 in his house or country; whereupon the messenger re- 
 fusing it, another took it up, and having been posted 
 back from place to place a long time, at length came 
 whole back again." 
 
 Upon the death of Alexander, in 1662, he was suc- 
 ceeded by his brother, Philip, the renowned Metacomet, 
 the hero of song and of story. This chief early began 
 to scheme for the entire destruction of his white neigh- 
 bors, although he could not bring a well-founded com- 
 plaint to justify such cold-blooded atrocity; for if he 
 or his nation had suffered any wrongs from the ag- 
 gressions of the settlers, they were neither deep or wan- 
 ton, nor were they such as could in any degree justify 
 such fell and savage revenge. But the fact was not 
 so. The English of Plymouth early perceiving an im- 
 provident temper on the part of the Indians, and a de- 
 sire to alienate their lands, passed laws to prohibit such 
 traffic with them, and secured to the Wampanoags and 
 their descendants, all the fine country in the vicinity of 
 Mount Hope; those lands and waters being peculiarly 
 well suited to their condition; the lands as corn land, 
 and the waters abounding in fish and fowl. Nay, fur- 
 ther, to prevent encroachments, the inhabitants on their 
 northern frontier drew a strong fence from the Taun- 
 ton river entirely across the border, to prevent their 
 cattle from straying into the Indian possessions. 
 
 Fiction has given to Metacomet an interest which he, 
 in my judgment, in no wise deserves, either from his 
 acts or personal character. It is true, by dissimulation 
 and art, he drew all the neighboring tribes, including 
 the Narragansetts, his old enemies, into a general and 
 deep-laid plot for the total annihilation of the white 
 race. Being suspected and charged with it, he never- 
 theless solemnly denied all hostile intent, until the mo- 
 ment came when he could let loose his fierce warriors 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 37 
 
 upon the midnight slumbers of the settlers, rousing 
 them to a hasty defence by the glare of their burning 
 dwellings. The war being begun, and by the Indians 
 themselves, was pursued by our brave ancestors with 
 all that constancy for which they were so remarkable, 
 until Philip, by his death, expiated a portion of the 
 bloody wrongs he had inflicted upon his neighbors. 
 He plunged his nation into all the perils of war, but did 
 not himself, so far as I can discover, encounter its dan- 
 gers, for he was never seen in battle by any white man, 
 from the commencement of his murders down to the 
 time when he was slain. Indeed he was always the 
 first, says Captain Church, to fly in every engagement ; 
 and that brave officer, in laying the plan for Philip's 
 final surprise in the swamps of Mount Hope, acted 
 upon this well-known habit, and bade his men shoot 
 the first savage who silently fled, expecting thereby to 
 secure the death of this relentless sachem; and his an- 
 ticipations were all fulfilled; for when the attack was 
 commenced, Philip, starting at the first gun, rushed 
 headlong from his concealment, and was slain by one 
 of his own nation in his cowardly flight. How differ- 
 ent was the conduct of his followers. One had openly 
 called him, before the war began, "a white livered cur;" 
 and in the last battle ever witnessed by the mortal eyes 
 of Philip, his men stood their ground, so cheered on 
 by the war-cries of one of their chiefs, that Captain 
 Church, attracted by his bold conduct, asked an inter- 
 preter who that sachem was, and what he said. "It is 
 old Annawan," replied the Indian, "Philip's great cap- 
 tain, calling on his soldiers to stand to it and fight 
 stoutly." 
 
 Remember, then, that the settlers of New England 
 had lived with their aboriginal neighbors in peace and 
 friendship for more than fifty years before the great 
 
38 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 war began ; and those relations might have been main- 
 tained for ever, if the nations could have restrained the 
 ferocity of their passions, or subdued their thirst for 
 blood ; for I undertake to say that the complaints made 
 by the Indians themselves, were not causes of war, 
 even according to their own wild and savage notions. 
 It may be that they would have melted away before the 
 plough and the sickle ; but they would have gone peace- 
 fully, and in the order of nature. The desolation of 
 savage life cannot stand before the improvements of 
 civilization ; and blessed be God that it cannot ! 
 
 It is hardly necessary to vindicate the conduct of the 
 first colonists of the Connecticut Valley, in relation to 
 their contest with the Pequots, in the year 1637, as it is 
 universally admitted that the fault of that war lay en- 
 tirely on the side of that fierce nation. The early emi- 
 grants to Windsor, Hartford, and Weathersfield, had 
 never encroached in any respect upon the territory of 
 the Pequots, whose country lay on both sides of the 
 Thames, far from the scenes of those early settlements ; 
 and this proud tribe seems to have commenced hostile 
 attacks upon their distant neighbors, from the mere 
 thirst of blood, natural to barbarians in all parts of the 
 globe. They had murdered about thirty persons be- 
 fore the towns on the Connecticut attempted any resist- 
 ance; but finding themselves at last in a most critical 
 position, and driven to the necessity of venturing upon 
 a contest for the preservation of their lives, they en- 
 tered into it with all the fortitude and courage of their 
 heroic race. Raising a little force of ninety men, they 
 sent them in three small vessels, under the brave Cap- 
 tain Mason, by the way of the river and sound to the 
 Narragansett Bay. Disembarking there, and trusting 
 to savages for their guides, the stars of heaven for their 
 canopy, the brooks and woods for their supplies, they 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 39 
 
 traversed the whole territory of the Narragansetts, and 
 approached the barbarians with such caution and celer- 
 ity, as to take them entirely by surprise in their fort, 
 upon the west side of the Mystic river. Then ensued 
 a struggle, not merely for victory, but life itself, for if 
 the attack had failed, there was no retreat for this band 
 of devoted men; no escape from their merciless foes. 
 But putting their trust in the God of battles, they 
 charged directly upon seven times their numbers, with 
 such determined impetuosity as to give the Pequots an 
 overthrow from which they never recovered ; and from 
 that time forth the colony of Connecticut remained in 
 peace with all the native tribes, until the great con- 
 spiracy of Philip called them forth again with spear 
 and shield, in their own just defence. 
 
 In this contest with the Pequots, the early settlers 
 exhibited all their peculiar characteristics. Before their 
 departure, Mr. Hooker addressed the little army with 
 that confidence in an overruling Providence, which 
 never on any occasion had deserted them. "Fellow sol- 
 diers !" said he, "countrymen, and companions, in this 
 wilderness work, who are gathered together this day 
 by the inevitable providence of the Great Jehovah, not 
 in a tumultuous manner, hurried on by the floating 
 fancy of every hot-headed brain, but purposely picked 
 out by the godly great fathers of this government, that 
 your prowess may carry out the work where justice in 
 her righteous course is obstructed. Every common sol- 
 dier among you is now installed a magistrate. Then 
 show yourselves men of courage ; yet remember that all 
 true bred soldiers receive this as a common maxim: 
 cruelty and cowardice are inseparable companions. 
 And now to you I put the question, who would not 
 fight in such a cause with an agile spirit and undaunted 
 boldness ? — Riches and honor are, next to a good cause, 
 
40 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 eyed by every soldier; but although gold and silver be 
 wanting, yet have you that to maintain which is far 
 more precious, the lives, liberties, and new purchased 
 freedoms of the endeared servants of our Lord Christ 
 Jesus, and of your second selves even, your affectionate 
 bosom mates, together with the chief pledges of your 
 loves, the comforting contents of harmless prattling 
 and smiling babes; in a word, all the riches of that 
 goodness and mercy that attends the people of God 
 even in this life." Actuated by such motives, impelled 
 forward by such considerations, sustained by such pur- 
 poses, how could the early colonists of New England 
 fail in their enterprises ? 
 
 After the first struggles for mere existence on the 
 part of the settlers were over, view them marching 
 steadily forward in the paths of order, religion and 
 morality; enacting laws, constructing roads, establish- 
 ing schools, and educating their children for the new 
 business of self-government. The colonies, it is true, 
 were under the general jurisdiction of the king and par- 
 liament, yet having by their charters the power of mak- 
 ing laws, they entered at once upon these important 
 concerns ; and perceiving that their institutions were to 
 be unlike all others in the world, they immediately be- 
 gan to frame statutes suited to their peculiar wants. 
 Having been subject to the common law, and being 
 well skilled in its maxims, they adopted such portions 
 of it as were suited to their circumstances, but dis- 
 carded, in effect, such English statutes as were not ap- 
 plicable to their new condition ; publishing at the same 
 time, in one of the colonies, this preface to their own 
 enactments : "Now in these our laws, although we may 
 seem to vary or differ, yet it is not our purpose to 
 repugn the statute laws of England, so far as we under- 
 stand them ;" thereby exhibiting, perhaps the first great 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 41 
 
 example of construing a constitution, as each man may- 
 comprehend it. 
 
 They were not bound down to a servile imitation of 
 British precedents, but considered the law in the ab- 
 stract as containing rules of civil government, for free 
 and thinking men, who were imposing just restraints 
 upon themselves, and not dictating to others. The 
 common law was evidently their admiration ; yet keep- 
 ing the commandments in view, if they bowed down, 
 they did not worship it. On the contrary, their re- 
 flections upon this great subject of law-making, were 
 in a high degree original ; its importance immediately 
 arresting their attention and commanding both solici- 
 tude and care. Mr. Cotton, or Mr. Davenport, com- 
 posed and published in Boston, as far back as 1663, 
 "A Discourse on Civil Government in a New Planta- 
 tion;" and in 1650 Mr. Ludlow, a distinguished jurist of 
 Connecticut, compiled a body of laws for that common- 
 wealth, at the request of its government; thus show- 
 ing from the very outset, that civil rule, as it should be 
 in a new plantation, was kept constantly in view; and 
 nothing is more striking or admirable than the early 
 legislation of our ancestors upon natural, human rights, 
 and the best mode of protecting them. 
 
 With a bold defiance of customs immemorial, and of 
 forms rendered sacred by antiquity, they commenced 
 the progress of legal reform, from the moment their 
 feet first pressed the sod of their new-found country. 
 With no affected disregard for the wisdom and learn- 
 ing of their ancestors, with no pretensions to a more 
 perfect knowledge of man's true social condition than 
 that which prevailed at home, they did, nevertheless, 
 from the beginning institute the inquiry, as to how 
 much of an antiquated system was suited to their wants 
 and condition ; and with a steady eye upon ancient pre- 
 
42 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 cedents, begin a system of legal change, at once radical 
 3'et conservative. And I may here safely assert, that 
 many if not all the important alterations made in the 
 jurisprudence of this State, within the last fifty years, 
 have been borrowed, directly or indirectly, from the 
 laws of New England, and especially from those of 
 Connecticut. 
 
 The subject of non-imprisonment for debt, for in- 
 stance, concerning which so much has been said and 
 done within the last twenty years, was considered and 
 acted upon in New England two hundred years ago; 
 and the act passed by the State of New York in the year 
 1833, entitled, "an act to abolish imprisonment for 
 debt, and to punish fraudulent debtors," is scarcely 
 anything more than a transcript from an act of 1650, 
 passed by the colony of Connecticut. The latter act 
 provides "that no person should be arrested or impris- 
 oned for any debt or fine, if the law could find any com- 
 petent means of satisfaction from his estate; and if not, 
 his person might be arrested and imprisoned till satis- 
 faction; provided nevertheless, that no man's person 
 should be kept in prison for debt but when there ap- 
 peared to be some estate which he would not produce ;" 
 and the chief difference between the two lies in this, 
 that the primitive act is clear and explicit, while the 
 modern one is so blind and confused, that various con- 
 structions have been put upon it by different tribunals, 
 and sometimes by the same tribunal. Nor was this 
 exemption from imprisonment a vain illusion, "keeping 
 the word of promise to the ear, but breaking it to the 
 hope." It was substantial and complete; for no hon- 
 est man in Connecticut could ever be kept in the cells 
 of a prison. There was, it is true, a theory of non- 
 imprisonment for debt in other lands, but it was a the- 
 ory only, well illustrated in the "Antiquary," as you 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 43 
 
 may remember, by Mr. Oldbuck, in a dialogue with his 
 nephew. "Nephew," said that amusing creation of 
 Scott's fancy, "it is a remarkable thing that in this 
 happy country no man can be legally imprisoned for 
 debt." "The truth is, the king, interesting himself as 
 a monarch should, in his subjects' private affairs, is so 
 good as to interfere at the request of the creditor and 
 to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice 
 within a certain time, fifteen days, or six, as the case 
 may be. Well, the man resists and disobeys. What 
 follows? Why that he be lawfully and rightfully de- 
 clared a rebel to our gracious sovereign, whose com- 
 mand he has disobeyed, and that by three blasts of a 
 horn at the market-place of Edinburgh, the metropolis 
 of Scotland. And he is then legally imprisoned, not on 
 account of any civil debt, but because of his ungrateful 
 contempt of the royal mandate." In Connecticut there 
 was no royal mandate which could send a man to jail 
 with three blasts of a horn. 
 
 Some years ago, letters upon this important subject 
 of imprisonment for debt, were addressed to John 
 Adams and Daniel Webster; and each of those illus- 
 trious men stated in reply, that if it were an original 
 and open question, neither of them had any doubt of its 
 oppressive character, nor the propriety of abolishing it. 
 And since that period a number of the States, as well as 
 Congress itself, have interfered for the just preserva- 
 tion of human liberty, except in cases of crime. But 
 here we find that in 1650 the persons of men were held 
 free from the slavery of imprisonment when caused by 
 misfortune or poverty ; while the dishonest debtor, who 
 had the means of payment, but refused to appropriate 
 them to the discharge of his engagements, was to be 
 treated as a felon, and to meet with a felon's reward. 
 And so tender were they then of personal liberty, that 
 
44 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 the first process against a debtor was a summons com- 
 manding him to appear and answer the complaint made 
 against him; and it was only upon his refusal that an 
 attachment could be issued against him for his "wilful 
 contempt." 
 
 By another section of the same statute, which is also 
 embodied in the far-famed modern code of New York, 
 it was provided, that if any citizen of Connecticut was 
 about to abscond, or convey away his estate with intent 
 to defraud his creditors, then that an attachment might 
 issue against him for the benefit of all his creditors. 
 But to guard against abuses, it was also provided, that 
 if any attachment were laid upon any man's estate upon 
 a pretence of a great sum, and it was not proved to be 
 due in some near portion to the sum mentioned in the 
 attachment, then that the sureties always required upon 
 the issuing of such process, should be liable for the 
 damages sustained thereby. Could anything be more 
 wise, just or prudent, than laws like these? And have 
 we, in relation to the same subject, improved upon them 
 down to this day? But who, in modern times, has 
 given credit to our ancestors for their labors of wisdom 
 and charity in this behalf, or acknowledged the source 
 from whence these improvements have been derived ? 
 
 So again, they had a proceeding in relation to real 
 property, very analogous to what is termed a creditor's 
 bill in this State, (land being at that time a principal 
 object of care and value in the colonies,) whereby cred- 
 itors might have the benefit of its sale, by a very simple 
 and inexpensive process, in the order of the presenting 
 of their claims. But there was a difference, neverthe- 
 less, between the modern and the ancient law, in this, 
 that in cases of insolvency on the part of the debtor. 
 the ancient law directs that the attachments should 
 enure to the benefit of all creditors in proportion to 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 45 
 
 their respective claims; while the modern one gives a 
 preference and priority to the most vigilant; and in 
 this particular the justice of the original act is obvious 
 and pre-eminent. So, in relation to trials by jury, (an 
 institution which was the subject of the first law passed 
 by the Plymouth settlement,) one colony had a most 
 excellent provision, which might be adopted with de- 
 cided benefit here in this city. It was, that juries 
 might be called of six or twelve persons, according to 
 the importance of the subject, and that a verdict of four 
 out of six, and eight out of twelve, should be conclu- 
 sive upon the parties, unless a new trial were granted. 
 Now, the requirements of our practice, derived from 
 the laws of England, which demand an absolute una- 
 nimity in the minds of twelve men, even in civil causes, 
 are oftentimes the source of much delay, expense, and 
 injury, to all the parties concerned. Would not the 
 pages written by our forefathers upon these important 
 concerns disclose something more than the ancients 
 found in the leaves of a Sybiline oracle, blown about by 
 the winds of heaven as the heralds of fortuitous pro- 
 phecy and justice? Our ancestors, with a far-reaching 
 sagacity, also provided for a complete registration of 
 all grants of land, in order that, by a public and open 
 inspection of conveyances, clear evidences of title might 
 be found and preserved. To this day, England herself 
 has not attained to these improvements, except in a 
 limited number of counties; and there each proprietor 
 must trust to private care alone for the preservation of 
 his estate. 
 
 The complicated forms in civil proceedings, the volu- 
 minous pages of the conveyancer's deeds, and the tau- 
 tology of English statutes were at once exploded, and 
 in their place came simple and clear statements of claim 
 and counter claim, direct and straight-forward plead- 
 
46 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ings, and brief, but comprehensive, evidences of title. 
 An English deed for an hundred acres is engrossed on 
 parchment, with the letters of the alphabet tortured into 
 a thousand useless shapes, that ancient forms may be 
 preserved. A New England deed, in one brief page, 
 contains all the elements of a perfect contract between 
 the parties, with a direct assurance of title. The known 
 defects in the laws and practice of England pointed 
 out and so strikingly stated by Lord Brougham, in 
 his great speech upon Law Reforms, delivered in the 
 House of Commons, in 1828, were discovered and ban- 
 ished from the New England States, while they were 
 yet colonies under the British crown. Nor can I find 
 any essential changes or improvements specified or 
 called for by that remarkable statesman, which were 
 not adopted by our ancestors years ago. 
 
 You are aware that in England some of the most im- 
 portant offices in the civil law courts, are held by prel- 
 ates of the church, and that the whole law of marriage 
 and divorce, of personal estates, both testate and intes- 
 tate, is administered under the control of bishops and 
 archbishops. This being an inheritance from Rome, 
 and one of the worst of the long-continued papal 
 abuses, was abolished at once and forever by our an- 
 cestors, who committed these important trusts to re- 
 sponsible men, appointed by responsible tribunals; 
 while dower and inheritance, which vary in England, 
 with the varying customs of counties and manors, were 
 made uniform and consistent. 
 
 The complicated proceedings of English courts in 
 actions of ejectment were also discarded in the Eastern 
 States, and it is only within the last twenty years that 
 New York has adopted this obvious improvement from 
 one of her nearest sisters. Then again, wise and equal 
 laws were provided for a just distribution of estates 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 47 
 
 among children and heirs, while tenures were made 
 simple, and primogenitures abolished, in England all 
 the lands of the ancestor, on one side of a river, might 
 descend to the oldest son, on the other to the youngest ; 
 while in a third place, the children might inlierit 
 equally. But in New England, the dictates of common 
 sense and common justice were at once obeyed, and 
 tenures placed upon their true foundations. And then, 
 as to that law which prefers the hrst-born son to all 
 others, in itself so iniquitous; what had our ancestors 
 to say to that ? They blotted it out from their statute- 
 book, and banished it forever. How otherwise could 
 equal rights be maintained, or republican forms of gov- 
 ernment preserved? In the proud monarchies of Eu- 
 rope, it became the policy of the aristocracy to preserve 
 great estates in the same families in a direct line, that 
 their influence might remain continuous and unbroken, 
 thus transmitting from father to son not only the 
 wealth of the ancestor, but his political influence also. 
 
 But in a free country, how should we stand if the 
 parent might entail upon his son whole towns and coun- 
 ties and states, even without any accompanying politi- 
 cal authority.? Would free men contentedly ride, for 
 thirty miles, by the side of a great estate, (as you may 
 now in some parts of Great Britain j with the reflection 
 in their minds, that in all time to come, the influence 
 of that proprietor and his descendants must remain un- 
 checked and undisturbed? What caused the most se- 
 rious outbreaks among the people of Rome? And why 
 did they desert their city, and take refuge on the 
 sacred mount? The monopoly of lands by the rich, 
 and the debts of the poor. What was the remedy pro- 
 posed there ? A division of those lands among persons 
 whose claims upon them were those of hard necessity, 
 if not of natural justice. But what distributive law 
 
48 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 did our ancestors provide to check, if not effectually 
 destroy, this dangerous accumulation of wealth in the 
 same hands t They said that lands, where there was no 
 will to direct otherwise, should descend to all the heirs 
 alike; that personal property should be equally distrib- 
 uted, and the power ot entailment so limited, that to 
 preserve its existence it must be renewed in every gen- 
 eration. This, says judge Story, is the true agrarian 
 law, v^hich in all tmie to come will guard the just rights 
 of acquirement and possession, while it corrects the 
 great public evils of inordinate accumulation; and you 
 see how instantly our ancestors seized upon and 
 adopted this indispensable restraint. 
 
 Then the criminal laws of England, more bloody 
 than the laws of Draco, were ail remodeled, and their 
 severities softened down; even at that time, when the 
 public mind had not begun much to consider this im- 
 portant subject. In all things, I assert with confidence, 
 in relation to the laws, both public and private, our an- 
 cestors made great and marvelous improvements upon 
 those of the land from whence they took their origin. 
 And these reforms became afterwards matters of the 
 highest political concernment, when they had shaken 
 off' the control of the mother country. Republican in 
 their habits of thinking and acting; republican in their 
 frugality; republican in their laws and forms of gov- 
 ernment, the States of New England were early pre- 
 pared for that great change wrought out for them by 
 the war of the Revolution. Their civil and political 
 rights were well understood from the very beginning; 
 they were preserved and cherished through all their 
 early struggles for existence, and were all prepared to 
 be acted upon when the day of trial came. Hence it 
 has been remarked, and wuth strict propriety, that at the 
 time of our Independence, so slight was the connection 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 49 
 
 between some of the colonies and the mother country 
 in their relations of law and government, and the 
 change interfered so little with their internal concerns, 
 that the transition from a dependent to a sovereign con- 
 dition was almost imperceptible. In Connecticut, they 
 merely erased the name of "his majesty," from their 
 legal proceedings, and inserted, "by the name and au- 
 thority of the State ;" and then, in all essential particu- 
 lars, the administration of the law proceeded after the 
 Revolution, exactly as it had done before. 
 
 I presume, before dismissing this part of the subject, 
 it may be expected, that I, considering my profession, 
 should not pass by that which has been made a matter 
 of scoffing and reproach upon a colony of New Eng- 
 land, by those who, never investigating its reality, have 
 caught from others the traditional jests connected with 
 the blue laws of New Haven. 
 
 In the first place, it seems to be supposed that there 
 actually were, in that colony, grave enactments against 
 offending beer-barrels, and that the austerity of Puritan 
 practice even prohibited a mother from kissing her 
 child on a Sunday. Let those who have lightly re- 
 ceived such impressions, and lightly conveyed them to 
 others, look into the early laws of New Haven, and 
 tell me whether, upon such examination, any mirthful 
 emotions can come over their minds? And let me re- 
 mind them further, that most of the supposed enact- 
 ments rest upon this one, of which, perhaps they may 
 have heard : "Remember that thou keep holy the Sab- 
 bath day!" 
 
 Nothing more solemn, nothing more imposing, noth- 
 ing more grave or dignified, can be found in all his- 
 tory, than the first acts of the colony of New Haven, 
 when they proceeded to lay the foundations of their 
 government. The free planters being all assembled. 
 
50 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 say their records, Mr. Davenport commenced the busi- 
 ness by a sermon upon these words : "Wisdom hath 
 builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." 
 After this discourse and a solemn invocation of the 
 name of God in prayer, they were reminded of the busi- 
 ness for which they had met ; that it was "for the estab- 
 lishment of such civil order as might be most pleasing 
 unto God, and for the choosing of the fittest men for 
 the foundation work of a church to be gathered." Mr. 
 Davenport thereupon proposed divers queries, praying 
 them to consider seriously the weight of the business 
 about which they had met, and not to be rash in giving 
 their votes for things which they did not understand, 
 but to digest thoroughly, and without respect to men, 
 what should be proposed to them, giving such answers 
 as they would be willing should stand upon record for 
 posterity! And thereupon it was propounded in the 
 first place, "whether the Scriptures hold forth a perfect 
 rule for the direction and government of men in their 
 duties." This was assented to without an opposing 
 voice; and let me ask whether there are any here pres- 
 ent, who, if they had been standing by the side of Mr. 
 Davenport, on that solemn occasion, would have ven- 
 tured to deny that such a rule may be found in those 
 sacred writings? The second question was, whether 
 in the choosing of magistrates, the making and repeal- 
 ing of laws and the dividing of lands, the planters 
 would be governed by the rules which the Scriptures 
 hold forth? This also was assented to, "and no man 
 gainsayed it, and they did testify the same by holding 
 up their hands, both when it was first propounded, and 
 afterwards confirmed the same, by holding up their 
 hands when it was read unto them in public." In the 
 improvements of time, we have been taught by our ne- 
 cessities, many lessons in the mode of adapting laws to 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 51 
 
 our changing condition; but stand back in contempla- 
 tion, two hundred years, and tell me where could you 
 discover better models for the government of a free 
 people, both in the choice of their magistrates and the 
 division of their lands, than those found in the Jewish 
 polity ? Why, our own laws, in relation to the division 
 of estates, do not differ essentially from the laws which 
 governed the Hebrews; their object being to secure not 
 only an equal distribution of property, but to bring 
 back, at given periods of time, to the same families, for 
 equal use and enjoyment, such allotments of land as 
 might have been alienated. Where in the annals of 
 civilized Europe can you find the history of a govern- 
 ment more free, or more republican, than that which 
 existed among the Jews, during the period of their 
 judges ? And when was the choice of magistrates left 
 more open and unrestrained than among the same peo- 
 ple, at the same epoch? What was there narrow, or 
 bigoted, or objectionable in the second query which I 
 have read ? For you will recollect that the proposition 
 was not, to adopt Jewish laws and Jewish forms of 
 government indiscriminately; but whether fit rules for 
 the choosing of magistrates, the framing of laws, and 
 the division of lands might not be found in the Bible, 
 including both Testaments, the new as well as the old ? 
 And if the question were now proposed here, I venture 
 to assert, that no man would "gainsay it, but all would 
 testify for the same by holding up their hands, both 
 when propounded, and when afterwards it should be 
 read to them." The third query had reference merely 
 to the form of admission to the church ; and the fourth 
 was : "whether they held themselves bound to establish 
 such civil order as might best secure the peace of the 
 ordinances to them and their posterity;" and this, of 
 course, was carried without dissent; for no man now, 
 
52 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Tew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan, can find any objec- 
 tion to this proposition in the abstract, or as it was 
 originally presented for consideration and adoption. 
 
 Mr. Davenport thereupon declared from the Scrip- 
 tures, that the magistrates to be entrusted with the mat- 
 ters of government, according to the rule thus adopted, 
 must be "able men, such as fear God; men of truth, 
 hating covetousness." And if we could now, even in 
 these days, by a like vote secure such magistrates, 
 "fearing God and hating covetousness," I, for one, 
 would "belong to that party." Mr. Davenport fur- 
 ther declared, that by their vote they were free to cast 
 themselves into any mould and form of a common- 
 wealth, which appeared to them best, for the securing 
 of the objects contemplated in his propositions ; and he 
 charged Mr. Eaton the first Governor, in open court, 
 that he should not respect persons in judgment ; that he 
 should hear the small as well as the great and that he 
 should not fear the face of man. 
 
 Such were the rules adopted by that plantation, upon 
 its establishment ; but from the strict administration of 
 them, went forth the report concerning the blue laws of 
 Connecticut. There were not in fact, any such enact- 
 ments ; but there were trials for offences against the 
 Sabbath, and against modest decency, founded upon 
 the general law of morals, which have led to a misap- 
 prehension upon this subject, and served to cast ridi- 
 cule where none whatever was deserved. 
 
 Again : it has often been made a subject of reproach 
 upon our ancestors, that having left their own country 
 for the sake of religious freedom, and the enjoyment of 
 the rights of conscience unshackled and uncontrolled, 
 they did nevertheless, become themselves intolerant, the 
 moment they were in possession of a country with their 
 own supremacy firmly established ; that they were nar- 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 53 
 
 row in their notions, selfish in their designs, exclusive 
 HI their purposes, and tyrannical in tneir acts; willing 
 to become the subjects and objects ot universal reli- 
 gious emancipation themselves, but determined, at the 
 same time, to subdue all others to their opinions. 
 
 It seems to me, however, tnat this is an unfair mode 
 of stating the case. The original settlers did not visit 
 the inhospitable shores of New England for any ob- 
 jects of universal toleration; nor for the purpose of al- 
 lowing men of all religions, and no religion, an oppor- 
 tunity of planting their errors, or disseminating their 
 infidelity. No ! Ear different from this were tlie pur- 
 poses and objects of those religious wanderers; who, if 
 misguided in their notions, ana over scrupulous in their 
 taitli, were nevertheless sincere, devout, and upright. 
 With them religious faith was a principle. It was a 
 guide to their actions, a rule for their conduct, and a 
 law for their government; the "be all and the end all" 
 of their objects in this world, and of their hope in that 
 which is to come. 
 
 What if they were misguided? What if they were 
 heated with zeal ? What it they were exclusive in their 
 opinions, stern in their judgments, and unyielding in 
 their purposes ? Were they not actuated by the purest 
 and the holiest motives that ever filled or agitated the 
 breast of men? Had they not left the consolations of 
 home, of kindred, and of country, for the express pur- 
 pose of worshipping God in the wilderness in their own 
 way? Seeking no associations with those who enter- 
 tained different opinions ; asking no favor, requiring no 
 aid, or succor, or comfort, except from Him who saw 
 their hearts, and knew that they were upright and 
 pure ? It may be, that in their peculiar notions in rela- 
 tion to religious government they were misguided ; and 
 as a rule of civil action we now all believe that each 
 
54 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 creed, and every religion, should be permitted to ex- 
 ist by its own inherent truth, uncontrolled by human 
 laws, unprotected by political favor, untrammelled by 
 worldly device. 
 
 This is the modern theory of republican and religious 
 liberty, as maintained in this free, this charitable land; 
 but which finds little favor in any other part of the 
 Christian world. We consider it, and as I think 
 rightly, one of the natural, one of the legitimate, if not 
 inevitable results of that great reform, which shook the 
 papal structure to its centre, and shot through the bo- 
 soms of thinking men with an electric force which wall 
 never cease to operate, until its objects are accom- 
 plished, and man stands forth free from the dictations 
 of his fellow men in all that binds him to a future state. 
 
 But believe me, Gentlemen of New England, this 
 doctrine so free, so liberal, so republican, so just in 
 itself, so necessary to our institutions, did not originate 
 in minds filled with the ardor of that faith which sees 
 but one object, and that object under but one form and 
 pressure. Oh, no ! The most tolerant man was not, 
 I think, originally the most devout man, although he 
 might have been sincere. No! His lips were not 
 touched as with a live coal from the altar, who first 
 proclaimed that there were no differences to be re- 
 garded amongst men in their various creeds. Our fa- 
 thers cherished their faith as the immortal principle 
 which causes men to feel the necessity of another exist- 
 ence, and to yearn after it, with that overflowing of 
 spirit which gives evidence of the full heart and the 
 contrite soul. 
 
 But I am ready to maintain that the original settlers 
 of New England were not even intolerant, in the cor- 
 rect sense of that term, w^ien we understand their pur- 
 poses and examine their actions. That the congrega- 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 55 
 
 tion of Mr. Robinson did not desire to associate in civil 
 government with Arians and ranters, with papists and 
 infidels, may be true enough ; and why should they not 
 be permitted to worship God by themselves, in their 
 own way, undisturbed by conflicting opinions, unheated 
 by argument, unswayed by opposite practice? They 
 sought not to make converts of others, excepting the 
 heathen. They interfered with no man's religious be- 
 lief, unless he thrust himself upon their jurisdiction; 
 and within this pale they had, in my judgment, a per- 
 fect right to be exclusive. If there were others who 
 thought that peculiarities of doctrine were not of the 
 essence of faith, the wilderness was open, and they 
 might have followed the example of the Pilgrims. 
 "The world was all before them where to choose their 
 place of rest;" and neither Ann Hutchinson, nor 
 Thomas Morton, the disturbing lawyer, nor even 
 Roger Williams himself, had a right to come uncalled 
 for, within the limits of Plymouth or Massachusetts, 
 and then cry out, "persecution and intolerance." 
 
 I would speak of Roger Williams with great respect, 
 as of one who had the clearest perceptions of that which 
 is both right and expedient in religious affairs, as con- 
 nected with civil government. Viewing the question 
 in its modern aspect, when time has made the truth 
 clear, and experience has shown that the power of law 
 need never be brought to act upon spiritual belief, we 
 all of us bear witness to the abstract correctness of 
 Mr. Williams' opinions. He may be considered as 
 among the first of those who advanced and maintained 
 the proposition, that there should be a total separation 
 of ecclesiastical from civil control; and he is entitled 
 to our admiration for the broad extent of his views in 
 the true administration of secular laws upon religious 
 opinion. And yet, in my judgment, there never was a 
 
56 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 more unpropitious moment for the promulgation of his 
 pecuHar notions upon all these subjects than that se- 
 lected by him in 1630 and 1632. 
 
 At that moment, the settlement in Massachusetts was 
 but just begun. Endicott and Winthrop, and Higgin- 
 son, and their associates, emigrated with feelings and 
 purposes, and objects, similar to those which had in- 
 duced Bradford and Winslow, and the Congregational 
 Pilgrims of Leyden to seek a refuge in a distant land; 
 nor did the views and opinions of the emigrants to 
 Massachusetts differ in any essential degree from those 
 entertained by the inhabitants of Plymouth. Between 
 these colonies there was generally harmonious thought 
 and united action; but in their religious sentiments 
 they were not intolerant. No, not as intolerant as we 
 of the present day are; although their civil condition, 
 in some respects, differed widely from our own. In 
 forming the structures of government, our ancestors 
 had to provide for order, safety, and subordination; 
 and that these might all be secured, they had recourse to 
 those ordinances, which they had adopted from deep 
 seated conviction ; and upon what better, or broader, or 
 more enduring foundations, could they have rested the 
 hopes of their new colony, than the eternal foundations 
 of religious truth? But these men were not, I assert 
 again, either intolerant or narrow minded, or bigoted 
 in the abstractions of religious belief. On the con- 
 trary, they respected the opinions of others ; being per- 
 fectly willing that they should be enjoyed without 
 molestation; and they only asked for themselves that 
 which they freely granted to all mankind. That they 
 liad no good opinion of the superstitions of the Romish 
 church, is true; and that they considered the forms of 
 worship kept up in the church of England as mere 
 modifications of papal observance, is also true; but at 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 57 
 
 the same time, they had charity for its ordinances, and 
 respect for its members. 
 
 This charge of intolerance was an old charge, made 
 against them, or rather against the independent 
 churches, to which the first settlers, for the most part 
 belonged, more than two hundred years ago, and was 
 answered by them at the time. 'T have shown," (says 
 Mr. Winslow) "that the foundation of our New Eng- 
 land plantations was not laid upon schism, division, or 
 separation, but upon love, peace and happiness, and 
 also, that the primitive churches are the only pattern 
 which the churches of Christ, in New England, have in 
 their eyes; not following Luther, Calvin, Knox, Ains- 
 worth, Robinson, Ames, or any other, further than they 
 follow Christ and his apostles." Is there any thing of 
 bigotry or narrow minded sentiment in this? Any 
 want of toleration or of respect for the opinions of 
 others? Any stiff-necked assertion of superior know- 
 ledge, virtue or purity? They would not follow any 
 sect, further than that sect followed Christ and his 
 apostles ; and surely, a truer rule, one more plain, direct 
 and certain, could not be adopted. 
 
 But what were the sentiments of John Robinson him- 
 self, upon this subject? Hear his own words, ad- 
 dressed to his own church, at the time of their de- 
 parture to begin the great plantation work in New 
 England. Amongst other wholesome instructions, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Winslow, he used expressions to this 
 purpose : "That we were now, ere long, to part asunder, 
 and the Lord only knew whether ever he should live to 
 see our faces again. But whether the Lord had ap- 
 pointed it or not, he charged us before God to follow 
 him no further than he followed Christ." He took 
 occasion also, miserably to bewail the state and condi- 
 tion of the reformed church, who would go no further 
 
58 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 than the instruments of their reformation. As for ex- 
 ample; the Lutherans could not be drawn to go beyond 
 what Luther saw; for whatever part of God's will he 
 had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they 
 would rather die than embrace it. "And so also," said 
 he, "you see the Calvinists, they stick where he left 
 them; a misery much to be lamented, for though they 
 were precious shining lights in their times, yet God had 
 not revealed his whole will to them. And so he advised 
 us by all means to endeavor to close with the godly 
 party of the kingdom of England, and rather to study 
 union than division, namely, how near we might pos- 
 sibly, without sin, close with them, than in the least 
 measure to effect division or separation from them." 
 
 Can you find anything in history more liberal than 
 these beautiful and heartfelt remarks of the godly man, 
 made upon his final separation from his church, when 
 they were to "part asunder, and he never more to see 
 their faces again?" But was he sincere? Hear the. 
 testimony of Mr. Winslow upon this point. "For his 
 doctrine," says he, "I living three years under his min- 
 istry, before we began the work of plantation in New 
 England, it was always against separation from any 
 the churches of Christ; professing and holding com- 
 munion both with the French and Dutch churches, yea 
 the tendering it the Scotch also; even holding forth 
 how wary persons ought to be in separating from a 
 church." It is true he condemned the constitution of 
 the church of England, but he condemned it as matter 
 of opinion rather than of censure. "No man," said he, 
 "to whom England is known, can be ignorant that all 
 the natives there, and subjects of the kingdom, al- 
 though never such strangers from all show of true 
 piety, and goodness, and fraught never so full with 
 many most heinous impieties and vices, are without 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 59 
 
 difference compelled and enforced by most severe laws, 
 civil and ecclesiastical, into the body of that church; 
 every subject of the kingdom dwelling in this or that 
 parish is bound, will he, nill he, fit or unfit, as with 
 iron bonds, to participate in all holy things, and some 
 unholy too, in that same parish church." 
 
 But the emigrants with Governor Winthrop, were 
 scarcely separated at all from the church of England; 
 desiring only its reform in matters of practice. They 
 had been born and brought up in the doctrines of that 
 church, and lived in communion with it. Their min- 
 isters had been ordained by her bishops, and officiated 
 in her parochial churches; nor was there any secession 
 until after their arrival in New England. Mr. Higgin- 
 son, in taking a last look upon his native land ex- 
 claimed : "We will not say, as the separatists were wont 
 to say, farewell Babylon! farewell Rome! but we will 
 say farewell, dear England ! farewell the church of God 
 in England, and all the Christian friends there." Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop, and his company, in a parting ad- 
 dress "to the rest of their brethren in and of the church 
 of England, speak of it as their 'dear mother,' from 
 whom they could not part without much sadness of 
 heart and many tears." "We leave it," said they, not 
 "as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished," 
 "but blessing God for the parentage and education as 
 members of the same body. We shall always rejoice 
 in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for any sorrow that 
 shall ever betide her ; and while we have breath, sincerely 
 desire and endeavor the continuance and abundance of 
 her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the 
 kingdom of Christ Jesus ; wishing our heads and hearts 
 were fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare, 
 when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness, 
 overshadowed with the spirit of supplication." Are 
 
6o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 these the narrow sentiments of bigotry and supersti- 
 tion? Do you discover anything ilhberal, anything 
 uncharitable, anything unchristian here ? We find then, 
 that there was as much harmony among the emigrants 
 in matters of rehgious behef, and as much toleration, as 
 there is now, so far as mere opinions were concerned; 
 although in their civil relations they brought their laws 
 to bear in some degree, upon the conduct of men, in 
 matters of faith and practice. 
 
 But consider their condition, their purposes and ob- 
 jects. They had gone forth from their homes to cher- 
 ish sentiments, and secure observances within their own 
 jurisdictions, without let or molestation from others. 
 Their government, both civil and ecclesiastical, was 
 intended for themselves alone, and not to be forced 
 upon unwilling minds, or uncomplying tempers. The 
 grants gave them an exclusive title to the land which 
 they were to occupy, with an uncontrolled right to 
 establish laws for its good government. They had 
 come out for the express purpose of forming a distinct 
 and separate organization; a commonwealth of their 
 own, to be governed just as the proprietaries should 
 themselves see fit. 
 
 The original grant to Plymouth only comprehended 
 the country lying east of the present State of Rhode 
 Island, and south of Massachusetts, which last colony 
 was itself at first bounded by the narrow limits of 
 Charles river and the Merrimack. Now, within these 
 circumscribed spaces, those who owned the soil and had 
 the power of governing it, proposed to lay the founda- 
 tions of new societies, established for their own objects 
 and purposes, and designed to carry out their own pe- 
 culiar views. They did not invite within their juris- 
 diction settlers of all nations, kindreds and tongues; 
 but only those who thought as they thought upon the 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 6i 
 
 great subjects of subordination and religion ; and hence 
 Plymoutli early enacted laws prohibiting strangers, 
 who had not obtained a license for that purpose from 
 the magistrates, from settling within her territories. 
 Recollect, the first emigrants and their associates in 
 England, owned the very soil upon which they stood; 
 and having ample power, for its government, they were 
 desirous of banishing all the elements of discord from 
 the new settlements, by excluding all those who were 
 calculated to introduce them. If other persons, differ- 
 ing from the proprietaries in their opinions and views, 
 were desirous of emigrating to the western world, they 
 had merely to avoid Plymouth and Massachusetts, if 
 they considered their laws or ordinances unkind, un- 
 just, or severe. They could go to the north, or the 
 south, and there was "ample space and verge enough" 
 for all. Why then should individuals, prating of free 
 government, of religion and entire toleration, thrust 
 themselves within these colonial limits, if they did not 
 mean to submit to the laws which governed them? 
 They were not invited thither, nor solicited, nor called 
 for, nor even wanted. 
 
 Was there any injustice, then, in laws, in resolutions, 
 or practices, which merely sought to exclude the ele- 
 ments of schism, anarchy and insubordination, for the 
 purpose of preserving peace, good order, sound moral- 
 ity, and a pure religious faith ? They did not seek for 
 proselytes, nor invite settlers of a different creed to 
 come within their borders; but such individuals came, 
 nevertheless, without their consent, and insisted upon 
 remaining there, not merely to enjoy their own opin- 
 ions in modest quietude and silence, but to proclaim 
 those opinions aloud, everywhere, from the high places, 
 and with the express intent of drawing the original set- 
 tlers from their ancient impressions. And because 
 
62 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 those stout-hearted men, who had borne the burthen 
 and heat of the day to accomphsh their own pecuhar 
 purposes, raised a protest, effectual and firm, against 
 such innovations, the intruders cried out, "persecution 
 and intolerance !" Aye, but some may say, "they drove 
 Roger Williams in the dead of winter into the wilder- 
 ness, exposed to its cold and hardship, and the tender 
 mercies of its savage inhabitants." 
 
 This banishment of Mr. Williams was entirely of his 
 own seeking, and the time selected was chosen by him- 
 self. This gentleman, who came over in the year 
 1630, began life with such a furious partisan zeal, that 
 he refused to join in fellowship with his brethren of 
 Boston, unless they would declare their repentance for 
 having communed with the church of England before 
 they left that country. He was also of opinion, that 
 there should be no punishment for a breach of the Sab- 
 bath, or indeed for any violations of the precepts of 
 the first table of the law, unless they disturbed the pub- 
 lic peace. That oaths ought not to be tendered to un- 
 repentant men; that thanks should not be given after 
 the sacrament, nor after meat, and that a Christian 
 should not pray with an unregenerate person, even 
 though wife or child! He also insisted, that the title 
 of the Massachusetts Colony to their lands was not 
 good; and he maintained these opinions in the most 
 open and public manner; even refusing to commune 
 with the members of his own church, unless they would 
 separate themselves from the polluted churches of New 
 England. These opinions were deemed to be not only 
 erroneous, but dangerous ; and hence he was warned 
 that he must not assert them in public, if he expected to 
 remain within the colony. But as he set the consti- 
 tuted authorities at defiance, sentence of banishment 
 was passed upon him, in October, 1635 ; with a permis- 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 6z 
 
 sion, however, to remain until spring, provided he 
 would restrain himself from the propensity to make 
 proselytes, and proclaim his opinions to the people. It 
 being soon ascertained, however, that disregarding 
 these injunctions, he was holding meetings at his own 
 house, and preaching upon the very points for which he 
 was censured, an order was given for his arrest ; not for 
 the purpose of putting him in prison, or thrusting him 
 out among savages, but for the purpose of sending 
 him back to England. Hearing of this order, he de- 
 termined to evade it, and so passed over from Massa- 
 chusetts to the west part of the Plymouth jurisdiction, 
 where he remained for some time among the Indians. 
 His place of retreat being known, "that ever honored 
 Governor Winthrop," as Williams himself styles him, 
 privately wrote him to "steer his course to the Narra- 
 gansett Bay, as being free from English claims or pat- 
 ents." "I took his prudent motion," says he, "as a 
 voice from God !" Once established within his own 
 jurisdiction, he remained there without interference or 
 molestation on the part of the colonies of Plymouth or 
 Massachusetts, and in perfect friendship with both. 
 What is there to complain of in all this? What was 
 there of hardship or injustice in the case? He had 
 come to the colonies without invitation, and remained 
 there against their wishes. They did not desire to 
 stifle his opinions, for one of their statutes expressly 
 says, that "no creature is Lord, or has power over the 
 faith and consciences of men, nor may restrain them to 
 believe or profess against their consciences; nor de- 
 prive them of their lawful liberty in a quiet and orderly 
 way to propose their scruples." But they did desire to 
 suppress the open and public proclamation of opinions, 
 hurtful to their property, and schismatical in their 
 effects. Instead of harmony in an infant and feeble 
 
64 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 settlement, under his preaching there would be inflamed 
 zeal, heated controversy, doubtful faith, disturbed prin- 
 ciples, and unsettled belief; for Williams himself after- 
 wards became strenuous against the Quakers, holding 
 public disputes with some of their most eminent teach- 
 ers. At later periods of his life, he lived in open neg- 
 lect of many of the ordinances for which he had once 
 zealously contended. Instead of separating himself 
 from the anti-Christian churches, against which he had 
 been so loud, he was ready to preach and pray for all 
 sects, and became entirely doubtful as to what church 
 he should unite himself with. Why should Mr. Wil- 
 liams raise up commotion, by attacking the patent of 
 Massachusetts? Why should he, amongst a people 
 who could not by possibility be brought to his way of 
 thinking, deny that the commandments of the first table 
 of the law might be enforced by the secular power? 
 Do any Christian people; does any State; does even 
 Rhode Island herself pretend to maintain good order 
 upon the Sabbath day, without any law for its proper 
 observance? One of the moving causes of emigration 
 from Holland was the profanation of the Sabbath, and 
 the impossibility of correcting the evil there; the 
 Dutch ministers themselves acknowledging the diffi- 
 culty of withdrawing the people from their sports and 
 ordinary occupations on that day. Should they then, 
 at once throw off observances which were deemed fun- 
 damental and sacred? Should they admit themselves 
 to be wrong on this vital point, which has never yet 
 been abandoned by their descendants, and say that con- 
 science made a law for itself, sufficient in all these mat- 
 ters of outward observance? Are the consciences of all 
 men alike? And guided by its dictates alone, can there 
 be uniformity of action and a decent preservation of 
 order and propriety? The thing is impossible. 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 65 
 
 Even under Mr. Williams, matters seem not to have 
 been mended much, or very harmonious in their oper- 
 ation: for we find that in 1638, the free principles 
 which he wished to establish in Massachusetts did not 
 work particularly well in Rhode Island. "At Provi- 
 dence," says Governor Winthrop, "the devil was not 
 idle, for whereas, at their first coming thither, Mr. Wil- 
 liams, and the rest, did make an order that no man 
 should be molested for his conscience ; now men's wives, 
 and children, and servants, claimed liberty to go to all 
 religious meetings, though never so often or private, 
 upon week days ; and because one Verin refused to let 
 his wife go to Mr. Williams so oft as she was called 
 for, they required to have him censured ; and some 
 were of opinion that if Verin would not suffer his wife 
 to have her liberty, the church should dispose of her to 
 some other man, who would use her better. In conclu- 
 sion; when they would have censured Verin, another 
 told them it was against their own order ; for Verin did 
 what he did out of conscience, and their order was, that 
 no man should be disturbed for conscience." 
 
 But they whipped the Anabaptists and persecuted 
 the Quakers, you say? They moderately punished one 
 individual of the former sect, it is true, in the year 
 1644: "Not," says Mr. Winthrop, "for his opinions, 
 but for his evil behavior, both at home and in court; 
 he being a scandalous person, of loose habits, and much 
 given to lying and idleness." And as for the Quakers, 
 what were they in the days of our fathers ? Were they 
 the decent, orderly, quiet and modest people, which we 
 see now, every where obedient to the laws, thrifty, in- 
 dustrious, benevolent and gentle? Would John Win- 
 throp, and William Bradford, and Francis Higginson 
 lay their hands, think ye, upon the excellent persons 
 who at present occupy New Bedford, setting an exam- 
 
66 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 pie of subordination, virtue and propriety, to all the 
 world? No, no. The Quakers of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury were no more like the gentle Friends of the nine- 
 teenth, than the latter are like the Mormons. The for- 
 mer were ranters and fanatics, disturbers of public 
 peace and decency, entering the churches during the 
 time of service, in the most shameless manner, and in- 
 sulting the ministers there, in the administration of 
 their sacred office. They invaded public houses, utter- 
 ing their wild exhortations, and foaming forth their 
 mad opinions, like persons possessed ; disturbing, also, 
 the relations of private life, and meddling, everywhere, 
 with matters beyond the pale of propriety, or even com- 
 mon modesty. 
 
 One Eccles, a Quaker tailor, who wrote a narrative 
 of his persecutions, as he termed them, in 1659, de- 
 clares that he felt bound to go to the steeple-house in 
 Aldermanbury (as he called the church) on Sunday, 
 "and take with him something to work upon, and do 
 it in the pulpit, at their singing time ; and he carried 
 with him a pocket to sew." Making his way with pro- 
 verbial slyness into the pulpit, he sat himself, he says, 
 "upon the cushion with his feet upon the seat where 
 the priest, when he has told out his lies, doth sit," and 
 pulling out his pocket, went to work. Was it not a 
 marvellous persecution, that the people thus disturbed, 
 should have taken this insane zealot before a magis- 
 trate for punishment? 
 
 George Fox himself, entered "a steeple-house," and 
 cried out to the minister, in the time of divine service, 
 "come down, thou deceiver ;" and on another occasion, 
 approaching Lichfield, he pulled oflf his shoes and 
 walked barefoot through the place, crying out "woe to 
 the bloody city." But even men like these were mild 
 and decent, in comparison with others of their sect. 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 67 
 
 who were carried away by the wildest impulses of 
 phrenzy and fanaticism, putting- the followers of Ma- 
 thias even to the blush ; and against such public disturb- 
 ers as these, the colony laws were directed. 
 
 These laws were at first mild and gentle, and in 1659, 
 Plymouth, by statute, made a proposition to the Quak- 
 ers, that if they would depart out of their jurisdiction 
 within six months, no fines should be exacted of them; 
 promising that such of them as were poor should be 
 supplied out of the public treasury. And to show the 
 desire they had of preserving their own institutions 
 merely, within their own jurisdiction, banishment from 
 the Province, was in almost all cases, the first penalty 
 prescribed for offences of this character. As measures 
 of a mild nature were of no effect, the laws became 
 more stringent, and it was then enacted, that if "ran- 
 ters, Quakers, and other such vagabonds," should come 
 within any town, they might be seized and whipped 
 with a rod, not exceeding fifteen stripes, and a pass 
 given them to depart out of the government. Asso- 
 ciate this law with the image of the gentle Friend of 
 our day, with his modest coat and quiet manners, and 
 it becomes absurd. But associate it with Mathias, 
 wandering about the streets of New York, uttering his 
 disgusting blasphemies to curious crowds and deceived 
 proselytes, and I think you would certainly bestow 
 upon him at least fifteen stripes with a rod before you 
 gave him a pass to depart from the government. But 
 if our ancestors were too severe in their measures for 
 the suppression of "ranters, and such like vagabonds," 
 they were not a whit more severe than the English 
 themselves ; for we find that one James Naylor, a con- 
 vert of George Fox, the great founder of the sect, was 
 condemned to death for his extravagancies by the 
 House of Commons, in 1656. Even the mild and ex- 
 
68 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 cellent William Penn himself could hardly tolerate 
 them; saying that they were troublesome to the better 
 sort, and furnished an occasion for the looser to blas- 
 pheme. 
 
 In considering the character and conduct of those 
 who lived and conducted the affairs of government, 
 with the administration of its laws, two centuries ago, 
 we should view them, not with eyes which have seen all 
 the changes of thoughts, and all the improvements 
 which that long period has produced, but they should 
 be judged by the sentiments which prevailed in their 
 time, and the lights by which they themselves were 
 then guided. It is an easy thing now to ridicule the 
 laws of Massachusetts concerning witchcraft, and hurl 
 anathemas against the pious men who carried them into 
 effect. But what was the state of public opinion 
 throughout the whole Christian world upon this sub- 
 ject at that time? Was New England the only spot 
 where laws of this nature were enacted? Had old 
 England no statutes upon the subject? Or if they re- 
 mained upon the record, had they, by disuse become 
 obsolete and forgotten? 
 
 "To deny," says Blackstone, in his commentaries, 
 written more than seventy years after all trials for this 
 crime in New England had ceased ; "to deny the possi- 
 bility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, 
 is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, 
 in various passages both of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment; and the thing itself is a truth to which every 
 nation in the world, hath in its turn borne testimony, 
 either by examples seemingly well attested, or by pro- 
 hibitory laws. The civil law punishes with death, not 
 only the sorcerers themselves, but also those who con- 
 sult them, imitating in the former the express law of 
 God, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' And our 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 69 
 
 laws, both before and since the conquest, have been 
 equally penal, ranking this crime in the same class with 
 heresy, and condemning both to the flames." 
 
 Laws of the severest kind against this supposed of- 
 fence, were passed in England, during the reign of 
 Henry the Eighth; repeated and extended during that 
 of James the First ; and continued on their statute books 
 down to the year 1736, when, in the ninth year of 
 George the Second's reign it was enacted, that prosecu- 
 tions should not, from that time forward, be carried on 
 against any person for conjuration, witchcraft, en- 
 chantment, or sorcery; leaving however, upon the face 
 of the law itself, an implied belief in their existence. 
 
 Who was Sir Matthew Hale, and when did he live? 
 He was the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at one 
 period of his life, and died in the year 1676, one of the 
 most learned, just, and upright of all the magistrates 
 that ever presided in an English court. And did he 
 never try witches? Why, under his administration, 
 and those of other learned and high minded judges of 
 that time, more persons were put to death for this crime 
 of witchcraft, in a single county of England, in a brief 
 space, than ever suffered in all the States of New Eng- 
 land, from the time of their settlement to the day when 
 the delusion passed away, and, as I trust, for ever from 
 the annals of mankind. No execution for conjuration 
 or sorcery ever took place in New England, I believe, 
 after the year 1693; but in old England, death con- 
 tinued to be inflicted for the same offences as late as 
 1722; showing conclusively that the crime had not its 
 "local habitation and name" in Massachusetts alone. 
 
 But how much have we improved, upon the score of 
 superstition, even in these enlightened times ? In what 
 days of New England history can you find anything so 
 monstrous and revolting as the Mormon superstition, 
 
70 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 crime or folly, which is now before your eyes ? When 
 did Jemima Wilkinson flourish? And where did a 
 reverend fanatic speak to deluded crowds in unknown 
 tongues ? No ! credulity and superstition are not con- 
 fined to particular periods or places; but are of all 
 times, and in every part of the world; and happy are 
 they who escape their influence. 
 
 In paying a tribute to the merits of our dead ances- 
 tors, let not their modesty and freedom from ambition 
 be forgotten. To discharge their duty before God and 
 man was their only aspiration. Power and place of- 
 fered no temptations to their chastened minds. No 
 matter in what condition man, under ordinary circum- 
 stances may be placed, whether as the Inca of Peru, 
 surrounded by ingots of gold and pyramids of silver, or 
 as the poverty-stricken sachem of a northern tribe, 
 without wealth, or comfort, or outward signs of 
 magnificence ; power is nevertheless the strongest temp- 
 tation to ambitious souls. In the desire for its posses- 
 sion, all other earthly regards are absorbed ; fraud, vio- 
 lence, and corruption, are invoked for its acquirement; 
 the endearments of home, the consciousness of right, 
 the obligations of virtue, and the sanctions of religion 
 are all forgotten, while the human energies are concen- 
 trated into one fierce and inextinguishable motive. For 
 it, man spurns the rights of his fellow man ; disregards 
 the obligations of duty; despises present retribution, 
 and tempts that which is to come. 
 
 In what strong contrast with all that we see exhib- 
 ited, day by day, upon the busy theatre of human af- 
 fairs at this time, does the conduct of the Pilgrims 
 appear? Simple, unambitious, conscientious, and de- 
 voted ; considering power as a burden which all were 
 bound to endure, they assumed its cares without covet- 
 ing its honors. There was no strife among them as 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 71 
 
 to which should be greatest. Far from it. William 
 Bradford having been repeatedly elected Governor, 
 "got off" on one occasion, "by importunity." "If this 
 appointment," said he, "was an honor or benefit, others 
 beside himself should partake of it ; if it were a burden, 
 others beside himself should help to bear it." Nor 
 was this feeling peculiar to him, for we find that in the 
 year 1632, it was solemnly enacted at Plymouth, "that 
 if then, or thereafter," any were elected to the office 
 of Governor, and would not stand to the election, nor 
 hold and execute the office for his year, that then, he be 
 amerced in twenty pounds sterling, fine. And if any 
 were elected to the office of Counsel, and refused to hold 
 the place, that he be amerced in ten pounds, sterling." 
 There is some reason to suspect, however much we may 
 have adhered to the customs of our Pilgrim ancestors, 
 that in this particular, we are somewhat degenerated. 
 
 We have thus seen who the first planters of New 
 England were, and the causes which led to the great 
 enterprise of establishing colonies upon our north-At- 
 lantic shores. We have seen that they were men im- 
 bued with morals, sound and practical, though severe; 
 of principles high-minded and pure, though firm and 
 unyielding; of a religious faith and temperament, 
 heated perhaps, by zeal to observances over-strict and 
 formal: yet kind, tolerant and forgiving. We have 
 seen them everywhere carrying out the purposes and 
 fulfilling the designs for which they emigrated. The 
 darkness of the forest gave way before the vigorous 
 strokes of the woodman ; the hum of the mill was min- 
 gled with the dash of the waterfall; the noise of the 
 hammer was heard in the solitude of the desert, and the 
 lowing of herds penetrated to the abodes of the wolf 
 and the panther ; the hill-side reflected back the gleam 
 of the ploughshare, and the plains waved with the 
 
^2 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 golden plumage of the harvest; the wild incantations 
 of the savage gave place to psalms of thanksgiving and 
 the song of praise; while civilization advanced every- 
 where over the land, sounding its glad voice, and pour- 
 ing out its blessings. 
 
 The progress of those little bands, from small begin- 
 nings to considerable communities ; from these commu- 
 nities to separate and independent States; and from 
 such States, to a harmonious union of all their descen- 
 dants, under one common government, wisely con- 
 structed, powerfully maintained, and eminently respect- 
 able; may be easily traced, when the sources of the 
 mighty current, flowing so steadily on, are once well 
 known. 
 
 The principles inculcated by our fathers, the educa- 
 tion they bestowed upon their children, and the habits 
 of patience, long-suffering, and perseverance in which 
 they were trained, could not fail to have an influence, 
 deep and abiding, upon their characters. Standing by 
 their chartered rights on all occasions, when attacked, 
 conscious that they were entitled to the immunities and 
 privileges for which they had toiled so long, and suf- 
 fered so much, the Pilgrims and their descendants were 
 not likely to submit with tameness to wrongs and op- 
 pressions, come from what source they might. 
 
 The contests in which they were involved with the 
 natives, after the termination of Philip's war, the blood 
 which they poured from their veins, and the desolations 
 which came upon their borders, had been occasioned, 
 for the most part, by controversies between the mother- 
 country and her European neighbors, in which the colo- 
 nies were compelled to take part. But they "remem- 
 bered that they were Englishmen," and bore their 
 portion of the burthens of war with patience and cour- 
 age, murmuring at none of these things; for wherever 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 73 
 
 the British flag waved on this continent, the sons of 
 New England could be found marshalled under it, and 
 standing side by side with their kinsmen. 
 
 But their sympathies were always on the part of lib- 
 erty, and from the beginning, they were essentially re- 
 publican. Hence, though not engaged in the conflict 
 between the king and his parliaments, their hearts were 
 always with the people. They rejoiced in their suc- 
 cess, they mourned over their misfortunes ; nor was it a 
 day of fasting and prayer in the colonies, when the 
 news came that the independent churches had estab- 
 lished for themselves equality of rights, in the land 
 where they were originally formed. 
 
 "Full little did I think," exclaimed that stout old 
 Puritan, Governor Bradford, "full little did I think 
 that the downfall of the bishops, with their courts, their 
 canons, and ceremonies, had been so near when I first 
 began this writing, in 1630; or that I should have lived 
 to have seen or heard the same. And do ye now see 
 the fruits of your labors, ye little band amongst the 
 rest, the least amongst the thousands of Israel? But 
 who hath done it? Even He, who sitteth upon the 
 white horse : who is called faithful and true, and judg- 
 eth and fighteth righteously. It is He that treadeth 
 the wine press, and hath upon his garment and upon his 
 thigh a name written, the King of Kings, and Lord of 
 Lords!" 
 
 After that great revolution, which was the prelude 
 merely, to the still greater one, which finally expelled 
 the Stuarts from the British throne, the people of New 
 England steadily adhered to their early principles, and 
 hence they furnished a refuge to such of King Charles' 
 judges as escaped to their country, desolate and for- 
 lorn. They did not look upon them as regicides, who 
 had murdered their sovereign, but in the language of 
 
74 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Bradshaw's epitaph, as a part of "that band of heroes 
 and patriots, who had fairly and openly adjudged 
 Charles Stuart, tyrant of England, to a public and ex- 
 emplary death ; thereby presenting to the amazed world, 
 and transmitting down, through applauding ages the 
 most glorious example of unshaken virtue, love of free- 
 dom and impartial justice, ever exhibited on the blood- 
 stained theatre of human action !" 
 
 These principles, and these sentiments, they main- 
 tained, and in Boston boldly avowed and acted upon, 
 even before tidings of the expulsion of James from his 
 throne had reached their glad and expecting ears. As 
 good citizens, as obedient subjects, they remained dur- 
 ing the reigns of his daughters, and the first two of 
 their successors from Hanover; cherishing their free 
 institutions, and, what was more, maintaining their in- 
 dependent sentiments with the unconquerable resolu- 
 tion of intelligent minds. 
 
 How unwise then in the mother country; how dan- 
 gerous to wound the feelings of attachment which 
 bound the descendants of the Pilgrims to the early 
 home of their fathers. How unjust to attempt to re- 
 strain their energies, circumscribe their powers, and 
 subdue their spirit. Were men like these ever intended 
 to be mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water," for 
 taskmasters on the other side of the Atlantic? Were 
 the sons of the Pilgrims like the children of Issachar, 
 "a strong ass couching down between two burdens?" 
 Were they likely to "see that rest was good, and the 
 land pleasant," and so "bow their shoulders to bear, 
 and become servants unto tribute?" No, no. Eng- 
 land should have remembered that "Judah was a lion's 
 whelp, and that his hand would be in the neck of his 
 enemies." 
 
 A writer, to me unknown, who composed a preface 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 75 
 
 to an edition of Hubbard's wars, printed in Boston, 
 shortly before the battle of Bunker's Hill, speaking of 
 his ancestors, observes, that however they may have 
 been misrepresented, they were men of whom the world 
 was not worthy. "According to the usual course of 
 things," says he, "in this depraved and mutable state, 
 their descendants, at this day, as might be expected, 
 have, in a measure, departed from that simplicity of 
 manners by which their renowned ancestors were dis- 
 tinguished. We, of this province, have been called 
 upon, from an early period, to defend our lives and 
 property against more distant savages. Our trust has 
 been in our fathers' God, and hitherto, he hath deliv- 
 ered us. Our frontier settlements are exposed to sav- 
 age invasion ; and, though we trust not in our own bow, 
 we are all armed and prepared for a defensive war !" 
 
 Who were the savages hinted at here, as nearer than 
 those more distant ones, who had formerly assailed the 
 frontier settlements? Against whom did the descen- 
 dants of the Pilgrims then stand, all armed and pre- 
 pared for a defensive war ? Could not those, who con- 
 trolled the destinies of Britain, hear the mutterings of 
 the distant thunder, in these audible breathings-out of 
 a suppressed, but concentrated and indomitable spirit? 
 Could nothing but the fierce lightning of the battle, and 
 the peltings of the pitiless storm of war arouse them to 
 the recollection, that the fathers of these men were Eng- 
 lishmen, who came over the great ocean, and that their 
 children would perish in this wilderness, rather than 
 bear anything here, which would not be borne at home ? 
 
 The same spirit which had planted the colonies, sus- 
 tained and supported them through the whole Revolu- 
 tionary struggle; so desolating, so unequal, so fierce, 
 and unrelenting. The history of that event is so re- 
 markable, when carefully examined, as to excite aston- 
 
^6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ishment, if not incredulity; and if an overruling Provi- 
 dence ever did interpose directly in the affairs of men, 
 surely, its cloud by day, and pillar of fire by night, may 
 be seen and traced through all the long and wearisome 
 years of that eventful contest. 
 
 Severed then, and forever, were the silver cords, 
 which bound distant, but afifectionate colonies to their 
 parent country. The golden bowl had been broken at 
 the fountain. With ruthless violence it had been 
 dashed down, and its fragments in after times, were 
 never to be gathered up by the parent hand. But all 
 the fruits of that vine which God had planted in the 
 wilderness, were to remain to the descendants of those 
 who had nurtured and nourished it, even with their 
 tears and with their blood. Its branches were destined 
 to shoot forth and spread out, and extend and blossom 
 in the unknown and unthought-of depths of that vast 
 continent, where its roots had struck so firmly and so 
 deep. 
 
 Equal rights and equal privileges for all men, were 
 then and there secured; and as I trust, made safe and 
 enduring for ever. Freedom of thought, freedom of 
 action under proper restraints, the inestimable gift of 
 self-government, were each and all of them bestowed 
 upon us by our fathers, at the close of that great drama, 
 in which they, and the principal nations of Europe were 
 finally actors. They established institutions, which we 
 are bound by all the sacred obligations of filial affec- 
 tion, of parental reverence, and common gratitude, to 
 preserve and maintain, and hand down to those who 
 may come after us. And by all these great and hal- 
 lowed recollections, we will maintain and preserve and 
 hand them down, that no reproach may come upon us 
 or our generation. That education we have received, 
 we will transmit; that language taught to us, we will 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 77 
 
 teach to others ; those principles in which we have been 
 wrapped as with a mantle, we will bequeath to poster- 
 ity, as the last, best gift, which one generation can be- 
 stow upon another. 
 
 The seeds sown by the Mayflower, shall be borne and 
 wafted on the gentle winds of heaven, to every part of 
 this vast continent, to spring up thirty, sixty, and an 
 hundred fold, in the blossoms of that glorious and 
 never-dying plant. 
 
 The dove which was sent out from the Ark, was to 
 explore the face of the waters, to see where rest could 
 be found for the sole of her foot. The dove which 
 went forth from the Mayflower, carried in her beak a 
 leaf of the olive which was to be planted, and take root, 
 and grow and flourish, after the great waters of toil, 
 and suffering, and trial, and Revolution, should have 
 subsided. 
 
 The land is visible to us on every side, fertile and 
 pleasant as the garden of the Lord. It was given to us 
 as an inheritance; as an inheritance we will preserve 
 it. Our tears did not water it ; our blood did not nour- 
 ish it; our toil did not smooth down its surface; but 
 we are bound to it by the blood, and the tears, and the 
 toil of our fathers ; and by all these sacred obligations 
 we will guard it. 
 
 The great orator of our time, and of his race, in his 
 eloquent and profoundly philosophical discourse, deliv- 
 ered at Plymouth in the year 1820, speaking of his own 
 native and beloved New England, expresses himself in 
 these words : 
 
 "Instead of being confined to its former limits, her 
 population has rolled backward and filled up the spaces 
 included within her actual local boundaries. Not this 
 only, but it has overflowed those boundaries and the 
 waves of emigration have pressed farther and farther 
 
78 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 towards the West. The Alleghany has not checked it, 
 the banks of the Ohio have been covered with it. Two 
 thousand miles westward from the rock where their 
 fathers landed, may now be found the sons of the Pil- 
 grims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing towns and 
 villages, and cherishing the patrimonial blessings of 
 wise institutions, of liberty and religion." *Tt may be 
 safely asserted that there are now more than a million 
 of people, descendants of New England ancestry, living 
 free and happy in regions which, hardly sixty years 
 ago, were tracts of unpenetrated forest. Nor do riv- 
 ers, or mountains, or seas, resist the progress of indus- 
 try and enterprise; and ere long the sons of the Pil- 
 grims will be upon the shores of the Pacific." 
 
 This prophecy, made just twenty-seven years ago, 
 has become history within that brief space of time. 
 The million of the descendants of New England pa- 
 rentage here referred to, may, in all probability, be 
 found in Ohio alone. The boundaries of the great 
 rivers have been overleaped. The sterile plains, and 
 still more sterile hills, beyond the Mississippi, have 
 been traversed. The barrier of the Alleghanies has 
 presented no resistance; the Rocky Mountains them- 
 selves have been scaled ; the stormy Cape has been dou- 
 bled ; and now the sons of the Pilgrims stand upon the 
 shores of the Pacific. They stand there with no eye 
 turned towards the rising sun, except for the cheering 
 warmth of his kindred rays. They stand there with 
 no fainting resolution, no faltering thought of return. 
 As their march was westward, so, with an intrepid 
 front, they follow the sun in his flight, and look out 
 upon the broad Pacific to see in what distant land he 
 hides his fading beams. That piercing gaze will never 
 cease until the mystery has been solved. The isles of 
 
JONATHAN PRESCOTT HALL 79 
 
 the sea will be measured; the spherical form of the 
 globe itself be proved by American exploration; and 
 the Anglo-Saxons of this continent, steadily pursuing 
 the onward progress of their career, will put a girdle 
 around the earth, and yet come back to the Rock of 
 Plymouth, from whence they originally set forth. 
 
THE FOUNDERS, GREAT IN THEIR 
 UNCONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 HORACE BUSHNELL, D.D. 
 1849 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 
 (1802-1876.) 
 
 Out of a life of seventy-four years Dr. Horace Bushnell had 
 but twenty-five of activity in his chosen work. These were 
 spent in the North Church, Hartford, but their influence went 
 far beyond its circle and opened a broader vision for his gen- 
 eration and for this. Outside his work as student and teacher. 
 Dr. Bushnell was a citizen of such stamp that Hartford honors 
 his memory as of one whose work has left on the town its 
 distinct mark. It was in the year of his address before the 
 New England Society — 1849 — that his book "God in Christ" ap- 
 peared. This work raised to its fiercest height the storm of 
 adverse criticism that throughout his life met this independent 
 thinker. Dr. Bushnell's address is less rhetorical than many of 
 the orations of this collection, less eloquent than others of Dr. 
 Bushnell's speeches, yet it is virile in style and original in 
 thought. One can fancy the gleam of the dark eyes as he talked 
 of the great men of the past, of the great days of the future, 
 in words not unworthy of his own brave and vigorous spirit, 
 nor of the Tabernacle whose walls had heard and were yet to 
 hear mighty voices. 
 
ORATION 
 
 Gentlemen of the New England Society: 
 
 IT is a filial sentiment, most honorably signified by 
 you, in the organization of your Society, and the 
 regular observance of this anniversary, that the found- 
 ers and first fathers of states are entitled to the highest 
 honors. You agree in this with the fine philosophic 
 scale of awards, offered by Lord Bacon, when he says, 
 "The true marshalling of the degrees of sovereign hon- 
 ors are these : In the first place, are Conditores; found- 
 ers of states. In the second place, are Legislatores; 
 lawgivers, which are sometimes called second-founders, 
 or Perpetui Principes, because they govern by their or- 
 dinances after they are gone. In the third place, are 
 Liberatores; such as compound the long miseries of 
 civil wars, or deliver their countries from servitude of 
 strangers or tyrants. In the fourth place, are Propa- 
 gafores, or Propiignatores imperii; such as in honor- 
 able wars enlarge their territories, or make noble de- 
 fence against invaders. And in the last place, Patres 
 patrice, which reign justly, and make the times good 
 wherein they live." 
 
 Holding this true scale of honor, which you may the 
 more heartily do, because you have fathers who are en- 
 titled to reverence for their worth as well as their his- 
 toric position, you have undertaken to remember, and 
 
 83 
 
84 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 with due observances to celebrate, each year, this twen- 
 ty-second day of December, as the day Conditorum Rei- 
 publiccu. Be it evermore a day, such as may fitly head 
 the calendar of our historic honors ; a day that remem- 
 bers with thoughtful respect and reverence the patience 
 of oppressed virtue, the sacrifices of duty, and the sol- 
 emn fatherhood of religion ; — a register also of prog- 
 ress, showing every year by what new triumphs and re- 
 sults of good, spreading in wider circles round the 
 globe, that Being whose appropriate work it is to crown 
 the fidelity of faithful men, is Himself justifying your 
 homage, and challenging the homage of mankind. 
 
 Meantime, be this one caution faithfully observed, 
 that all prescriptive and stipulated honors have it as 
 their natural infirmity to issue in extravagant and 
 forced commendations, and so to mar not seldom the 
 reverence they would fortify. We pay the truest hon- 
 ors to men that are worthy, not by saying all imagina- 
 ble good concerning them : least of all can we do fit 
 honor, in this manner, to the fathers of New England. 
 It as little suits the dignity of truth, as the iron rigor 
 of the men. If it be true, as we often hear, that one 
 may be most effectually "damned by faint praise;" it 
 may also be done as fatally, by what is even more un- 
 just and, to genuine merit, more insupportable, by 
 over-vehement and undistinguishing eulogy. We make 
 allowance for the subtractions of envy; but when love 
 invents fictitious grounds of applause, we imagine some 
 fatal defect of those which are real and true. There is 
 no genuine praise but the praise of justice : 
 
 "For fame impatient of extremes, decays 
 Not less by envy, than excess of praise." 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 85 
 
 In this view, it will not be an offence to you, I trust, 
 or be deemed adverse to the real spirit of the occasion, 
 if I suggest the conviction that our New England fa- 
 thers have sometimes suffered in this manner — not by 
 any conscious design to over-magnify their merit, but 
 by the amiable zeal of inconsiderate and partially quali- 
 fied eulogy. In particular, it has seemed to me to 
 be a frequent detraction from their merit that results 
 are ascribed to their wisdom, or sagacious forethought 
 as projectors, which never even came into their thoughts 
 at all ; and which, taken only as proofs of a Providen- 
 tial purpose working in them, and of God's faithful 
 adherence to their history, would have yielded a more 
 reverent tribute to Him, and raised them also to a far 
 higher pitch of sublimity in excellence. The very 
 greatness of these men, as it seems to me, is their un- 
 consciousness. It is that so little conceiving the future 
 they had in them, they had a future so magnificent — 
 that God was in them in a latent power of divinity and 
 world-disposing counsel which they did not suspect, in 
 a wisdom wiser than they knew, in principles more 
 quickening and transforming than they could even im- 
 agine themselves, and was thus preparing in them, to 
 lift the whole race into a higher plane of existence, and 
 one as much closer to Himself. 
 
 And just here is the difficulty that most consciously 
 oppresses me in the engagement of the present occasion. 
 It is to praise these great men justly — to say what is 
 fit to them and not unfit to God. It is to make uncon- 
 sciousness in good the crown of sublimity in good; to 
 set it forth as their special glory, in this view, that they 
 executed by duty and the stern fidelity of their lives, 
 what they never propounded in theory, or set up as a 
 mark of attainment — so to meet the spirit of the occa- 
 
86 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 sion, and to raise in you the fit measure of enthusiasm, 
 by the sober wine alone of justice and truth. 
 
 Do I then deny what has been so often observed in 
 the great characters of history, that they commonly act 
 their part under a visible sense or presentiment of the 
 greatness of their mission? Is it a fiction that they 
 are thus exalted in it, made impassible, borne along as 
 by some fate or destiny, or, to give it a more Christian 
 name, some inspiration or call of God? Nothing is 
 more true ; it is in fact the standing distinction, the sub- 
 limity itself of greatness. 
 
 "Souls destined to o'erleap the vulgar lot, 
 And mould the world unto the scheme of God, 
 Have a fore-consciousness of their high doom." 
 
 Ignorant of this, we cannot understand what great- 
 ness is. To us it no longer exists. But we need, in 
 the acceptance of a truth so ennobling to human his- 
 tory, to affix those terms and restrictions under which 
 it is practically manifested, else we make even history 
 itself fantastic or incredible. 
 
 Whoever appears to assert any great truth of science 
 or religion, wanted by his age, ought to feel an immov- 
 able conviction that the truth asserted will prevail, else 
 he is no fit champion. But as regards the particular 
 effects it will produce in human society; these he can- 
 not definitely trace. He can only know that, falling 
 into the great currents of causes, complex and multi- 
 tudinous as they are, some good and beneficent results 
 will follow, that are worthy of its divine scope and 
 order. In like manner, the hero of an occasion, ex- 
 alted by the occasion to be God's instrument, we may 
 believe is sometimes gifted with a confidence that is 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 87 
 
 nearly prophetic, and by force of which he is able to 
 inspire others with a courage equal to the greatness 
 of the encounter. Thus it was that Luther, in virtue 
 of a confidence that other men had not, became the hero 
 of the Reformation. But when we speak of inven- 
 tions, institutions, policies, migrations, revolutions, 
 which are not single truths or occasions, but inaugu- 
 rations of causes that can reveal their issues only in the 
 lapse of centuries, the projectors and leaders in these 
 can be sure, at most, only of the grand ideal that in- 
 spires them; but by what medial changes and turns of 
 history God will bring it to pass, or in what definite 
 forms of social good it will finally clothe itself, they 
 can but dimly conceive. 
 
 And this is what I mean, when I speak of the uncon- 
 scious, or undesigning agency of the fathers of New 
 England, considered as the authors of those great po- 
 litical and social issues which we just now look upon as 
 the highest and crowning distinctions of our history. 
 Their ideal was not in these, but in issues still farther 
 on and more magnificent, to which these are only Prov- 
 idential media or means. Occupied by the splendor of 
 these medial stages of advancement, and unable to im- 
 agine any thing yet more glorious to be revealed here- 
 after, we conclude that we have reached the final result 
 and historic completion of our destiny; and then we 
 cast about us to ask what our sublime fathers at- 
 tempted, and settle a final judgment of their merits. 
 Sometimes we smile at their simplicity, finding that the 
 highest hope they conceived in their migration, was 
 nothing but the hope of some good issue for religion ! 
 We secretly wonder, or, it may be, openly express our 
 regret, that they could not have had some conception 
 of the magnificent results of liberty and social order 
 that were here to be revealed. And in this view, we 
 
88 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 often set ourselves to it, as a kind of filial duty, to 
 make out for them what we so much desire. 
 
 Who of us, meantime, is able, for once, to imagine 
 that the shortness may be ours, the prophecy and the 
 greatness theirs ? We want them to be heroes, but we 
 cannot allow them to be heroes of faith. This indeed 
 is a great day for heroes, and our literature is at work, 
 as in a trade, upon the manufacture. But it will some 
 time be discovered that, in actual life, there are two 
 kinds of heroes — heroes for the visible, and heroes for 
 the invisible; they that see their mark hung out as a 
 flag to be taken on some turret or battlement, and they 
 that see it nowhere, save in the grand ideal of the in- 
 ward life ; extempore heroes fighting out a victory defi- 
 nitely seen in something near at hand, and the life- 
 long, century-long heroes that are instigated by no 
 ephemeral crown or more ephemeral passion, but have 
 sounded the deep base-work of God's principle, and 
 have dared calmly to rest their all upon it, come the 
 issue where it may, or when it may, or in what form 
 God will give it. The former class are only symbols, 
 I conceive, in the visible life of that more heroic and 
 truly divine greatness in the other, which is never of- 
 fered to the eyes in forms of palpable achievement. 
 These latter are God's heroes — heroes all of faith ; the 
 other belong to us, flaming as dilettanti figures of art 
 in romances; protruding as bipedal gods in the windy 
 swell of pantheistic literature ; or it may be, striding in 
 real life and action over fields of battle and pages of 
 bloody renown. If our New England fathers do not 
 figure as conspicuously in this latter class of heroes as 
 some might desire, may they not sometimes be seen — 
 when the main ideal of religion is fulfilled — to have 
 been the more truly great because of the remoteness 
 and the sacred grandeur of their aims? And if the 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 89 
 
 political successes in which, as Americans, we so prop- 
 erly indulge our pride, are but scintillations thrown off 
 in the onward sweep of their historic aims and pur- 
 poses, little honor can it do them to discover that these 
 scintillations are the primal orbs and central fires of 
 their expectation. 
 
 Let us offer them no such injustice. They are not 
 to be praised as a tribe of successful visionaries, com- 
 ing over to this new world, in prophetic lunacy, to get 
 up a great republic and renovate human society the 
 world over. They propound no theories of social or- 
 der. They undertake not, in their human will or wis- 
 dom, to be a better Providence to the nations; make 
 no promise of the end they will put to all the human 
 ills, or of melting off the ice of the poles to cap them 
 with a "boreal crown" of felicity. 
 
 Had they come to build a new future, in this man- 
 ner, by their will, according to some preconceived the- 
 ory of their head, the first awful year of their settle- 
 ment would have broken their confidence, and left them 
 crying, as home-sick children, for some way of return 
 to their country. The 
 
 "craven scruple 
 
 Of thinking too precisely of the event, — 
 
 A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom, 
 
 And ever three parts coward" — 
 
 would have shaken their fortitude with an ague as fatal 
 as that which, in the first dreadful winter, assailed the 
 life of their bodies — giving us, in their history, one 
 other and quite unnecessary proof, that man is the 
 weakest and most irresolute of beings when he hangs 
 his purpose on his expectations. But coming in simple 
 duty, duty was their power — a divine fate in them, 
 
90 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 whose thrusting on to greatness and triumphant good, 
 took away all questions from the feeble arbitrament of 
 their will, and made them even impassible to their bur- 
 dens. And they went on building their unknown fu- 
 ture, the more resolutely because it was unknown. For, 
 though unknown, it was present in its power — present, 
 not as in their projects and wise theories, but as a 
 latent heat, concealed in their principles, and works, 
 and prayers, and secret love, to be given out and be- 
 come palpable in the world's cooling, ages after. 
 
 Nor is this suggestion of a latent wisdom or law 
 present in their migration, any conceit of the fancy; 
 for as in the growth of a man or a tree, so also in the 
 primal germ of nations and social bodies, there is a 
 secret Form or Law present in them, of which their 
 after-growth is scarcely more than a fit actualization or 
 development. This secret germ, or presiding form of 
 the nascent order, has the force also of a creative, con- 
 stitutive instinct in the body, building up that form by 
 a wisdom hid in itself; though conceived, in thought, 
 by no one member. By this instinctive action lan- 
 guages are struck out as permanent forms of thought, 
 in the obscurest and most savage tribes, squared by the 
 nicest principles of symmetry and grammatic order, 
 having hid in their single words whole chapters of 
 wisdom that, some thousands of years after, will be 
 opened by a right explication, to the astonished gaze 
 of the philosophic student. By the same instinctive 
 germinal force, unconsciously present in a people, the 
 future institutions and forms of liberty will be con- 
 structed; just as the comb of the hive is built by the 
 instinctive geometry of the hive, though not by the 
 geometric science of any one or more single bees in it. 
 And somewhat in this manner it was that our institu- 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 91 
 
 tions were present in the fathers and founders of our 
 history. They had in their reHgious faith a high con- 
 structive instinct, raising them above their age and 
 above themselves; creating in them fountains of wis- 
 dom deeper than they consciously knew, and preparing 
 in them powers of benefaction that were to be discov- 
 ered only by degrees and slowly to the coming ages. 
 If you will show them forth as social projectors or 
 architects of a new democracy, they stubbornly refuse 
 to say or do any thing in that fashion. They are 
 found protesting rather against your panegyric itself. 
 Or if they have come to your acquaintance overlarded 
 in this manner, so that you really regard them as the 
 successful and deliberate revolutionizers of the modern 
 age, you will need to wash off these coarse pigments 
 and daubs of eulogy, as with nitre and much soap, and 
 set them before you shining in the consecrating oil of 
 faith, before you can truly conceive them as the fathers 
 of American history. Their greatness is the uncon- 
 scious greatness of their simple fidelity to God — the 
 divine instinct of good and of wisdom by which God, 
 as a reward upon duty, made them authors and found- 
 ers of a social state under forms appointed by Himself. 
 
 It has been already assumed in this general outline of 
 my subject, that the practical aim or ideal of our fa- 
 thers, in their migration to the new world, was religion. 
 This was the star of the East that guided them hither. 
 They came as to the second cradle-place of a renovated 
 Messiahship. They declare it formally themselves, 
 when they give, as the principal reason of their under- 
 taking, "the great hope and inward seal they had of 
 laying some good foundation for the propagating and 
 advancing the kingdom of Christ, in these remote parts 
 of the world." — Yoimg's Chronicles, p. 47. 
 
92 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 It appears, however, that they had a retrospective 
 reference, in their thoughts, as well as the prospective 
 expectation here stated. Thus, it is affirmed by Mr. 
 Hildersham, who had full opportunity to know their 
 precise designs, that the colonists, as a body, before 
 coming over, "agreed in nothing further, than in this 
 general principle — that the reformation of the Church 
 was to be endeavored according to the word of God." — 
 Cotton Mather, p. i8. But precisely what, or how 
 much they intended by this, will be seen nowhere else, 
 with so great clearness, as in the ever memorable part- 
 ing address which Robinson made to the Pilgrims, at 
 their embarkation. Here we behold the real flame of 
 their great idea. He said : 
 
 "I charge you before God and his blessed angels, that 
 you follow me no further than I have followed Christ. 
 And if God shall reveal any thing to you, by any other 
 instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as you ever 
 were to receive any thing by my ministry; for I am 
 confident that God hath more truth yet to break forth 
 out of His holy word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the 
 condition of the Reformed churches, who have come to 
 a period in religion, and will go no further than the 
 instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans can- 
 not be driven to go beyond Luther; for whatever part 
 of God's will he hath further imparted by Calvin, they 
 will rather die than embrace it. And so also the Cal- 
 vinists stick where Calvin left them — a misery much to 
 be lamented. For though they both were shining lights 
 in their times, yet God hath not revealed his whole will 
 to them. Remember now your church covenant, 
 whereby you engage with God and one another, to re- 
 ceive whatever light shall be made known to you from 
 His written word. For it is not possible that the 
 Christian world is so lately come out of such thick anti- 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 93 
 
 Christian darkness, and that full perfection of know- 
 ledge should break forth at once." — Young's Chron- 
 icles, p. 396-7. 
 
 A most remarkable passage of history, in which this 
 truly great man is seen asserting a position, at least 
 two whole centuries in advance of his age. His resi- 
 dence abroad, among so many forms of opinion and of 
 order, has quickened in his mind the germ of a true 
 comprehensive movement. He also perceives the im- 
 possibility that the full maturity of truth and order 
 should have burst forth in a day, as distinctly as a phil- 
 osophic historian of the nineteenth century. The Ref- 
 ormation, he is sure, is no complete thing — probably it 
 is more incomplete than any one has yet been able to 
 imagine. And then he has the faith to accept his own 
 conclusion. Sending out the little half-flock of his 
 church, across the wide ocean, he bids them go to watch 
 for light; and there, in the free wilderness of nature, 
 unrestrained by his own teachings, to complete, if pos- 
 sible, the unknown measure of Holy Reformation. 
 
 This was the errand he gave them, and in this we 
 have the fixed ideal of their undertaking. And they 
 meant by "reformation," all that God should teach 
 them and their children of the coming ages, by the 
 light that should break forth from His holy word — 
 all that was needed to prepare the purity and universal 
 spread of Christian truth, and open to mankind the 
 reign of Christ in its full felicity and glory. They 
 fixed no limits. It might include more than they at 
 present thought, or could even dare to think. Still they 
 had courage to say — "Let the Reformation come in 
 God's measures, and as He himself will shape it." And 
 for this, they entered, with a stout heart, upon the 
 perils and privations of their most perilous undertak- 
 ing. Doubtless they had the natural feelings of men, 
 
94 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 but they were going to bear the ark of the Almighty, 
 and could not painfully fear. Robinson had said — 
 and he knew what was in them — "It is not with us as 
 with other men, whom small things discourage, and 
 small discontents cause to wish themselves home 
 again." — Young's Chronicles, p. 6i. Confidence most 
 sublime ! justified by a history of patience equally sub- 
 lime. We shall see before I close, whether the errand 
 of religious reformation, thus accepted, was an illusion, 
 or whether it contained, in fact, the spring of all our 
 political successes, and of other and still greater that 
 are yet to come. 
 
 Let us pause a moment here and change the scene. 
 We will leave the "pinched fanatics" of Leyden, as they 
 are sometimes called, weeping their farewell on Robin- 
 son's neck, and turn ourselves to England. Ascending 
 out of the dull and commonplace level of religion, we 
 will breathe, a moment, in the higher plane of wisdom 
 and renowned statesmanship. The philosopher and sage 
 of St. Albans, hereafter to be celebrated as the father 
 of modern science, sits at his table, in the deep silence 
 of study, preparing a solemn gift of wisdom for his 
 countrymen. His brow hangs heavy over his desk, 
 and the glow of his majestic face, and the clear lustre 
 of his meditative eye, reveal the mighty soul discours- 
 ing with the inward oracle. The noble property-hold- 
 ers and chartered land-companies of the realm are dis- 
 coursing, every where, of the settlement of colonies in 
 the new world, and discussing the causes of failure in 
 the settlements heretofore attempted — he has taken up 
 the theme, and is writing his essay "Of Plantations." 
 And the advice he offers to their guidance is summarily 
 this — Make a beginning, not with "the scum of the 
 people," but with a fair collection of single men, who 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 95 
 
 are good in all the several trades of industry. Make 
 as much as possible of the spontaneous products of the 
 country, such as nuts and esculent roots ; but expect to 
 support the plantation, in great part, by supplies from 
 the mother country, for the first twenty years, and let 
 the supplies be dealt out carefully "as in a besieged 
 town." "As to government, let it be in the hands of 
 one, assisted with some counsel, and let them have com- 
 mission to exercise martial laws with some limitations." 
 "When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time 
 to plant with women as with men." 
 
 Need I stay to imagine, before an American audi- 
 ence, what kind of history must follow a plantation or- 
 dered in this manner — a plantation without the family 
 state, without the gentle strengthening influence of 
 woman, governed by a single head, under martial law ! 
 
 Behold the little Mayflower rounding, now, the 
 southern cape of England — filled with husbands and 
 wives and children, families of righteous men, under 
 "covenant with God and each other" "to lay some good 
 foundation for religion :" — engaged both to make and 
 to keep their own laws, expecting to supply their own 
 wants and bear their own burdens, assisted by none but 
 the God in whom they trust. Here are the hands of 
 industry! the germs of liberty! the dear pledges of 
 order ! and the sacred beginnings of a home ! 
 
 That was the wisdom of St. Albans — this of Leyden. 
 Bacon is there — Robinson is here. There was the deep 
 sagacity of human statesmanship — here is the divine 
 oracle of duty and religion. O religion! religion! true 
 daughter of God ! wiser in action than genius itself in 
 theory! How visible, in such a contrast, is the truth, 
 that whatever is wisest in thought and most heroic in 
 impulse, flows down upon men from the summits of 
 religion — and is, in fact, a divine birth in souls! We 
 
96 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 can only say of her as the poet of woman herself — re- 
 jected here by the masculine wisdom of theory, and 
 welcomed by religion as a needed support in her stur- 
 diest trials of duty — 
 
 "All higher knowledge, in her presence, falls 
 Degraded. Wisdom, in discourse with her, 
 Loses, discountenanced, and like folly shows." 
 
 We are not, then, to conceive, and must not attempt 
 to show, that our fathers undertook the migration with 
 any political objects in view ; least of all as distinctly 
 proposing to lay the foundations of a great republic. 
 Their end was religion, simply and only religion. Out 
 upon the lone ocean, feeling their way cautiously, as it 
 were, through the unknown waves, exploring, in their 
 busy fancies and their prayers, the equally unknown 
 future before them, they as little conceived that they had 
 in their ship the germ of a vast republic that, in two 
 centuries, would command the respect and attract the 
 longing desires of the nations, as they saw with their 
 eyes the lonely wastes about them whitening with the 
 sails and foaming under the swift ships of that repub- 
 lic, already become the first commercial power of the 
 world. The most sanguine expectation of theirs I 
 have any where discovered, which, however, was not 
 political, but religious, was ventured by Gov. Bradford, 
 viz. — "That as one small candle may light a thousand, 
 so the light kindled here may, in some sort, shine even 
 to the whole nation !" This one small candle lighting 
 the thousands of all England, is not quite as bold a 
 figure of enthusiasm now as it was when it was uttered, 
 and will probably be somewhat less extravagant, a hun- 
 dred years hence, than now. No ! they cross the sea in 
 God's name only, sent by Him, as they believed, to be 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 97 
 
 the voice of one crying in the wilderness — Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. But 
 whither those straightened paths will lead, and in what 
 shape the new kingdom of the Lord will come, they as 
 little conceive as John the Baptist himself. 
 
 Let us not be surprised, then, neither let it be any 
 derogation from their merit, if we find them actually 
 opposed, in thought or speculative view, to the very 
 opinions and institutions, now regarded as being most 
 distinctively American. In this I partly rejoice; for 
 some of the distinctions we boast, it is their most real 
 praise, not to have sought or accepted. Thus we boast 
 that we have made solemn proof to the world of the 
 great principle, that civil government has its founda- 
 tion in a social compact — that it originates only in the 
 consent of the governed — that self-government is the 
 inalienable right of every people — that true liberty is 
 the exercise and secure possession of this prerogative — 
 that majorities of wills have an inherent right to de- 
 termine the laws — and that government by divine right 
 is only a solemn imposture. I will not deny that, in 
 some very partial and qualified sense, these supposed 
 doctrines of ours may be true. But taken in the more 
 absolute sense, in which they are boasted by many, they 
 compose a heap of as empty and worthless chaff as ever 
 fed the conceit of any people in the world. 
 
 What are formal compacts, what is self-government, 
 what are majorities of wills, taken as foundations of 
 civil order? What stronger bond in these, to hold a 
 community, than in those recent compacts made to 
 share the gold of our western Ophir — all dissolved, as 
 by a breath of air, the moment the adventurers touch 
 the shore? Or, if we speak of right, what right is 
 there of any kind, which is not divine right? Or, 
 
98 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 dropping all such refinements, what truth can there be 
 in abstract principles of order, discovered by us, which 
 make every other government that has existed in the 
 world, for six thousand years, an imposture, or a base- 
 less usurpation? 
 
 But if it be conceived that there are three distinct 
 orders of government, adapted to three distinct stages 
 of social advancement — the government of force, the 
 government of prescription, and the government of 
 choice — and then that the particular terms of order just 
 named are most appropriate and happiest for us, taken 
 as modes or machinery of government, and not as theo- 
 retic principles and moral foundations ; if we say these 
 will best accommodate our liberties, and secure 7is in 
 the high position to which God has raised us, it is well. 
 But then we need to add that law is law, binding upon 
 souls, not as human will, or the will of just one more 
 than half the full grown men over a certain age, but 
 a power of God entering into souls and reigning in 
 them as a divine instinct of civil order, creating thus a 
 state — perpetual, beneficent, the safeguard of the homes 
 and of industry, the condition of a public feeling and a 
 consciously organic life. This it is that makes all gov- 
 ernment sacred and powerful, that it somehow stands 
 in the will of God; nay, it is the special dignity and 
 glory and freedom of our government, that it rests, so 
 little, on the mere will or force of man. so entirely on 
 those principles of justice and common beneficence 
 which we know are sacred to God. And it is the glory 
 also of our founders and first fathers that they pre- 
 pared us to such a state. Had they managed to weave 
 nothing into our character more adequate than we 
 sometimes discover in our political dogmas, we should 
 even have wanted the institutions about which we spec- 
 ulate so feebly, and should have been as hopeless of any 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 99 
 
 settled terms of order, as we now are confident of our 
 baseless and undigested principles. 
 
 I cannot withstand the temptation to recite, just 
 here, another passage from Robinson. I do it, partly 
 because it so exactly meets the genius of our institu- 
 tions, and reveals so beautifully the moral springs of 
 our history, and partly because it prepares a way so 
 aptly for other suggestions yet to be offered. He gives 
 the Pilgrims on their departure, a written letter of ad- 
 vice to be carried with them, in which are contained the 
 following remarkable words — words which I could 
 even wish were graven in tablets of stone, as the words 
 of a father before Washington, and set up over the 
 doors of our Congress, our State Legislatures, our 
 town halls and political assembly rooms, there to stand, 
 meeting the eyes of our people as long as the nation 
 exists — certain always of this, that when the spirit of 
 the words is wholly gone, the nation will exist no 
 longer. 
 
 "Lastly, whereas you are to become a body politic, 
 using civil government amongst yourselves, and are 
 not furnished with any persons of special eminency 
 above the rest [no knights or noble orders] to be 
 chosen into ofifice of government, let your wisdom and 
 godliness appear, not only by choosing such persons as 
 do entirely love and will diligently promote the com- 
 mon good, but also in yielding unto them all due honor 
 and obedience in their lawful administrations; not be- 
 holding the ordinariness of their persons, but God's 
 ordinance for your good ; nor being like the foolish 
 multitude, who more honor the gay coat [understand 
 the stars and ribbons of nobility] than either the vir- 
 tuous mind of the man. or the glorious ordinance of 
 the Lord. But you know better things, and that the 
 image of the Lord's power and authority, which the 
 LotC. 
 
loo NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 magistrate beareth, is honorable in how mean persons 
 soever. And this duty you may the more willingly 
 and conscionably perform, because you are, at least for 
 the present, to have only them for your ordinary gov- 
 ernors, which yourselves shall make choice of for that 
 work." — Young's Chronicles, p. 95. 
 
 But, while our founders stand right, when viewed in 
 relation to what is most really fundamental in our insti- 
 tutions, we must not expect them to concur in all 
 that we now regard as most properly and distinctly 
 American. 
 
 They had no schemes of democracy to execute. 
 They were not, in fact, or in their own view, republi- 
 cans in their ideas of government. When Robinson's 
 doctrine of church order was assailed as being a scheme 
 of Christian democracy, he repelled the imputation as 
 a slander, insisting, instead, that it was a plan of order 
 "plainly aristocratical." — Punchard, p. 348. They 
 were all, to a man, royalists and true Englishmen — 
 pleased with the hope of "endeavoring the advance- 
 ment of his Majesty's dominion." — Cotton Mather, p. 
 6. Some of them delighted in being able to write 
 ''Mr." before their names, and the others would have 
 cast out any man as a leveller and disorderly person, 
 who dared to controvert the validity of that high dis- 
 tinction. Does any one the less certainly know that 
 their whole scheme of principle and order was virtually 
 and essentially republican, even from the first? 
 
 They as little thought of raising a separation of 
 church and state as of planting a new democracy. 
 They accepted in full and by formal reference the Eng- 
 lish doctrine on this subject, and Robinson even pro- 
 fessed his willingness to accept the "oath of suprem- 
 acy," which acknowledges the king as the rightful head 
 
 4 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL loi 
 
 of the church. When a new settlement or town was 
 planted, they said, not that the settlers were become a 
 body politic, but that they were "inchurched." And 
 when Davenport preached on the terms of suffrage, the 
 problem stated was, "how to order a frame of civil gov- 
 ernment in a plantation whose design is religion." — 
 Bacon, p. 289. 
 
 And yet we can look back now and see as distinctly 
 as possible, that their very doctrine of church-mem- 
 bership must necessitate a final separation of church and 
 state. For, if none but the true members of Christ 
 can be included in the church, and none but such as 
 are included can have the right of suffrage, then it 
 must shortly appear that many good neighbors and 
 virtuous sons and brothers are reduced to the condition 
 of aliens in the commonwealth. Accordingly, we find 
 that the settlers of the Hartford Colony, who had be- 
 gun to see the pernicious consequences of the restricted 
 suffrage in Massachusetts, in the beautiful constitution 
 they adopted — the first written constitution of a purely 
 representative republican government known to human 
 history — opened the right of suffrage to all whom the 
 several towns might elect as freemen. And thus, in 
 less than twenty years after the settlement of Ply- 
 mouth, the separation of church and state is visibly 
 begun — a step is taken which can possibly issue in this 
 alone, though the result is not completely and formally 
 reached, till a hundred and fifty years have passed 
 away. 
 
 I wish it were possible to claim for our fathers the 
 honor of a free toleration of religious opinions. This 
 it would seem that they might have learned from their 
 own wrongs and sufferings. But they were not the 
 men to think of finding their doctrines in any woes of 
 their flesh. They had, in fact, a conscience against 
 
102 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 toleration, lest the state, "whose end is religion," should 
 seem to connive at false doctrines and schismatic prac- 
 tices. Therefore, when Cromwell was proposing toler- 
 ation in England, the Synod of Massachusetts even 
 protested against the measure as licentious. And one 
 of their ministers, the eccentric pastor of Ipswich, was 
 stirred up to publish in England, a most violent dia- 
 tribe against it. He delighted in the old maxim that 
 "true religion is ignis probationis,'' — a test of fire. In- 
 deed this narrow-spirited man had lived in the midst 
 of toleration, upon the continent, and had not discov- 
 ered its Christian beauty. "I lived," he says, "in a 
 city where a Papist preached in one church, a Lutheran 
 in another, a Calvinist in a third ; a Lutheran one part 
 of the day, and a Calvinist the other, in the same pul- 
 pit. The religion of that place was but motley and 
 meagre, and their affections leopard-like." — Cobbler of 
 Agawam, p. 5. Alas ! for the brave pastor of Ipswich, 
 how clear is it now, that the toleration he so much 
 dreaded really belonged to all but the rather testy preju- 
 dices that he took for a part of his religion. The old 
 ignis probationis, too, whose smoke had so lately been 
 wafted over England from Smithfield and Tyburn — 
 which however he did not mean, I trust, to commend in 
 its most literal and orthodox sense — is gone out for 
 ever the world over. And as to the "leopard-like" re- 
 ligion, just that which compelled a separation of 
 Church and State, has doubtless compelled a suffer- 
 ance also of this, even in his own parochial Ipswich 
 itself. Or if free opinion be a leopard, spotting over 
 the Church, or dissolving it into so many motley groups 
 of division, it will ere long be seen that this unruly 
 leopard is fulfilling the prophecy, forgetting his in- 
 stincts of prey and schism, and lying down with the 
 kids of love, in a catholic and perennial unity. 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 103 
 
 It need scarcely be added, that our fathers had as 
 Httle thought of a separation from the mother country 
 and as Httle desire of founding an independent com- 
 monwealth, as of the other distinctions just named. 
 England was their home, they loved the monarchy. 
 They would even have doubted their piety itself, had 
 they found a single unloyal thought in their bosoms. 
 And yet they were compelled to be jealous, even from 
 the first, of any too close implication with the political 
 affairs of the mother country, lest it should finally in- 
 volve the security of their liberties. They formally 
 declined, in this view, to connect themselves with Crom- 
 well's Parliament by any application to it, and also to 
 appear by deputies in the Westminster Assembly of 
 Divines. — Bancroft, vol. i. pp. 450-1. It may be taken 
 also as a singular and most ominous fact, that the 
 Hartford Colony in arranging the new constitution just 
 alluded to, made no mention either of king or parlia- 
 ment. This constitution required an oath of allegiance 
 directly to itself, and even asserted a supreme power — 
 "In which General Court shall consist the supreme 
 power oi the Commonwealth." — Trumbull, i. p. 532. 
 And this supreme power they, in fact, exercised for 
 ever after; subject to no negative, under governors of 
 their own choice, creating their own tribunals and hold- 
 ing them without appeal, and even openly resisting the 
 royal levies as an infringement of their rights. Here 
 was, in fact, a little, independent, unconscious republic, 
 unfolding itself by the banks of the Connecticut, on its 
 own basis, under its own laws ; so that when the war of 
 independence came, instead of being dissolved by the 
 state of revolution and required to reorganize itself, it 
 stood ready in full form for action, and was able, in 
 the first twenty-four hours after the outbreak, to set 
 twenty thousand men upon the march, fully appointed 
 
104 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 with officers and arms. The people had never set up 
 for independence. They were loyal — in their way. 
 But they had been sheltered under the very singular 
 privileges of their charter, as well as by their more re- 
 tired position; and had actually grown apart, uncon- 
 sciously and by force of their own moral affinities, into 
 a free republic. The condition of Rhode Island was 
 similar: and the same general process was going on 
 also in the other colonies, only under many restraints 
 from royal governors and the qualified privileges of 
 their charters. 
 
 Now there is a class of writers and critics in our 
 country, who imagine it is quite clear that our fathers 
 cannot have been the proper founders of our American 
 liberties, because it is in proof that they were so intoler- 
 ant and so clearly unrepublican often in their avowed 
 sentiments. They suppose the world to be a kind of 
 professor's chair, and expect events to transpire logi- 
 cally in it. They see not that casual opinions, or con- 
 ventional and traditional prejudices are one thing, and 
 that principles and morally dynamic forces are often 
 quite another ; that the former are the connectives only 
 of history, the latter its springs of life; and that if the 
 former serve well enough, as providential guards and 
 moderating weights, overlying the deep geologic fires 
 and subterranean heavings of the new moral instincts 
 below, these latter will assuredly burst up, at last, in 
 strong mountains of rock, to crest the world. Unable 
 to conceive such a truth, they cast about them, accord- 
 ingly, to find the paternity of our American institu- 
 tions in purely accidental causes. We are clear of aris- 
 tocratic orders, they say, because there was no blood 
 of which to make an aristocracy; independent of king 
 and parliament, because we grew into independence 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 105 
 
 under the natural effects of distance and the exercise of 
 a legislative power; republican, because our constitu- 
 tions were cast in the moulds of British law ; a wonder 
 of growth in riches, enterprise, and population, because 
 of the hard necessities laid upon us, and our simple 
 modes of life. 
 
 And the concurrent action of these causes must not 
 be denied, we only must not take them as the true ac- 
 count of our successes. As good accidents were en- 
 joyed elsewhere as here. There is the little decayed 
 town of St. Augustine, settled by a Spanish colony even 
 earlier, by some years, than Boston, which nevertheless 
 we were just now called to rescue, by a military force, 
 from the incursions of the savages ! There are Mex- 
 ico and the South American states, colonized by Spain, 
 even a hundred years prior to the settlement of Ply- 
 mouth, — when Spain too was at the height of her glory, 
 and even far in advance of England, as regards the 
 state of wealth and civil order, — fellow-republics in- 
 deed in name, but ignorant still of what liberty is, 
 thirty years after they have gotten the right to it ; poor, 
 unprogressive, demoralized by superstition, and the 
 oldest and strongest of them all actually contending, 
 at this moment, with the aborigines, to save large 
 towns and old and populous settlements from exter- 
 mination! A glance in this direction is enough to 
 show how much must be referred to the personal quali- 
 ties and principles of the founders of a nation, how 
 little to the mere accidents of circumstance and con- 
 dition. 
 
 Besides, there is yet another view of this question, that 
 has a far higher significance. We do not understand, 
 as it seems to me, the real greatness of our institutions, 
 when we look simply at the forms under which we hold 
 
io6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 our liberties. It consists not in these, but in the mag- 
 nificent PossibiHties that underhe these forms, as their 
 fundamental supports and conditions. In these we have 
 the true paternity and spring of our institutions, and 
 these, beyond a question, are the gift of our founders. 
 We see this, first of all, in the fixed relation between 
 freedom and intelligence, and the remarkable care they 
 had of popular education. It was not their plan to 
 raise up a body of republicans. But they believed in 
 mind as in God. Their religion was the choice of 
 mind. The gospel they preached must have minds to 
 hear it : and hence the solemn care they had, even from 
 the first day of their settlement, of the education of 
 every child. And, as God would have it, the children 
 whom they trained up for pillars in the church, turned 
 out also to be more than tools of power. They grew 
 up into magistrates, leaders of the people, debaters of 
 right and of law, statesmen, generals, and signers of 
 declarations for liberty. Such a mass of capacity had 
 never been seen before, in so small a body of men. And 
 this is the first condition of liberty — the Condensation 
 of Power. For liberty is not the license of an hour; 
 it is not the butchery of a royal house, or the passion 
 that rages behind a barricade, or the caps that are swung 
 or the vivas shouted at the installing of a liberator. 
 But it is the compact, impenetrable matter of much 
 manhood, the compressed energy of good sense and 
 public reason, having power to see before and after, 
 and measure action by counsel — this it is that walls 
 about the strength and liberty of a people. To be free 
 is not to fly abroad, as the owls of the night, when they 
 take the freedom of the air, but it is to settle and build 
 and be strong — a commonwealth as much better com- 
 pacted in the terms of reason, as it casts off more of the 
 restraints of force. 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL lo; 
 
 Mutual confidence also is another and fundamental 
 condition of free institutions. When a revolution 
 breaks out in Mexico or in Paris, and the old magis- 
 tracies are swept away, then immediately you shall see 
 that a most painful question arises. Power must be 
 deposited somewhere, with whom can it safely be 
 trusted? Is it already in the hands of a committee? 
 Then can this committee be trusted ? Is a military com- 
 mander set up to maintain order for a time with greater 
 efficiency ? What shall restrain the commander ? Who- 
 ever is in power, the signs are jealously watched and 
 morbidly construed. Well is it if some faction does 
 not spring up to usurp the sovereign power, by a new 
 act of revolution, justified by the pretext of saving the 
 public liberties. Here you have the whole history of 
 Mexico for the last thirty years, and, with fewer and 
 less frequent alternations, the history of France, for 
 a longer period. There is a fatal want of mutual con- 
 fidence which nothing can supply, for the simple reason 
 that there is nothing in which to confide. Power is 
 known only as power, not as the endowment of ob- 
 ligation. 
 
 We are distracted by no such infirmity. We have 
 never a thought of danger in the immense powers we 
 confide to our rulers, simply because we can trust one 
 another. We know so well the good sense and the firm 
 conscience of our people as to be sure that, if any mag- 
 istrate lifts the flag of an usurper and throws off the 
 terms of his trust, all power will instantly drop out of 
 his hands, and nothing will be necessary but to send a 
 constable after him, even though he be the head of the 
 army itself ! 
 
 Now this matter of mutual confidence, fundamental 
 as you see it to be to all strength in our institutions, or 
 peace under them, has a very humble, unpretending 
 
io8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 look. Scarcely ever has it crept into the notice of his- 
 tory. It has never been celebrated, I am sure, in any 
 epic poem. No! but it is the silent exploit of a great 
 history. Let Mexico ask for it, and offer the mortgage 
 of her mines to buy it ; let France question her savans, 
 or lay it on the mitred priesthood at her altars to pro- 
 vide the new republic with this most indispensable gift, 
 and alas ! they cannot all together guess where it is, 
 or whence it shall come. It is the silent growth of 
 centuries, and there is no seed but the seed of Puritan 
 discipline, out of which it was ever known to grow. 
 
 It is another and most necessary condition of free 
 institutions, that the people should be trained to a spe- 
 cial exercise of personal self-government. For it is the 
 distinction of a republic that it governs less and less 
 violently, substituting a moral in place of a public 
 control. It is an approach towards no government, 
 grounded, as a possibility, in the fact of a more com- 
 plete government established in the personal habits of 
 the subjects themselves. No republic could stand for a 
 year, if it were compelled to govern as much, and 
 with as much force as the English people are governed. 
 Force must be nearly dispensed with. For, 
 
 "What are numbers knit 
 By force or custom? Man who man would be, 
 Must rule the empire of himself ; in it 
 Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
 Of vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
 Of hopes and fears, being himself alone." 
 
 Under this high possibility or condition, punish- 
 ments are mitigated, the laws are fewer and more sim- 
 ple, the police are at their own private employments and 
 come only when they are sent for, domestic fortresses 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 109 
 
 and standing armies nowhere appear to annoy the sense 
 of liberty. A foreigner passing through the republic 
 and hearing the sound of government in no beat of the 
 drum, seeing the government in no parade of horse or 
 foot or badges of police, concludes that the people are 
 put upon their good behavior to-day; but when he is 
 told that they were so yesterday, and will be to-morrow, 
 he imagines that a doom of anarchy is certainly close at 
 hand. The fears of Washington and the most sober pa- 
 triots of his time, that our government had not strength 
 enough to stand, were justified by all human example, 
 and were not to be blamed. And yet the course of our 
 legislation has, to this hour, been a course of discon- 
 tinuance. We seem to be making an experiment, with 
 how many laws it is possible to dispense. We are anx- 
 ious many times for the result, and yet we do not suf- 
 fer. We have gone a length in this direction which to 
 any European will appear incredible. When I ponder, 
 not without fears I confess, this sublime distinction of 
 our country, holding in contrast what has been hereto- 
 fore, and forecasting what God may be intending to 
 bring forth here in the future ages, I am swallowed up in 
 admiration of that power by which our faithful fathers 
 were able to set our history on a footing so peculiar. 
 They gave up their all to religion, knew no wisdom but 
 simply to live for religion, and were it not for the inter- 
 mixture of so many foreign elements which at present 
 disturb our condition, we might almost imagine that in 
 some good future, when the moral regimen of self-gov- 
 ernment is complete in our people, the external gov- 
 ernment of force and constraint may be safely dis- 
 pensed with, the civil state subside in the fulness of the 
 spiritual, and God alone be left presiding over the 
 grand republic of wills by the sufficiency of his own 
 divine Spirit and principles. 
 
no NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Closely allied with this great possibility of self-gov- 
 ernment, as a ground of republican order, is another, if 
 indeed it be another, which must needs be prepared also. 
 I speak of the displacement of loyalty, and the substitu- 
 tion of law. Loyalty is a sentiment, law a conviction 
 or principle. One is the tribute yielded to a person, 
 the other is the enthronement of an abstraction simply, 
 or a formal statute. In the sentiment of loyalty, taken 
 as a tribute of homage to high-born persons, to the 
 starred noble, or the reigning prince of a royal house, 
 there is a certain beauty which naturally fascinates the 
 mind. The sentiment partakes of chivalry. In such 
 a distribution of the social state, there is a fine show of 
 distinctions that sets off a romance, or a play, and even 
 gives to society itself the courtly air of a drama. Gov- 
 ernment is here seen in the concrete, set off by dress and 
 title and scales of precedence, and the loyal heart re- 
 joices in the homage it yields to the gods of the eye. 
 Such a government is better adapted to a people gener- 
 ally rude and uneducated, or low in moral culture, be- 
 cause it is a government of show and sentiment, and 
 not of reason. But, with all the captivating airs it has 
 to the mere looker on, it is, in fact, a government of 
 authorized caprice, and obedience a state, too often, of 
 disappointed fealty. If it is pleasant to look upon the 
 fine livery of a noble, it is far less so to be imprisoned 
 as a public malefactor for a slight breach of the game 
 law. The splendor of nobility is too often corruption ; 
 the protection, contempt and insult. Moreover, it will 
 be found that a merely personal and sentimental hom- 
 age is of a nature too inconstant or capricious ever to 
 be confidently trusted. It may possibly hold a dog to 
 his fidelity, but it never held a race of men. There, 
 accordingly, has never been a government, standing on 
 the basis of loyalty, that was not obliged to fortify 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL in 
 
 loyalty by a display of steel and of military squadrons, 
 more conspicuous than its noble orders. 
 
 Now the problem is, in founding a republic, to pre- 
 pare a social state without artificial distinctions, and 
 govern it by abstractions and formal constitutions in 
 place of persons. The "gay coat" of Robinson, the 
 royal pageants and the starred nobility are withdrawn 
 from the eye, and the laws and constitutions — in one 
 view nothing but invisible abstractions or terms of 
 public reason — must be set in that inward homage 
 which can never be shaken. The problem, though it be 
 the most difficult ever attempted in the history of man- 
 kind, is yet, for once, accomplished. Consider the ter- 
 rible surging of party and passion, displayed in one of 
 our Presidential elections. See a whole nation, vast 
 enough for an empire, roused to the intensest pitch of 
 strife and tearing, as it were in the coming out of a 
 demon. The old Guelph and Ghibelline factions were 
 scarcely more violent or implacable. But the day of 
 election passes without so much as the report of an 
 outbreak, and the day after the whole nation is as quiet 
 as if there were but one mind in it — all by the power 
 of Invisible Law! Nay, we had a President at the 
 head of our great republic who had no party in the 
 Congress, and few friends among the people. During 
 the four whole years he occupied the seat of power, 
 dispensing a patronage greater than that of the Queen 
 of England, with not a soldier visible to assert the 
 majesty of order, and yet without even the symptom of 
 a disturbance. Never, in all the history of mankind, 
 was displayed a spectacle of moral sublimity compar- 
 able to these four years of American history — sublimity 
 the more sublime, because we were wholh'- unconscious 
 of it ourselves, and had not even a thought that it could 
 be otherwise ! 
 
112 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 And the fundamental cause, if you seek it, is that 
 law with us is the public right and reason. It is mine, 
 it is yours, and being for all as public reason, it is 
 God's. To rebel against it, therefore, is to rebel both 
 against ourselves and God. And if you ask whence 
 came this conviction, how was it so firmly established ? 
 By the life, I answer, and the religion of our fathers. 
 Whether true or false is not now the question, but their 
 religion was a religion only of judgments and abstrac- 
 tions. For these they renounced comfort, country, 
 property, and home. These they preached. On these 
 they even fed their children. Honors and pageants of 
 distinction were out of sight. They could not be saved 
 in the easy drill of forms. No mitred order, no priest- 
 hood came between the worshipper and his God to act 
 the patron for him, and be the conduit of heaven's grace 
 to his soul. He must enter with boldness into the 
 holiest himself. There was besides in Calvinism, as a 
 religion, just that which would give abstractions the 
 intensest power and the most awful reality to the mind. 
 It took its beginning at the sovereignty of God. It saw 
 all men lying in a common plane of equality below. 
 The only princes it knew were God's elect. And this 
 kind of knighthood it was no easy formality to gain. 
 It was to believe and accurately hold and experi- 
 mentally know the iron base-work of an abstractive 
 theology. The mind was thrust into questions that 
 compelled action — eternal decrees, absolute election, ar- 
 bitrary grace, imputed sin, imputed righteousness. On 
 these head anvils of abstraction the blows of thought 
 must needs be ever ringing, and when the points were 
 said to be cordially received, it was meant also that they 
 were dialectically bedded in the framework of the man. 
 
 Hence the remarkable power of abstractions in the 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 113 
 
 American mind. The Germans can live in them as 
 their day-dreams, but we can live upon them and by 
 them as our daily bread. Our enthusiasm is most en- 
 thusiastic, our practical energy most energetic and prac- 
 tical just here — in what we do, or hope to do, under 
 the application of great principles, whether of science, 
 government, or religion. And thus it has come to pass 
 that the gulf between loyalty and law is effectually 
 crossed over. The transition is made, and we are 
 set by it on a new and, as time will show, a much higher 
 plane of history. In one view, there is something un- 
 gracious in our American spirit. We are nearly as 
 ignorant of the loyal feeling as a tribe of wild animals 
 — unrespectful often to worth and true precedence. 
 And yet we have a feeling as truly national as any peo- 
 ple in the world. If the traveller in England begins 
 to count the pictured Oaks and Lions, the royal or 
 princely names stuck upon all shows and shops of trade 
 and chop-houses, and even petty wares, down to soaps 
 and razors — riding always on "Royal" roads, sleeping 
 at "Royal" inns, and washing in the water of some 
 "Royal" aqueduct — if he is nauseated, for the time, by 
 what appears to be the inexhaustible servility of that 
 great people, he is sure to smile at his own impatience 
 when he returns, and recall the sentence he had passed. 
 He takes up the newspapers at his hotel, and finds how 
 many headed by cognomens ingeniously compounded 
 with "People," "Democracy," "Republic," "Constitu- 
 tion," "Independence," and "Nation." He runs his 
 eye down the advertising columns and along the sign- 
 boards of the street, and it falls on how many titles to 
 patriotic favor, ranging in all grades, from the "Peo- 
 ple's Line" of steamboats and the ship "Constitution," 
 down to the "Jefferson Lunch" and the "New Demo- 
 
114 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 cratic Liniment." In one view, these demonstrations 
 have a most ludicrous air; in another, they are signs 
 of the deepest significance — showing that we, as truly 
 as the most loyal of nations, have our public feeling; 
 a feeling not the less universal and decided, because its 
 objects are mostly impersonal. 
 
 And, by force of this public feeling, it is just now 
 beginning to appear that the government of this vast 
 and, as most persons would say, loosely compacted re- 
 public, is really the strongest government in the world. 
 What can be stronger than a government that has no 
 enemies, and the subjects of which do not desire and 
 would not suffer a change? They have looked out 
 from their fastnesses and the loop-holes of fortified 
 order in Europe, prophesying our speedy lapse into an- 
 archy; they have said, how can a people be governed 
 without a personal embodiment of authority in princes 
 and noble orders? But now, when their thrones are 
 rocking on the underswell of popular movement, and 
 their princes flying in fishermen's disguises from the 
 splendid millinery that was to captivate the loyal eyes 
 of their loyal people, they begin to cast a look across 
 the ocean, to the new republic, whose impalpable throne 
 of law is every where acknowledged by all as a friendly 
 power — and is not this, they ask, the real strength and 
 stability of order? 
 
 Yes, and so I trust in God it shall prove itself to the 
 coming ages. When twenty years hence, and twenty 
 years after that, the successive waves of liberty roll 
 high across the fields of Europe, and the old prescrip- 
 tive orders and powers are drifted onward and away 
 till not even the wreck can be found, this better throne 
 of law I trust shall stand, as the guardian to us and the 
 promise to mankind of the freedom and the righteous 
 peace they long for. 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 115 
 
 Do I then affirm that our fathers foresaw these mag- 
 nificent results, now revealed in our political history? 
 I have even made it a part of their greatness that they 
 did not. They stood for God and religion alone. 
 They asked for nothing, planned for nothing, hoped 
 for nothing, save what should come of their religion. 
 They believed in the Bible and in God's decrees, and 
 they came over to profess the one and fulfil the other. 
 They had not so much as thought of giving the uni- 
 verse or the world a "Revised Constitution." They 
 did not believe in predestination by man — therefore had 
 nothing in common with our modern prophets of "sci- 
 ence," who promise to re-organize society from a point 
 without and by a scheme imposed, not by any reme- 
 dial forces of faith and duty, acting from within and 
 through its secret laws. They did not begin at the 
 point zero in themselves, or in their own human wis- 
 dom, but at duty; and they represent, at once, the in- 
 fallible success and the majestic firmness of duty. 
 Compared with the class of ephemeral world-renova- 
 tors just named, they stand as the firm, granitic, hea- 
 ven-piercing Needles, by the mer de ^lace of human 
 unbeliefs and the unwisdoms of pretended science ; and 
 while that is cracking below in the frosts by which it is 
 crystallized, and grinding down its bed of destiny, to 
 be melted in the heat of practical life and be seen no 
 more, they rise serenely, as ever, lifting their heads 
 above the storm-clouds of the world, and stand — still 
 looking up ! They will do below only what they seek 
 above. They will give us only the reward of their 
 lives, and what may be distilled from their prayers. 
 And in these, they give us all. 
 
 Ah! the sour, impracticable race, who, by reason of 
 their sinister conscience, could not kneel at the sacra- 
 ments, and must needs stand up before God Himself, 
 
ii6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 when kinoes and bishops kneeled ; barbarians of schism, 
 who revolted to be rid of the Christian civility of 
 priestly garments ; who could not be in the spirit on the 
 Lord's day under the excellent prayers of the Parlia- 
 ment, and preferred to insult the king- by dying, rather 
 than to yield him an inch of Church reformation ! — so 
 they are described, and I am not about to deny that 
 they made as many sharp points in their religion as 
 Christian charity and true reason required. When 
 God prepares a hammer, it will not be made of silk. If 
 our fathers were uncomfortable men, what great char- 
 acter ever lived that was not an uncomfortable man to 
 his times? If they cast off the decrees of Parliament, 
 and took in the decrees of God in their place, was it not 
 to be expected, both from what they had cast off and 
 from what they had taken, that there would be a little 
 more of stiffness and punctilious rigor in the issue than 
 was requisite? Or, if they had found a true Pope in 
 the Bible, what should follow, but a most literal obeis- 
 ance, even to the slipper of the book? As the world 
 too of past ages had received their salvation, with trem- 
 ulous awe, in a little sprinkling of holy water, or a wafer 
 on the tongue, and they had now learned to look for sal- 
 vation in what they believed, what should they do but 
 stand for their mere letters of abstraction, as exact and 
 scrupulous, as if the words of faith had even as great 
 dignity, as ablutions of the finger or a paste in the 
 mouth? It could not be otherwise. That was no age 
 for easy compliances and flowing lines of opinion. 
 Whatever was done, must have the cutting edge of 
 scruple and over-punctual severity. Only let our fa- 
 thers be judged with that true historic sympathy, which 
 is the due of all men, and I ask no more. Then it will 
 even be confessed that, by the strictness which ex- 
 ceeded reason, they only proved that close fidelity and 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 117 
 
 sacred homage to reason, which is itself but a name for 
 true spiritual honor and greatness. For 
 
 "Rightly to be great 
 
 Is not to stir without great argument, 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, 
 When honor's at the stake." 
 
 I have spoken thus at length of the successes of our 
 political and social history, for it is chiefly in these that 
 we have our prominence before the world, and seem 
 also to ourselves to have achieved results of the great- 
 est brilliancy and magnitude. But my subject requires 
 me to believe, and I think the signs also indicate that 
 results are yet to come, far transcending these in their 
 sublimity and their beneficent consequences to man- 
 kind. Indeed, what now we call results of history, 
 seem to me to be only stages in the preparation of a 
 Great and Divine Future, that includes the spiritual 
 good and glory and the comprehensive unity of the race 
 — exactly that which most truly fulfils the grand reli- 
 gious ideal of Robinson and the New England fathers. 
 
 Their word was "Reformation" — "the completion of 
 the Reformation;" not Luther's nor Calvin's, they ex- 
 pressly say, they cannot themselves image it. Hith- 
 erto it is unconceived by men. God must reveal it in 
 the light that breaks forth from Him. And this He 
 will do, in His own good time. It is already clear to 
 us that, in order to any farther progress in this direc- 
 tion, it was necessary for a new movement to begin, 
 that should loosen the joints of despotism and emanci- 
 pate the mind of the world. And in order to this a 
 new republic must be planted, and have time to grow. 
 It must be seen rising up in the strong majesty of free- 
 dom and youth, outstripping the old prescriptive world 
 in enterprise and the race of power, covering the ocean 
 
ii8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 with its commerce, spreading out in populous swarms 
 of industry — ^planting, building, educating, framing 
 constitutions, rushing to and fro in the smoke and 
 thunder of travel along its mighty rivers, across its in- 
 land seas, over its mountain-tops from one shore to the 
 other, strong in order as in liberty, a savage continent 
 become the field of a colossal republican empire, whose 
 name is a name of respect and a mark of desire to the 
 longing eyes of mankind. And then, as the fire of new 
 ideas and hopes darts electrically along the nerves of 
 feeling in the millions of the race, it will be seen that a 
 new Christian movement also begins with it. Call it 
 reformation, or formation, or by whatever name, it is 
 irresistible because it is intangible. In one view, it 
 is only destruction. The State is loosened from the 
 Church. The Church crumbles down into fragments. 
 Superstition is eaten away by the strong acid of liberty, 
 and spiritual despotism flies affrighted from the broken 
 loyalty of its metropolis. Protestantism also, divided 
 and subdivided by its dialectic quarrels, falls into the 
 finest, driest powder of disintegration. Be not afraid. 
 The new order crystallizes only as the old is dissolved ; 
 and no sooner is the old unity of orders and authorities 
 effectually dissolved, than the reconstructive affinities 
 of a new and better unity begin to appear in the solu- 
 tion. Repugnances melt away. Thought grows catho- 
 lic. Men look for good in each other, as well as evil. 
 The crossings of opinion, by travel and books, and the 
 intermixtures of races and religions, issue in freer, 
 broader views of the Christian truth : and so the 
 "Church of the Future," as it has been called, gravi- 
 tates inwardly towards those terms of brotherhood in 
 which it may coalesce and rest. I say not or believe, 
 that Christendom will be Puritanized, or Protestant- 
 ized; but what is better than either, it will be Chris- 
 
HORACE BUSHNELL 119 
 
 tianized. It will settle thus into a unity, probably not 
 of form, but of practical assent and love — a Common- 
 wealth of the Spirit, as much stronger in its unity than 
 the old satrapy of priestly despotism, as our republic is 
 stronger than any other government of the world. 
 
 And this, I conceive, is the true issue of that "great 
 hope and inward zeal" which impelled our fathers in 
 the migration. Our political successes are but means 
 to this magnificent end — instruments, all, and powers 
 of religion, as we have seen them to be its natural ef- 
 fects and fruits. All kinds of progress, political and 
 spiritual, coalesce and work together in our history; 
 and will do so in all the race, till finally it is raised to 
 its true summit of greatness, felicity, and glory, in God 
 and religion. And when that summit is reached, it 
 will be found that, as Church and State must be parted 
 in the crumbling and disintegrating processes of free- 
 dom; so, in freedom attained, they will coalesce again, 
 not as Church and State, but in such kind of unity as 
 well nigh removes the distinction — the peace and love 
 and world-wide brotherhood, established under moral 
 ideas, and the eternal truths of God's eternal kingdom. 
 
 Glory enough, then, is it for our sublime Fathers, to 
 have filled an office so conspicuous in the preparation 
 of results so magnificent. I am not unaware of the de- 
 fects in their character. Nay, I would rather see and 
 confess, than to hide them ; for, since we cannot be gods 
 ourselves, it is better to be descended of a race of men 
 than of gods. But, when I consider the unambitious 
 sacrifice they made of their comforts and their country, 
 how little they were moved by vagrant theories and 
 projects of social revolution, how patient of hardships, 
 how faithful to their convictions, how little they ex- 
 pected of men, how confidently they trusted their un- 
 
I20 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 known future to God, and, then, what honor God has 
 put upon them, and what greater honor he is prepar- 
 ing for their name, before the good and the free of the 
 blessed ages of the future ; I confess that I seem even to 
 have offended in attempting to speak their eulogy. 
 Silence and a bare head are a more fit tribute than 
 words. Or, if we will erect to them a more solid and 
 yet worthier monument, there is none so appropriate as 
 to learn from them, and for ourselves to receive, the 
 principle they have so nobly proved, that — the way 
 
 OF GREATNESS IS THE WAY OF DUTY. 
 
 I 
 
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 1850 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 
 (1782-1852.) 
 
 The festival of 1850 was celebrated by the dinner only, but 
 there Webster gave, in reply to the toast "The Constitution 
 and the Union — their Chief Defender," what was really an ora- 
 tion and was published by the Society as had been the more 
 formal addresses. This was reprinted in the annual report of 
 1885 and is also in Webster's collected works. No other ad- 
 dress before the Society, save that of Dr. Holmes, five years 
 later, reflects so clearly the temper of the times. 
 
 At the celebration of 185 1 was received from Mr. Webster the 
 greeting: 
 
 "We drink the health of the sons of New England. May Ply- 
 mouth Rock stand every shock till time shall be no more." 
 
 No banquet was held the following year, a sign of the deep feel- 
 ing over the death of the great New Englander in October, 
 1852. 
 
RESPONSE 
 
 Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New England 
 Society of New York. 
 
 YE sons of New England ! Ye brethren of the kin- 
 dred tie ! I have come hither to-night, not without 
 some inconvenience, that I might behold a congrega- 
 tion whose faces bear lineaments of a New England 
 origin, and whose hearts beat with full New England 
 pulsations. T willingly make the sacrifice. I am here 
 to attend this meeting of the Pilgrim Society of New 
 York, the great offshoot of the Pilgrim Society of 
 Massachusetts. And, Gentlemen, I shall begin what I 
 have to say, which is but little, by tendering to you my 
 thanks for the invitation extended to me, and by wish- 
 ing you, one and all, every kind of happiness and 
 prosperity. 
 
 Gentlemen, this has been a stormy, cold, boisterous, 
 and inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the 
 skies have been severe ; and if we had been exposed to 
 their rigor; if we had no shelter against this howling 
 and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; 
 if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend 
 into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of Ply- 
 mouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our 
 heads but the heavens, and that God who sits above 
 the heavens; if we had distressed wives on our arms, 
 
 133 
 
124 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 and hungry and shivering children dinging to our 
 skirts, we should see something, and feel something, 
 of that scene, which, in the providence of God, was en- 
 acted at Plymouth on the 226. of December, 1620. 
 
 Thanks to Almighty God, who, from that distressed 
 early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height 
 of prosperity and of happiness which they neither en- 
 joyed, nor could have anticipated! We have learned 
 much of them; they could have foreseen little of us. 
 Would to God, my friends, that, when we carry our 
 affections and our recollections back to that period, we 
 could arm ourselves with something of the stern- vir- 
 tues which supported them, in that hour of peril, and 
 exposure, and suffering! Would to God that we pos- 
 sessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than 
 bars of brass or iron, which strengthened their hearts ; 
 that patience, "sovereign o'er transmuted ill," and, 
 above all, that faith, that religious faith, which, with 
 eyes fast fixed upon heaven, tramples all things earthly 
 beneath her triumphant feet ! 
 
 Gentlemen, the scenes of this world change. What 
 our ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel. 
 What they achieved, it is denied to us even to attempt. 
 The severer duties of life, requiring the exercise of the 
 stern and unbending virtues, were theirs. They were 
 called upon for the exhibition of those austere qualities, 
 which, before they came to the Western wilderness, 
 had made them what they were. Things have changed. 
 In the progress of society, the fashions and the habits of 
 life, with all its conditions, have changed. Their rigid 
 sentiments, and their tenets, apparently harsh and ex- 
 clusive, we are not called on, in every respect, to imitate 
 or commend ; or rather to imitate, for we should com- 
 mend them always, when we consider the state of so- 
 ciety in which they had been adopted, and in which 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 125 
 
 they seemed necessary. Our fathers had that religious 
 sentiment, that trust in Providence, that determination 
 to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil 
 and suffering, the honor of God, and the preservation 
 of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to 
 imitate, and to equal, to the utmost of our ability. It 
 may be true, and it is true, that in the progress of so- 
 ciety the milder virtues have come to belong more espe- 
 cially to our day and our condition. The Pilgrims had 
 been great sufferers from intolerance; it was not un- 
 natural that their own faith and practice, as a conse- 
 quence, should become somewhat intolerant. This is 
 the common infirmity of human nature. Man retaliates 
 on man. It is to be hoped, however, that the greater 
 spread of the benignant principles of religion, of the 
 divine charity of Christianity, has, to some extent, im- 
 proved the sentiments which prevailed in the world at 
 that time. No doubt the "first-comers," as they were 
 called, were attached to their own forms of public wor- 
 ship, and to their own particular and strongly cherished 
 religious opinions. No doubt they esteemed those sen- 
 timents, and the observances which they practised, to 
 be absolutely binding on all, by the authority of the 
 word of God. It is true, I think, in the general ad- 
 vancement of human intelligence, that we find, what 
 they do not seem to have found, that a greater tolera- 
 tion of religious opinion, a more friendly feeling to- 
 wards all who profess reverence for God and obedience 
 to his commands, is not inconsistent with the great and 
 fundamental principles of religion ; I might rather say, 
 is itself one of those fundamental principles. So we 
 see in our day, I think, without any departure from the 
 essential principles of our fathers, a more enlarged and 
 comprehensive Christian philanthropy. It seems to be 
 the American destiny, the mission which has been in- 
 
126 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 trusted to us here on this shore of the Atlantic, the 
 great conception and the great duty to which we are 
 born, to show that all sects, and all denominations, pro- 
 fessing reverence for the authority of the Author of our 
 being, and belief in his revelations, may be safely toler- 
 ated without prejudice either to our religion or to our 
 liberties. 
 
 We are Protestants, generally speaking; but you all 
 know that there presides at the head of the supreme 
 judicature of the United States a Roman Catholic; and 
 no man, I suppose, through the whole United States, 
 imagines that the judicature of the country is less safe, 
 that the administration of public justice is less respect- 
 able or less secure, because the Chief Justice of the 
 United States has been, and is, a firm adherent of that 
 religion. And so it is in every department of society 
 amongst us. In both houses of Congress, in all public 
 offices, and all public affairs, we proceed on the idea 
 that a man's religious belief is a matter above human 
 law; that it is a question to be settled between him 
 and his Maker, because he is responsible to none but 
 his Maker for adopting or rejecting revealed truth. 
 And here is the great distinction which is sometimes 
 overlooked, and which I am afraid is now too often 
 overlooked, in this land, the glorious inheritance of the 
 sons of the Pilgrims. Men, for their religious senti- 
 ments, are accountable to God, and to God only. Reli- 
 gion is both a communication and a tie between man 
 and his Maker; and to his own master every man 
 standeth or falleth. But when men come together in 
 society, establish social relations, and form govern- 
 ments for the protection of the rights of all, then it is 
 indispensable that this right of private judgment should 
 in some measure be relinquished and made subservient 
 to the judgment of the whole. Religion may exist 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 127 
 
 while every man is left responsible only to God. So- 
 ciety, civil rule, the civil state, cannot exist, while every 
 man is responsible to nobody and to nothing but to his 
 own opinion. And our New England ancestors un- 
 derstood all this quite well. Gentlemen, there is the 
 "Constitution" which was adopted on board the May- 
 flower in November, 1620, while that bark of immortal 
 memory was riding at anchor in the harbor of Cape 
 Cod. What is it? Its authors honored God; they 
 professed to obey all his commandments, and to live 
 ever and in all things in his obedience. But they say, 
 nevertheless, that for the establishment of a civil polity, 
 and for the greater security and preservation of their 
 civil rights and liberties, they agree that the laws and 
 ordinances, acts and constitutions, (and I am glad they 
 put in the word "constitutions,") — they say that these 
 laws and ordinances, acts and constitutions, which may 
 be established by those whom they shall appoint to 
 enact them, they, in all due submission and obedience, 
 will support. 
 
 This constitution is not long. I will read it. It in- 
 vokes a religious sanction and the authority of God on 
 their civil obligations ; for it was no doctrine of theirs 
 that civil obedience is a mere matter of expediency. 
 Here it is : — 
 
 "In the name of God, Amen : We, whose names are under- 
 written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord. King 
 James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ire- 
 land, king, defender of the Faith, &c., having undertaken, for 
 the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and 
 honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony 
 in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly 
 and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, cove- 
 nant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for 
 our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the 
 ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and 
 
128 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitu- 
 tions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most 
 meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto 
 which we promise all due submission and obedience." 
 
 The right of private judgment in matters between 
 the Creator and the individual, and submission and obe- 
 dience to the will of the whole, in all that respects civil 
 polity, and the administration of such affairs as con- 
 cerned the colony about to be established, they regarded 
 as entirely consistent; and the common sense of man- 
 kind, lettered and unlettered, everywhere establishes 
 and confirms this sentiment. Indeed, all must see that 
 it is the very ligament, the very tie, which connects man 
 to man, in the social system ; and these sentiments are 
 embodied in that constitution. Discourse on this topic 
 might be enlarged, but I pass from it. 
 
 Gentlemen, we are now two hundred and thirty years 
 from that great event. There is the Mayflower.^ 
 There is an imitation on a small scale, but a correct 
 one, of the Mayflower. Sons of New England ! there 
 was in ancient times a ship that carried Jason to the 
 acquisition of the Golden Fleece. There was a flag- 
 ship at the battle of Actium which made Augustus 
 Caesar master of the world. In modern times, there 
 have been flag-ships which have carried Hawke. and 
 Howe, and Nelson of the other continent, and Hull, 
 and Decatur, and Stewart of this, to triumph. What 
 are they all, in the chance of remembrance among men. 
 to that little bark, the Mayflower, which reached these 
 shores on the 226. day of December, 1620? Yes, breth- 
 ren of New England, yes ! that Mayflower was a flower 
 destined to be of perpetual bloom ! Its verdure will 
 
 * Pointing to a small figure of a ship, in confectionery, rep- 
 resenting the Mayflower, that stood before him. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 129 
 
 stand the sultry blasts of summer, and the chilling 
 winds of autumn. It will defy winter ; it will defy all 
 climate, and all time, and will continue to spread its 
 petals to the world, and to exhale an ever-living odor 
 and fragrance, to the last syllable of recorded time. 
 
 Gentlemen, brethren of New England ! whom I have 
 come some hundreds of miles to meet this night, let me 
 present to you one of the most distinguished of those 
 personages who came hither on the deck of the May- 
 flower. Let me fancy that I now see Elder William 
 Brewster entering the door at the farther end of this 
 hall; a tall and erect figure, of plain dress, of no ele- 
 gance of manner beyond a respectful bow, mild and 
 cheerful, but of no merriment that reaches beyond a 
 smile. Let me suppose that his image stood now be- 
 fore us, or that it was looking in upon this assembly. 
 
 "Are ye," he would say, with a voice of exultation, 
 and yet softened with melancholy, "are ye our chil- 
 dren? Does this scene of refinement, of elegance, of 
 riches, of luxury, does all this come from our labors? 
 Is this magnificent city, the like of which we never saw 
 nor heard of on either continent, is this but an offshoot 
 from Plymouth rock ? 
 
 'Quis jam locus .... 
 Quse regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' 
 
 Is this one part of the great reward for which my 
 brethren and myself endured lives of toil and of hard- 
 ship? We had faith and hope. God granted us the 
 spirit to look forward, and we did look forward. But 
 this scene we never anticipated. Our hopes were on 
 another life. Of earthly gratifications we tasted little ; 
 for human honors we had little expectation. Our 
 bones lie on the hill in Plymouth church-yard, obscure, 
 unmarked, secreted, to preserve our graves from the 
 
I30 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 knowledge of savage foes. No stone tells where we 
 lie. And yet, let me say to you who are our descen- 
 dants, who possess this glorious country and all it con- 
 tains, who enjoy this hour of prosperity and the thou- 
 sand blessings showered upon it by the God of your 
 fathers, we envy you not, we reproach you not. Be 
 rich, be prosperous, be enlightened. Live in pleasure, 
 if such be your allotment on earth; but live, also, al- 
 ways to God and to duty. Spread yourselves and your 
 children over the continent, accomplish the whole of 
 your great destiny, and if it be that through the whole 
 you carry Puritan hearts with you, if you still cherish 
 an undying love of civil and religious liberty, and mean 
 to enjoy them yourselves, and are willing to shed your 
 heart's blood to transmit them to your posterity, then 
 will you be worthy descendants of Carver and Allerton 
 and Bradford, and the rest of those who landed from 
 stormy seas on the rock of Plymouth." 
 
 Gentlemen, that little vessel, on the 226. of December, 
 1620, made her safe landing on the shore of Plymouth. 
 She had been tossed on a tempestuous ocean; she ap- 
 proached the New England coast under circumstances 
 of great distress and trouble; yet, amidst all the dis- 
 asters of her voyage, she accomplished her end, and she 
 bore a hundred precious pilgrims to the shore of the 
 New World. 
 
 Gentlemen, let her be considered this night as an em- 
 blem of New England, the New England which now is. 
 New England is a ship, staunch, strong, well built, and 
 particularly well manned. She may be occasionally 
 thrown into the trough of the sea by the violence of 
 winds and waves, and may zuallozu there for a time ; 
 but, depend upon it, she will right herself. She will 
 ere long come round to tJie wind, and obey her helm. 
 
 We have hardly begun, my brethren, to realize the 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 131 
 
 vast importance to human society, and to the history 
 and happiness of the world, of the voyage of that Httle 
 vessel which brought hither the love of civil and reli- 
 gious liberty, and the reverence of the Bible, for the in- 
 struction of the future generations of men. We have 
 hardly begun to realize the consequences of that voy- 
 age. Heretofore the extension of our race, following 
 our New England ancestry, has crept along the shore. 
 But now it has extended itself. It has crossed the con- 
 tinent. It has not only transcended the Alleghanies, 
 but has capped the Rocky Mountains. It is now upon 
 the shores of the Pacific ; and on this day, or, if not on 
 this day, then this day twelvemonth, descendants of 
 New England will there celebrate the landing 
 
 (A Voice. "To-day; they celebrate it to-day.") 
 
 God bless them! Here 's to the health and success 
 of the California Society of Pilgrims assembled on the 
 shores of the Pacific. And it shall yet go hard if the 
 three hundred millions of people in China, provided 
 they are intelligent enough to understand any thing, 
 shall not one day hear and know something of the rock 
 of Plymouth too. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I am trespassing too long on your 
 time. I am taking too much of what belongs to others. 
 My voice is neither a new voice nor is it the voice of a 
 young man. It has been heard before in this place; 
 and the most that I have thought or felt concerning 
 New England history and New England principles has 
 been before, in the course of my life, said here or else- 
 where. 
 
 Your sentiment, Mr. President, which called me up 
 before this meeting, is of a larger and more comprehen- 
 sive nature. It speaks of the Constitution under which 
 we live; of the Union which has bound us together for 
 sixty years, and made us the fellow-citizens of those 
 
132 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 who settled at Yorktown and the mouth of the Mis- 
 sissippi and their descendants, and now, at last, of those 
 who have come from all corners of the earth and assem- 
 bled in California. I confess I have had my doubts 
 whether the republican system under which we live 
 could be so vastly extended without danger of dissolu- 
 tion. Thus far, I willingly admit, my apprehensions 
 have not been realized. The distance is immense; the 
 intervening country is vast. But the principle on 
 which our government is established, the representative 
 system, seems to be indefinitely expansive; and wher- 
 ever it does extend, it seems to create a strong attach- 
 ment to the Union and the Constitution that protect it. 
 I believe California and New Mexico have had new 
 life inspired into all their people. They feel them- 
 selves partakers of a new being, a new creation, a new 
 existence. They are not the men they thought them- 
 selves to be, now that they find they are members of 
 this great government, and hailed as citizens of the 
 United States of America. I hope, in the providence 
 of God, as this system of States and representative gov- 
 ernments shall extend, that it will be strengthened. In 
 some respects, the tendency is to strengthen it. Local 
 agitations will disturb it less. If there has been on the 
 Atlantic coast, somewhere south of the Potomac, and I 
 will not define further where it is, — if there has been 
 dissatisfaction, that dissatisfaction has not been felt in 
 California; it has not been felt that side of the Rocky 
 Mountains. It is a localism, and I am one of those 
 who believe that our system of government is not to be 
 destroyed by localisms, North or South. No ; we have 
 our private opinions. State prejudices, local ideas ; but 
 over all, submerging all, drozvning all, is that great sen- 
 timent, that always, and nevertheless, zue are all Ameri- 
 cans. It is as Americans that we are known, the whole 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 133 
 
 world over. Who asks what State you are from, in 
 Europe, or in Africa, or in Asia? Is he an American? 
 Does he belong to the United States? Does that flag 
 protect him? Does he rest under the eagle and the 
 stars and stripes? If he does, all else is subordinate 
 and of but little concern. 
 
 Now it is our duty, while we live on the earth, to 
 cherish this sentiment; to make it prevail over the 
 whole country, even if that country should spread over 
 the whole continent. It is our duty to carry English 
 principles, I mean, Sir, [turning to Sir Henry Bulwer,] 
 Anglo-Saxon American principles, over the whole con- 
 tinent; the great principles of Magna Charta, of the 
 English Revolution, and especially of the American 
 Revolution, and of the English language. Our chil- 
 dren will hear Shakspeare and Milton recited on the 
 shores of the Pacific. Nay, before that, American 
 ideas, which are essentially and originally English 
 ideas, will penetrate the Mexican, the Spanish mind; 
 and Mexicans and Spaniards will thank God that they 
 have been brought to know something of civil liberty, 
 of the trial by jury, and of security for personal rights. 
 
 As for the rest, let us take courage. The day-spring 
 from on high has visited us ; the country has been called 
 back to conscience and to duty. There is no longer 
 imminent danger of dissolution in these United States. 
 We shall live, and not die. We shall live as united 
 Americans; and those who have supposed they could 
 sever us, that they could rend one American heart from 
 another, and that speculation and hypothesis, that seces- 
 sion and metaphysics, could tear us asunder, will find 
 themselves wofully mistaken. 
 
 Let the mind of the sober American people remain 
 sober. Let it not inflame itself. Let it do justice to 
 all. And the truest course, and the surest course, to 
 
134 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 disappoint those who meditate disunion, is just to leave 
 them to themselves, and see what they can make of it. 
 No, Gentlemen; the time for meditated secession is 
 past. Americans, North and South, will be hereafter 
 more and more united. There is a sternness and se- 
 verity in the public mind lately aroused. I believe that, 
 North and South, there has been, in the last year, a 
 renovation of public sentiment, an animated revival of 
 the spirit of union, and, more than all, of attachment 
 to the Constitution, regarding it as indispensably neces- 
 sary; and if we would preserve our nationality, it is 
 indispensable that this spirit of devotion should be still 
 more largely increased. And who doubts it? If we 
 give up that Constitution, what are we? You are a 
 Manhattan man ; I am a Boston man. Another is a 
 Connecticut, and another a Rhode Island man. Is it 
 not a great deal better, standing hand to hand, and 
 clasping hands, that we should remain as we have been 
 for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members 
 of the same government, united all, united now, and 
 united for ever? That zve shall be, Gentlemen. There 
 have been difficulties, contentions, controversies, angry 
 controversies; but I tell you that, in my judgment, — 
 
 "those opposed eyes, 
 Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven. 
 All of one nature, of one substance bred, 
 Did lately meet in th' intestine shock, 
 Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks 
 March all one way." 
 
THE PAST AND THE FUTURE 
 
 GEORGE S. HILLARD 
 1851 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 
 (1808- 1 879.) 
 
 Mr. Hillard, the speaker for the anniversary of 1851, was a 
 well-known essayist, reviewer, and orator. He was an active 
 citizen of Boston, president of the city council, and member 
 of the Massachusetts Senate. The estimation in which he was 
 held as a speaker is certified by his delivery of the oration at 
 the Boston Memorial meeting for Mr. Webster. Mr. Hillard 
 was connected at different times with the "Christian Register," 
 the "Christian Examiner," the "New England Magazine," and 
 the "North American Review." He was the editor of an edi- 
 tion of Edmund Spenser's works, and among his published 
 writings are biographies of Captain John Smith and of George 
 Ticknor, and the notable book of travels "Six Months in 
 Italy." 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 MAN is a being of "large discourse, looking before 
 and after." From this power of living in the past 
 and the future, his essential grandeur and dignity are 
 derived. The life of the individual is but a momentary- 
 spark; but the life of humanity is a luminous web, flow- 
 ing from the bosom of God, into which the hours of 
 every day are woven. Through memory and hope, we 
 are born to a great inheritance of records and promises ; 
 and poor indeed is the life which feeds only on the mea- 
 gre harvest of the present. It is a proud privilege to 
 be able to break away from this "bank and shoal of 
 time," to seek what shall be in what has been, to 
 turn experience into prophecy, and, with retrospective 
 glance, discern in the mirror of the Past the airy shapes 
 of the unborn Future. 
 
 The origin of our country lies in the open daylight of 
 history. We cannot go back to that morning twilight 
 of tradition, from which poetry draws so many of its 
 themes and so much of its inspiration. Such forms as 
 Arthur and the Cid, in whom the real and the fanciful 
 meet and blend, like the mountain and the cloud upon 
 the distant horizon, have no place upon our soil. The 
 simple dignity of men like Carver, and Brewster, and 
 Winthrop, can borrow no attractions from the hues of 
 romance. If we lose something, so far as imagination 
 is concerned, by the nearness and distinctness of the 
 
 137 
 
138 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 settlement of the country, we gain much upon the side 
 of truth, in the moral dignity which was stamped upon 
 the enterprise, in the exalted motives which led to it, 
 and in those high qualities of mind and character by 
 which its success was confirmed. If our early history 
 does not furnish those picturesque contrasts, those wild 
 struggles, those lawless manners, and those genial 
 traits of homely nature, which, lying in the idealizing 
 light of distance, become the sources from which poetry 
 draws its ever new materials, it is a sufficient compen- 
 sation to a manly spirit, to be able to say that the insti- 
 tutions of New England were founded in religious 
 faith ; that their progress was assured by the animating 
 principle of civil liberty ; that they were consecrated by 
 a deep-seated respect for law, and enforced by lives of 
 spotless purity. Other nations can trace back the be- 
 ginnings of their social and civil state to earlier periods, 
 through a longer succession of generations ; but who 
 can find them lying in higher sources than religion, lib- 
 erty, and law? 
 
 This day is the birthday of a great people. It is 
 dedicated to the Past and the Future. It is rescued 
 from the grasp of common life, and set apart for se- 
 rener contemplations and finer visions. The impor- 
 tunate and clamorous present is laid asleep. Our 
 thoughts are disengaged from the splendid results of 
 civilization and cultivation which lie about us. The 
 irresistible power with which the vast interests and 
 vivid excitements of a great city seize upon and sub- 
 due the spirit of man, is, for the moment, paralyzed. 
 Your crowded warehouses ; your stately mansions ; your 
 streets, through which such tides of life rush and foam ; 
 your noble rivers, shadowed by so many sails, and fur- 
 rowed by so many keels, are shut out from the eye of 
 the mind. Far other scenes unfold themselves to its 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 139 
 
 gaze. We see a desolate coast, white with the snows, 
 and swept with the storms of winter. We see a 
 soHtary vessel, weather-stained and tempest-shattered. 
 We see a band of men, women and children, shivering 
 with cold, suffering from the effects of a long and 
 rough voyage, and some already touched with mortal 
 sickness — but all animated with the same expression of 
 fortitude and faith, which gives a nobler dignity to the 
 brow of manhood, a purer light to the eye of woman, 
 and breathes a thoughtful air over the face of child- 
 hood itself. Behind them is the sea, before them is the 
 forest, and above them is the sky. Danger, and soli- 
 tude, and famine, and winter, are the grim shapes that 
 welcome them to their unknown home. There are nei- 
 ther friendly faces, nor cordial greetings, nor warm 
 embraces, nor food, nor shelter, in the howling wilder- 
 ness before them. They are alone with their God. 
 
 The experiences by which these men and women 
 have been ripened for the work which lies before them, 
 embrace a large segment of all that circle of action and 
 suffering by which humanity is trained and tempered. 
 Few of the sorrows which try the firmness of man, or 
 the love of woman, have been wanting in their lives. 
 They have felt the wrath of enemies, the coldness of 
 friends, the sharpness of persecution, and the dreary 
 heart-ache of exile. Poverty and a low estate have 
 hardly been accounted among their chief burdens. The 
 necessities of their position have called forth whatever 
 there was in them of fortitude, circumspection, vigi- 
 lance, and prudence. Difficulties have obstructed their 
 path, so numerous and so great, that nothing but the 
 constant exercise of sagacity and self-command could 
 have overcome them. Their life has been a long war- 
 fare against the oppression of power from without, and 
 the promptings of what seemed weakness from within. 
 
140 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 And as they have had great sorrows, so they have had 
 great satisfactions. The pressure of persecution has 
 bound their hearts together by a depth and fullness of 
 sympathy such as can never grow in the air of happi- 
 ness and prosperity. Domestic love — chaste, pure and 
 warm — has soothed and sustained them, and the strong 
 man, when ready to faint, has been upheld by the un- 
 conquerable faith and undying truth which animate 
 and transfigure the feeble frame of woman. And, 
 above all, they have been admitted to a closer walk with 
 God than has been vouchsafed to men of higher place, 
 more endowed with the goods of this world, more rich 
 in carnal gifts and eye-attracting graces. He has 
 bowed His heavens, and, passing by the princes and 
 nobles of the earth, has spoken with them as friend 
 speaks with friend. With them He has made a cove- 
 nant, and they are the living ark to whose keeping His 
 law is intrusted. In the watches of the night, in soli- 
 tary wildernesses, upon the lonely ocean, have they 
 heard His awful voice. Rapturous dreams, resplen- 
 dent visions, celestial revelations have overshone their 
 souls, and so erected and exalted their spirits, that the 
 strong ones of the earth have been as dead men beneath 
 their feet. 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth — Englishmen by 
 birth — belonged to that remarkable body of men, the 
 Puritans, who, in the period between the Reformation 
 and the Revolution of Sixteen hundred and eighty- 
 eight, wrought such mighty works in Church and State, 
 and had so large a hand in opening those channels in 
 which the mind of England was ever after to run. I 
 need hardly say that the name of Puritan leads us into 
 a wide field of controversy, involving vital and endur- 
 ing principles, both political and religious, in which 
 every reflecting man, who speaks the speech of Eng- 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 141 
 
 land, is led to take one side or the other, according to 
 his temperament and turn of mind. But though all the 
 issues in this great contest are not yet, and never will 
 be settled, yet upon many the silent verdict of history 
 has been passed; and only obstinate prejudice or clam- 
 orous pertinacity v^ill move for a rehearing. It is 
 enough for us that the Puritans, as a body in English 
 history, long assailed and defended with indiscriminate 
 and partisan zeal, have reached a point of enlightened 
 comprehension and candid judgment. There is a gen- 
 eral consent among judicial minds as to their energy in 
 action, and their constancy in suffering, as to the depth 
 and fervor of their religious convictions and the pro- 
 digious power of speech, thought, and conduct, inspired 
 by them, and especially as to the inestimable services 
 which they rendered to the cause of civil liberty. Upon 
 this last point the testimony of Hume, considering his 
 total want of sympathy with the Puritans in politics, as 
 well as religion, may be received as the very best evi- 
 dence that could be put into the case. 
 
 Puritanism as an element of struggle in the history 
 of England, and Puritanism as a constructive element 
 in the formation and development of the institutions of 
 New England, present points both of resemblance and 
 diversity. In England, the Puritans were always in an 
 attitude of protest and resistance. They set their faces 
 against civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, against the 
 power of the Bishops and the encroachments of the 
 Crown, against the Court of High Commission and the 
 Star-Chamber, against Strafford, and against Laud. 
 They contended for liberty in things sacred and liberty 
 in things secular, for liberty in prophesying and liberty 
 in debate, for the liberty of the congregation and the 
 liberty of the individual. They formed the party of 
 progress, and embodied the principles of movement 
 
142 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 and dissent. When a portion of them were trans- 
 planted to a new world, it was natural and probable to 
 suppose that the impulse of resistance communicated 
 at home would have proved a propelling motive abroad, 
 that right would have been sought in a point the most 
 remote from wrong, and that their sense of the abuses 
 of power would have taken the form of impatience 
 under necessary restraints. Reasoning from analogy, 
 we should have supposed that the soil of New Eng- 
 land would have been the scene of the wildest experi- 
 ments in government, and that the land would have 
 been like the land of Israel in those days when there 
 was no king, and every man did that which was right 
 in his own eyes. Such would have been the case, had 
 our Puritans been the narrow-minded fanatics which, 
 through ignorance or malice, they have sometimes been 
 called. But the event was far unlike that which might 
 have been anticipated; and nothing proves more con- 
 clusively that their experiences had not impaired the 
 balanced wisdom of their minds, than the fact that 
 these sufferers and exiles in the cause of liberty should 
 have shown, from the moment they landed upon the 
 soil of Plymouth, so profound a respect for the prin- 
 ciple of law, and should have expressed that feeling so 
 decisively in their early legislation. Reverence for au- 
 thority, a stern sense of order, the submission of the 
 one to the many, a horror of insubordination, and faith 
 in elders and magistrates, were leading traits in the 
 character of the Pilgrims. Indeed, they pushed the 
 principle of law too far, and, in many instances, turned 
 against the liberty of the individual that sharp edge of 
 legislation, the smart of which they had so often felt in 
 their own persons. 
 
 It is easy to praise the Puritan Fathers of New Eng- 
 land; it is not difficult to blame them. We have met 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 143 
 
 here to honor, not to praise them; for to honor is not 
 always to praise, and to praise is not always to honor. 
 There are two aspects in which every man may be re- 
 garded. In the one case, we examine his fitness to 
 accomplish some end foreign to himself; in the other, 
 we inquire into his growth and development with ref- 
 erence to a self-contained end. In the one case, we 
 ask, what can he do ? In the other, what is he ? View- 
 ing these men with reference to an ideal standard of 
 humanity, we admit their want of symmetry and pro- 
 portion. Some qualities we should like to add, and 
 others to take away. Their manners were severe, and 
 their temper intolerant. While sternly breaking away 
 from the seductions of the senses, they did not always 
 escape the vices of hypocrisy and spiritual pride. They 
 gave an undue importance to trifles, and exalted in- 
 different observances to the dignity of symbols. Their 
 legislation was teasing and intrusive in its details, and 
 in its spirit darkened by a mistaken sense of the per- 
 petual obligation of the Mosaic Code. While they shut 
 out from their hearts the refreshment that comes from 
 the sense of beauty, they opened the door to those fierce 
 and consuming excitements which waste the bosoms in 
 which they rage. Their sympathies were neither cor- 
 dial nor expansive, and they would not have been a 
 comfortable people for any one, not of their own way 
 of thinking, to have dwelt among. But when we view 
 them with reference to their fitness for the task of col- 
 onizing New England, we find them wanting in no 
 needful qualities, but, on the contrary, abounding in 
 all. We then look upon them as a people raised up by 
 God to do a great work, and trained to that high des- 
 tiny by a corresponding discipline. We must admit 
 that, as instruments for accomplishing the end that was 
 set before them, they were hardly less than perfect. A 
 
144 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 religious faith less intense, an enthusiasm less exalted, 
 a constancy of purpose less firm, a softer fibre of soul, 
 a more flexible temper of mind, could never have car- 
 ried them through the dangers and difiiculties which 
 lay in the path of their enterprise. For this, the highest 
 and strongest of worldly motives would have been 
 found wanting. Neither the glow of patriotism, nor 
 the love of power, nor the sense of honor, nor the pas- 
 sion for gain, could have borne the fearful experiences 
 of the first five years of the Plymouth colony. These 
 will enable men to dispense with luxuries, to submit 
 to privations, and to encounter dangers : but when hun- 
 ger is, day after day, gnawing at their hearts; when 
 Winter is beating upon them with his icy flail; when 
 Death is so busy among them, that the able-bodied can 
 do little more than nurse the sick and bury the dead, 
 unaided humanity will sink and fall under the burden. 
 The support that will enable men to bear up under so 
 tremendous a pressure, must come from Heaven and 
 not from earth. Man must lay hold of the hand of 
 God, and, aided by that, lift himself above himself, not 
 merely casting aside his trials, but making them pedes- 
 tals of exaltation. And if the elements were so min- 
 gled in the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, that they 
 had every quality requisite for the work appointed unto 
 them, so that none was wanting and none was exces- 
 sive, do we not see that their previous discipline had 
 been such, as to call forth all the powers that were 
 essential, and, at the same time, to forbid the growth of 
 those genial graces and winning accomplishments, 
 which they are sometimes unthinkingly blamed for not 
 possessing? That they were not fine gentlemen and 
 elegant scholars, is true; but how could men acquire 
 courtly manners or delicate learning, that had never 
 breathed the air of security, had been obliged to steal 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 145 
 
 through Hfe with the cry of pursuit ever following 
 them upon the wind, had never been bidden to good 
 men's feasts, nor slept on tranquil pillows? Poverty, 
 persecution and exile, form those stern and strong vir- 
 tues which are the protection and defence of communi- 
 ties, as the storms of winter blow vigor into the oak 
 and the pine, whose rafters are hewn into forts, and 
 churches, and houses ; but the softer and gentler graces, 
 which embellish a prosperous condition, bloom by the 
 side of still waters, and in gardens sheltered from the 
 sweeping blast. 
 
 While we acknowledge and lament that spirit of in- 
 tolerance which darkens the memory of the Puritan 
 Fathers of New England, we contend that upon this 
 charge they should be tried by the standard of their 
 own age, and not by that of ours. We honor men who 
 are in advance of their times, but we have no right to 
 blame those who are not. Moral truth is progressive 
 as well as material. We do not censure the Puritans 
 for having been ignorant of vaccination, or the expan- 
 sive power of steam, and, practically, the world knew 
 as little at that time of the great principle of toleration. 
 So late as 161 2, the fires of Smithfield were lighted for 
 the burning of a heretic. Even Milton, in that splen- 
 did effusion of generous zeal, so far beyond his age — 
 the Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed printing — 
 stops short the glowing wheels of his eloquence in mid 
 career, and expressly excludes Popery from the arms of 
 that wide-embracing toleration which should clasp all 
 Protestant sects. That the Puritans, who had fled from 
 persecution, should themselves have persecuted, is a 
 seeming inconsistency which the laws of the human 
 mind easily explain. That the men, who are most pre- 
 pared to suffer martyrdom, are the most inclined to in- 
 flict it, is no paradox to him who knows the nature of 
 
146 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 faith and the power of zeal. The Puritans, from the 
 beginning, were of this stern and uncompromising 
 spirit. In their judgment, not only were their own 
 views of doctrine and church government true, but all 
 others were false. They could not live in the pleasant 
 land of their birth, because they could not consent to 
 tolerate what they deemed error. They had sacrificed 
 everything that makes life sweet to the natural man, 
 and fled into the wilderness, in order to found a pure 
 church, such as the pure eyes of God might look upon 
 with favor, and they felt that they had an exclusive 
 right to those spiritual privileges which they had 
 bought with so great a price. They had made the waste 
 place a garden of the Lord, and they could not allow 
 any weeds of heresy to take root in it. What equiva- 
 lent had they to show for all they had renounced, and 
 all they had suffered, if they were to encounter here 
 the false doctrines and idolatrous practices which had 
 made life intolerable to them at home? They held their 
 own lives as nothing when weighed in the balance 
 against the truth ; and if, in defence of the truth, they 
 inflicted death, they were equally prepared to meet it, 
 had such been the will of God. Our own age has out- 
 grown the axe and the fagot ; but is the combination of 
 an earnest faith and a tolerant spirit so very common, 
 as to entitle us to sit in judgment upon the intolerance 
 of the past? What we call toleration is commonly only 
 another name for indifference. To have deep and fer- 
 vid convictions in religion or politics, and at the same 
 time to respect the intellectual rights of those who have 
 come to different conclusions, is still the rarest and 
 finest of unions. 
 
 That the Pilgrim Fathers, whose landing upon the 
 shore of Plymouth we are this day commemorating, 
 were men of an eminently religious spirit, and that the 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 147 
 
 motives which moved them to that enterprise were 
 mainly of a rehgious origin, can be denied by no can- 
 did mind who examines the evidence contained in their 
 own recorded statements, written with perfect sim- 
 pHcity, and at a time and under circumstances which 
 make it impossible that they should have had any pur- 
 pose of concealment or deception. In their view, the 
 ties which bound them to God were far more important 
 than those which bound them to any earthly object. 
 The fervor of their zeal was in proportion to the depth 
 and sincerity of their faith. They were penetrated 
 with the most vivid sense of the real existence of those 
 things that are spiritually discerned. The terrors and 
 promises of the unseen world were ever darkening and 
 brightening their path. The smiles and frowns of God 
 were to them as visible, as those which a child sees 
 upon the face of an earthly parent. Their daily life 
 revolved upon the poles of spiritual truth. 
 
 A religious spirit is not to be confounded with a re- 
 ligious creed. It is quite possible for a man to assent 
 sincerely to certain articles of religious faith, and yet 
 live a worldly and irreligious life. Belief is an act of 
 the mind; but a religious spirit is a state of the moral 
 affections. It implies the constant guidance and re- 
 straint of motives flowing from religious convictions. 
 It rests upon the ideas of the continued existence of the 
 soul, a future state, and a personal God, against whose 
 moral purity sin is an offence. Religious opinions are 
 modified by the progress which the mind makes in sec- 
 ular knowledge and general intelligence. Religious 
 truth is a flowing stream, and not a stagnant pool, and 
 God's revelations are not, like stars, best discerned in 
 the night of ignorance and credulity. The admirable 
 Robinson, in his farewell sermon, told his people, in 
 words which are as true this day as when they were 
 
148 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 spoken, that "he was very confident the Lord had more 
 truth yet to break out of his holy word." But the spirit 
 of reHgion is ever essentially the same, just as we see 
 the true spirit of scientific inquiry, alike in Roger 
 Bacon, groping in the twilight of knowledge, and in 
 Humboldt, walking in its noon-day blaze. That the 
 Pilgrims were men of a profoundly religious spirit, is 
 a fact quite irrespective of the wisdom or expediency 
 of the particular acts and forms in which that spirit 
 was expressed. History records no body of men, whose 
 lives were more shaped and guided by the relations 
 which exist between God and the human soul. It is no 
 figure of speech, but a literal truth, to say, that the 
 glory of God was the chief end of their existence, and 
 that they found perfect freedom in entire submission to 
 His law. The power which this principle of faith in- 
 spired, the constancy of purpose which it gave, the firm 
 temper of soul which it infused, can never be told by 
 vague rhetoric or impassioned declamation, but can 
 only be felt by those who will read the record of the 
 sufferings and privations of their early years, made at 
 the time, and on the spot, as simply as if it had been the 
 log-book of a coasting voyage. It tamed the rage of 
 hunger, it softened the rigor of cold, it broke the sting 
 of death. It was a cordial to the sick, a shield to the 
 timid, a hope to the desponding, a staff to the feeble. 
 
 While we acknowledge with gratitude the beneficent 
 influences of that religious faith which belonged to the 
 Pilgrims, as Puritans, we should not forget what we 
 owe to those ideas of civil liberty which were their in- 
 heritance as Englishmen. Though, to borrow their own 
 quaint language, they had become well weaned from 
 the delicate milk of their mother country; yet they had 
 not lost the vigor drawn from that strong meat of 
 Saxon freedom, which she had given them to eat. 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 149 
 
 They landed upon the shore of Plymouth, already in- 
 structed in the noble art of building up a state. Their 
 brains were not heated with wild visions of ideal com- 
 monwealths, and they were not compelled to read the 
 lines of wisdom upon the reverse side of their ill-woven 
 systems. The liberty which they found upon the soil 
 of America, awakened no giddy and tumultuous rap- 
 tures, because it differed only in degree from that which 
 they had known at home. They brought with them 
 the habit of civil obedience and the instinct of politi- 
 cal constructiveness. Persecution had stamped more 
 deeply upon their hearts the noble principles expressed 
 in the homely Latin of Magna Charta. They had sat 
 upon juries; they had seen the judicial and executive 
 functions of a state embodied in the justice of the peace 
 and the constable. They knew the meaning of those 
 proud words, the Commons of England. The very op- 
 pressions which they had suffered, had been under the 
 forms of law. They brought with them whatever was 
 vital and progressive in the institutions of England, 
 and nothing of that which was obsolete and unsuited 
 to their new sphere of action and duty. They left be- 
 hind them the burdens of feudalism, the prerogatives 
 of the crown, the privileges of the nobility, the laws of 
 entail, the right of primogeniture, and the civil grasp 
 of ecclesiastical tribunals. In the race that was set 
 before them, they started without weight. They found 
 here, cast into their laps, and without a struggle, more 
 than their brethren in England could win after two 
 revolutions. 
 
 The principles of civil liberty and religious faith 
 which the Pilgrims, as Englishmen and as Puritans, 
 brought with them, were the germs of those institutions 
 which have made the New England States so respect- 
 able and so happy a community, and had so large an 
 
150 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 influence, direct and indirect, upon the whole land. We 
 have no reason to suppose that the Pilgrims themselves 
 were at all conscious of the splendid procession of 
 events that was to start from the Rock of Plymouth. 
 They had no other object than to seek a safe asylum in 
 a remote land, where they might worship God in peace, 
 according to the dictates of their own conscience; and 
 in His hands they submissively left the issue of their 
 work. It seems to me that the enterprise itself wears a 
 more natural dignity, and that the character of the Pil- 
 grims becomes more simple and noble, if we accept 
 their own statement of their motives and expectations 
 as the plain truth, and do not seek to garnish it with 
 modern inventions. The philosophy of history, so 
 called, is apt to slide into mere speculation, and a suc- 
 cession of events, lying at a distance of two centuries, is 
 sometimes seen to be linked together by a law of se- 
 quence which exists only in the observer's own mind. 
 As the stars are grouped into constellations from dim 
 resemblances which they suggest, so the bright points 
 in history are made to assume shape and consistency, 
 in obedience to arbitrary analogies. Not unto the Pil- 
 grims, admirable as they were, is the honor due, but 
 unto God, who turned their weakness into strength, 
 and their sufferings into glory; who, from beginnings 
 which, to merely human judgment, seemed to promise 
 nothing but disaster and defeat, reared up a mighty 
 people, whose future progress is beyond conjecture, as 
 its past has been beyond parallel. 
 
 With the growth and increase of the various settle- 
 ments in New England, the development of the princi- 
 ple of democracy becomes more and more marked ; but 
 we have no right to infer that the Pilgrims themselves, 
 or their successors at Salem and Boston, ever imagined 
 that it was their destiny to become the founders of great 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 151 
 
 democratic communities. The idea of the sovereignty 
 of the people never presented itself to their minds ; and 
 if it had, it would have been received with very little 
 favor. But it is none the less true, that from the be- 
 ginning, the inevitable current of events swept towards 
 democratic institutions, and that, with the elements that 
 were at work, none other were possible. The great 
 doctrine of the Reformation — justification by faith 
 alone — had political as well as religious consequences. 
 It changed the relations, not only between God and the 
 soul, but between the state and the individual. He who 
 had attained to peace through the pangs of a new spir- 
 itual birth — whom God, from the beginning, by virtue 
 of His eternal decrees, had chosen and redeemed — 
 could not but apply a searching spirit of inquiry to any 
 system of polity which made him, while on earth, a 
 passive instrument or a powerless slave. The views of 
 the Puritan settlers upon church government and dis- 
 cipline, led them in the same direction. Congregation- 
 alism is the principle of democracy applied to the 
 ecclesiastical state. When a body of men, gathered to- 
 gether under the name of a church, found themselves 
 qualified for the duties of self-government, it was natu- 
 ral for them to feel that they were also competent to 
 the task of secular administration. Thus the town, or 
 primitive political society, was of twin birth with the 
 parish, or religious society. These tendencies, resulting 
 from the religious opinions of the early settlers of Mas- 
 sachusetts, were strengthened by the fact that they 
 were, with hardly an exception, drawn from the middle 
 classes, and met upon the footing of a common social 
 equality. 
 
 All these elements, however, might have been coun- 
 teracted, and the foundations of an aristocracy laid, 
 had it not been for the cheapness and abundance of land 
 
152 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 — and land, too, of such moderate fertility that it could 
 only be made valuable by intelligent labor. An aris- 
 tocracy can never be formed except upon the basis of 
 something like an exclusive right in the land, by which 
 the community becomes divided into two classes, land- 
 lords and tenants. No such division ever took place in 
 New England. The early emigrations having been 
 undertaken from religious motives, and not from con- 
 siderations of gain, there was nothing to tempt those 
 large capitalists who might have stipulated for manors 
 and principalities as the condition of their becoming 
 partners in the enterprise. 
 
 Thus the religious opinions of the early settlers, the 
 general level of social equality from which they had 
 started at home, and the abundance of land productive 
 enough to reward labor, but not to invite capital, led 
 to the development of institutions embodying the prin- 
 ciple of self-government more fully than had been be- 
 fore known. An additional impulse was given to these 
 tendencies by the early establishment of the system of 
 free schools, in which provision was made for the edu- 
 cation of every child, at the public expense. For the 
 first time in the history of the world, the principle was 
 laid down and carried out into operation, that the edu- 
 cation of youth was the duty of the state, the expense 
 of which was to be defrayed by a tax upon property, to 
 which those who had no children were as much re- 
 quired to contribute, as those who had. Education was 
 justly regarded as the right of all, and not the privilege 
 of a few. In knowledge was recognized an element of 
 protection in which all were interested, and for which 
 all were bound to pay. 
 
 The parish or religious society, the town, and the 
 common school, have been and are the characteristic in- 
 stitutions of New England. By them and through 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 153 
 
 them, we are what we are, and have what we have. 
 They were not exotics, transplanted from another 
 dime; but they were the spontaneous growth of the 
 soil, and their roots were twined round the fibres of the 
 popular heart. They all wrought together for a com- 
 mon end. They fed the soul from the tree of life, and 
 the mind from the tree of knowledge. They formed 
 the instinct of social order, and practically trained men 
 how to build themselves into a state. A town-meeting 
 does not usually awaken much of reflection or emotion 
 in those who attend or observe it, but it is a most preg- 
 nant and suggestive spectacle. It is the primitive po- 
 litical monad, entire within itself, competent to complete 
 its own appointed work, and at the same time furnish- 
 ing the deep and broad foundation on which the more 
 comprehensive functions of the state repose. The 
 readiness with which men at these meetings form them- 
 selves into an organized body, the facility with which 
 they dispatch business, the tact with which they discern 
 the limits of their powers, and the respect which they 
 show to the letter of the warrant which summons them, 
 are supposed by us to be matters of course, belonging 
 to man as man. But they are the precious legacy be- 
 queathed to us by the toils and sufferings of our fa- 
 thers. They are the transmitted instincts of regulated 
 liberty. By them is the citizen distinguished from the 
 subject. In these faculties and facilities the security 
 of our institutions resides. They keep us in that state 
 of stable equilibrium which renders a revolution impos- 
 sible. The essential principle of the civil polity of New 
 England is, that there shall be the maximum of ad- 
 ministration and the minimum of government. Noth- 
 ing shall be done by the town which can be done by 
 the school district ; nothing by the county which can be 
 done by the town; nothing by the state which can be 
 
154 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 done by the county. Power is to be kept as much as 
 possible in the hands of those most exposed to suffer 
 from its abuses. The conservative element is sought, 
 not in the limitation of political rights, but in the mul- 
 tiplication of political trusts. 
 
 In the history of our country, the two principles of 
 religious faith and civil liberty, have been in harmo- 
 nious co-operation, and not in mutual contrariety. Re- 
 ligion and its ministers have not been the enemies of 
 progress ; nor has there been that fatal alliance between 
 liberty and irreligion, so often seen upon the Continent 
 of Europe; nor have the frantic steps of revolution 
 been marshaled by torches lighted at the fire-brands of 
 hell. The progress and prosperity of the country are 
 the result of the mutual action and reaction of these 
 two principles. The religious faith which was so pow- 
 erful as a sustaining and hope-inspiring presence to our 
 fathers, in their days of sorrow and of small things, is 
 not less important as an elevating and restraining ele- 
 ment in the maddening whirl of success. As has been 
 truly remarked by Coleridge, "the two antagonist pow- 
 ers, or opposite interests of the state, under which all 
 other state interests are comprised, are those of perma- 
 nence and of progression." The highest problem of 
 political wisdom is to blend these two powers in har- 
 monious and concurring equilibrium. In the torch- 
 races of antiquity, not only those lost the prize who 
 failed to reach the goal before their competitors, but 
 those also who ran so heedlessly that the light which 
 they carried was extinguished. So it is with nations 
 to whom the fire of liberty is intrusted; they must 
 guard the flame while they run the race. There is an 
 analogy between the perfect man and the perfect state. 
 The perfect man is not a man without passions, for that 
 would be an impossible monster, but a man in whom 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 155 
 
 reason and conscience are guiding principles, but the 
 passions simply propelling impulses, never supplying 
 their own end and object. So, a perfect state is that in 
 which the reason and conscience of the community, 
 speaking by the voice of law, control the passions 
 working in their appointed sphere of material develop- 
 ment. In England, the only country in Europe which 
 affords anything like a parallel to our own, the element 
 of permanence is sought in the landed interest, the 
 House of Lords being, in theory, and to a considerable 
 extent in fact, an assemblage of the great landed es- 
 tates of the realm. Our institutions give to us the 
 largest measure of the element of progression, because 
 each individual feels himself to be a part of the state, 
 and pours out the rapid currents of his own heart, to 
 swell the tide on which the nation is borne. The spirit 
 of the living creature is in the wheels of time. But 
 where is the power of permanence to come from? It 
 is supplied in some measure by the upper branch of our 
 legislatures, which is supposed to reflect the deliberative 
 wisdom of the country more distinctly than the popular 
 body ; but as they both rest upon the basis of universal 
 suffrage, the protection thus afforded is rather formal 
 than substantial. The antagonistic power which we 
 need, cannot be found in political combinations and 
 mechanical contrivances, since all are set in motion by 
 the same popular will, but it must reside in the popular 
 conscience. The people must be their own law as well 
 as their own impulse. A perception of right and 
 wrong, founded upon distinctions running deep into the 
 spiritual nature of man, must be a controlling element 
 in politics. The elective franchise must be held to be a 
 trust as well as a right. A godless democracy, in which 
 the passions of men move to their wild work through 
 the forms of law, happily for mankind, contains within 
 
156 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 itself the pledge of self-destruction. Who can stand 
 before a vindictive, rapacious, unprincipled majority? 
 Those principles and motives which shed so pure a light 
 around the narrow cabin of the Mayflower, which gave 
 such worth and dignity to the memorable compact there 
 drawn up and signed, must wait upon our steps, as we 
 move along the giddy and perilous edges of power and 
 wealth. Ihat Rock of Ages, which was a shelter to 
 our fathers in the piercing storm of trial, must spread 
 for us its healing shadow, m the feverish blaze of pros- 
 perity. Robinson, in his letter of advice to his people, 
 tells them to honor their rulers, "not beholding in them 
 the ordinariness of their persons, but God's ordinance 
 for your good." Noble, significant, enduring words! 
 The state is God's ordinance for man's good, and there 
 is no higl'ier law than that which bids men dispose 
 themselves into "the unity and married calm of states." 
 If the allegiance of the citizen be made to rest upon 
 any lower basis, the state is degraded to the level of a 
 copartnership or a corporation. What light is to the 
 eye, what sound is to the ear, law is to the unper- 
 verted reason. It is the voice of God in the soul of 
 man. 
 
 The unexampled growth of our country in popula- 
 tion and wealth, and the power which, for good or for 
 evil, is put into our hands, make it all-important that 
 our mental and moral cultivation should keep pace with 
 our material civilization. Many lights of hope and 
 promise are shining upon the path that lies before us, 
 and we may look forward to the future with cheerful 
 trust. But I cannot but think that there has manifested 
 itself, of late years, in various parts of the country, a 
 growing impatience of law, which certainly bodes no 
 good. Law is too often written and spoken of, as if 
 it were the arbitrary decree of some superior and irre- 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 157 
 
 sponsible power, and not the national reason and con- 
 science, prescribing rules of conduct to the national 
 will. The same feeling shows itself in a morbid sym- 
 pathy with crime, summoning the generous impulses 
 of humanity on behalf of him who has broken the law, 
 and setting its face against justice, as a tyrant and an 
 oppressor. It inflames and alarms the popular mind, 
 by denunciations of imaginary plots and impossible 
 conspiracies against their liberties; it encourages the 
 wolves and polecats of the press, in their foul assaults 
 upon the peace and good name of men and women; it 
 directs the currents of popular prejudice and popular 
 passion against the judiciary, and would fain paralyze 
 the arm of justice, so that it may neither smite the 
 guilty nor protect the innocent. Restraints imposed 
 by religion ; restraints imposed by law, international or 
 municipal ; restraints imposed by reason of youth, and 
 restraints imposed by reason of sex, are all felt to be 
 evils. The largest amount of liberty is deemed to be, 
 under all conditions, the greatest good, forgetting that 
 "everything that tends to emancipate us from external 
 restraint, without adding to our own power of self- 
 government, is mischievous," ^ and that if liberty with 
 law be the fire on the hearth, liberty without law is the 
 fire on the floor. Far be it from me to say that this is 
 a general tendency, or that the good sense of the coun- 
 try is not a greatly preponderating element ; but I must 
 appeal to the observation of such of my audience as 
 have reached or passed the middle period of life, if the 
 evil be not one which has increased, is increasing, and 
 ought to be diminished? The heat of party spirit 
 warps the mirror of the mind, so that it returns no true 
 image, and the disturbing force of a near irritation un- 
 settles the habitual movements of the reason; but it is 
 
 * Goethe. 
 
158 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 hard to believe that a reflecting man, in his sober senses, 
 can entertain the notion that any danger is to be appre- 
 hended, in our country, from the excess or oppression 
 of law. Our perils lie not that way. It is more likely 
 that the explosive force of the principle of liberty will 
 shatter the vessels which contain it, than that the ves- 
 sels by their solidity and compression will prevent the 
 due expansion of the principle itself. If there be any 
 descendant of the Pilgrims who gives his hand in aid 
 of popular violence, directed against the law, whether it 
 be to destroy an abolition press, to rescue a fugitive 
 slave from the hands of justice, or to commit an assault 
 upon the person and property of the representative of 
 a foreign power, he dishonors the blood which flows 
 in his veins. He has read their lives and their writ- 
 ings in a spirit as perverse as that in which they read 
 the word of God, when they found in it a warrant for 
 selling the wife and son of Philip into slavery. 
 
 The study of history rebukes the pride of human rea- 
 son, by revealing marked disproportions between par- 
 ticular events and the consequences to which they lead. 
 The first forty years of the seventeenth century were 
 fruitful in striking occurrences and remarkable men. 
 Charles II. was born in 1630. When he had reached 
 an age to understand the rudiments of historical know- 
 ledge, we may imagine his royal father to have com- 
 missioned some grave and experienced counselor of his 
 court to instruct the future monarch of England in the 
 great events which had taken place in Europe, since 
 the opening of the century. Upon what themes would 
 the tutor of the young prince have been likely to dis- 
 course? He would have dwelt upon the struggle be- 
 tween Spain and the Netherlands ; and upon the Thirty 
 Years' War in Germany, in which the fortunes of a 
 daughter of the House of Stuart were so involved. He 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD 159 
 
 would have quoted the spirited speech of the English 
 princess, that she would rather eat dry bread as the 
 wife of a king, than live in luxury as the wife of an 
 elector — and would have recalled the sorrow that fell 
 upon the heart of England when the news came of the 
 disastrous battle of Prague. He would have painted 
 the horror and dismay which ran through France at 
 the assassination of Henry the Fourth. He would 
 have traced the glorious career of Gustavus Adolphus, 
 step by step, and lingered long upon the incidents of 
 his last fight — how the king went into battle singing a 
 hymn of Luther's; how the deep-voiced chorus rolled 
 along the files of his army, and with what rage and 
 grief the Swedes fell upon the foe when they saw the 
 riderless horse of their beloved leader rush madly 
 through their ranks. He would have attempted to con- 
 vey to his young pupil some notion of the military 
 genius of Maurice of Nassau, of the vast political ca- 
 pacity of Cardinal Richelieu, and of the splendor and 
 mystery that wrapped the romantic life of Wallenstein. 
 But so seemingly insignificant an occurrence as the 
 sailing of a few Puritans from Delph Haven, in the 
 summer of 1620, would doubtless have been entirely 
 overlooked; or, if mentioned at all, the young prince 
 might have been told, that in that year a congregation 
 of fanatical Brownists, who had previously left Eng- 
 land for Holland, sailed for North Virginia; and that, 
 since that time, many others of the same factious and 
 troublesome sect had followed in their path, and that 
 their project of emigration had so far succeeded, as to 
 enable them to send home many cargoes of fish and 
 peltry. But with our eyes, we can see that the humble 
 event was the seed of far more memorable consequences 
 than all the sieges, battles, and treaties of that momen- 
 tous period. The effects of those fields of slaughter 
 
i6o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 hardly lasted longer than the smoke and dust of the 
 contending armies; but the seminal principles which 
 were carried to America in the Mayflower, which grew 
 in the wholesome air of obscurity and neglect, are at 
 this moment vital forces in the movements of the world, 
 the extent and influence of which no political foresight 
 can measure. Ideas which, for the first time in the his- 
 tory of mankind, took shape upon our soil, are the 
 springs of that contest now going on in Europe between 
 the Past and the Future, the end of which no man can 
 see. May God inspire us and our rulers with the wis- 
 dom to preserve and transmit, unimpaired, those ad- 
 vantages secured to us by our remote position, and by 
 the fact that we started without the weary burdens and 
 perplexing entanglements of the Past. May no insane 
 spirit of propagandism lead us to take part in alien con- 
 tests. May we thrOw into the scale of struggling free- 
 dom, not the sword of physical force, but the weight of 
 a noble example — the moral argument of a great peo- 
 ple, invigorated but not intoxicated by their liberty — a 
 power which, though unsubstantial, will yet, like the 
 uplifted hands of Moses upon Horeb, avail more than 
 hosts of armed men. 
 
 We have met here to-day, drawn together by the sen- 
 timent of antiquity ; but what a span is the life of New 
 England, compared with the life of the world? There 
 are persons now living, who have conversed with a ven- 
 erable man, who remembered to have seen Peregrine 
 White, who was born on board the Mayflower. By a 
 fact like this we seem to be brought near to the event 
 which we are commemorating. But if antiquity be 
 measured, not by the lapse of dead years, but by the 
 beatings of the heart of national life, we have a right to 
 feel and to express the sentiment. The relation of 
 time exists only in the mind. Thirty generations of 
 
GEORGE S. HILLARD i6i 
 
 the hybernating sleep of China, are not longer than 
 two crowded centuries of energetic New England.^ 
 We take pride in the material prosperity of our coun- 
 try, and we have a right to do so; but on this occasion 
 let that feeling be tempered with a softer and gentler 
 sentiment. Let the remembrance of the past solemnize 
 the joy of the present. Let the thoughts awakened by 
 the sufferings and sacrifices of our fathers, take the 
 shape of gratitude for our blessings and submission in 
 our trials. As you return to your comfortable homes, 
 and greet the smiling faces of your children around 
 your well-spread boards, let your hearts be stirred with 
 a fresh sense of thankfulness, when you think of the 
 piercing winds that chilled the Pilgrims, and of the 
 hunger that wasted their strength. You have read of 
 the sufferings of their first winter — how, under the ex- 
 posures and privations of their new mode of life, one 
 after another sickened and died, so that when the spring 
 came, one-half of their whole number had been gath- 
 ered to their last sleep. If separation from those we 
 love be hard to us, living in ease and comfort, walled 
 about with security, with such fullness of life around 
 us, what must it have been to them, that handful of 
 men and women, set upon the edge of a wilderness 
 dark with unnumbered apprehensions, when the re- 
 moval of each face was a sensible diminution of their 
 common stock of cheerfulness and hope ! Would that 
 the last moments of those thus early called could have 
 been soothed with a foreknowledge of the great works 
 that were to follow them ! Would that the dim eyes of 
 the dying Carver had been permitted to see the things 
 which we now see! Would not so magnificent an 
 apocalypse have awakened a glow of rapture and exul- 
 
 ^ "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
i62 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 tation, not fading away even before the glories of the 
 Beatific Vision! And if it be permitted to those who 
 have passed into the skies, to recall the life of earth, — 
 if there be sensitive links of memory vibrating between 
 time and eternity — may we not feel an assurance that 
 our fathers are with us, in spirit, at this hour, and that 
 throbs of mortal joy are mingling with the deep peace 
 of those serene abodes ? 
 
 Men of New England ! Sons of the Pilgrims ! Let 
 not the fleet angel of this hour leave us without a bless- 
 ing. If the memories of this day have softened and 
 melted your hearts, stamp upon them, before they grow 
 cold, some image of ancestral worth. Rich are the 
 benedictions which have fallen upon our heads from 
 these covering heavens. With us, the God of our fa- 
 thers has no controversy. He does not try our faith by 
 making noble efforts fruitless, and heroic sacrifices un- 
 availing. He has set no perplexing chasms in our 
 path, between the purpose and the work. With us, 
 well-doing is happiness, and duty is another name for 
 prosperity. Great is the debt we owe to the Past ; great 
 is the trust committed to us for the Future. We can 
 pay that debt — we can discharge that trust — only by 
 working faithfully in the Present. The stately march 
 of our laws and speech, which began at the rock of 
 Plymouth, will ever move in the paths of honor and of 
 peace, so long as it follows that great guiding light 
 which led the Pilgrims into their land of promise. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 WILLIAM ADAMS, D.D. 
 1852 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 
 (1807- I 880.) 
 
 Dr. Adams, a native of Colchester, Connecticut, graduate of Yale 
 and of Andover, came, in 1834, to New York to the pastorate 
 of the Broome Street Presbyterian Church. Nineteen years later 
 the Madison Avenue Church was formed for him, and Dr. Adams 
 had become one of the noted members of the then remarkable 
 New York clergy. In his early days in the city he was active 
 in the organization of the Union Theological Seminary. For 
 forty- four years he was one of its directors ; for the last seven 
 years of his life, its president and the Professor of Sacred 
 Rhetoric. Dr. Adams was an enthusiastic member of the New 
 School branch of the Presbyterian Church, but his abhorrence 
 of sectarianism and his love of unity made him foremost in 
 the work of reunion with the Old School division. As chair- 
 man of the committee on reunion, he bore a great share in 
 bringing about the agreement between the two sections, now so 
 firmly welded that the causes of the separation are well-nigh 
 forgotten. Dr. Adams was of striking personal appearance and 
 magnetic manner, original as a teacher, and graceful, full of 
 force, and scholarly in public address. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BY what secret sympathy are we drawn together on 
 this day of the calendar? Something more is it 
 than a fihal regard for an honored ancestry ; more than 
 a fond attachment to the place of our nativity, though 
 the memory of the homes and haunts of our childhood 
 be bright beyond all Arcadian scenery. Chiefly is it 
 the honest conviction that the event, we this day com- 
 memorate, was immediately related to the general prog- 
 ress and happiness of the human race. Were pro- 
 vincial pride or patronymic pretension the motive of 
 our celebration, the sooner it were abandoned the bet- 
 ter. But if it be true, as we have soberly believed, that 
 the small company who landed from the Mayilozver in 
 1620, were an important link in the long drama of 
 human history; if their faith, fortitude and success 
 were destined to tell beyond themselves and their own 
 times, on all generations and all lands, then is there no 
 one man, wherever born, who has a greater or less de- 
 gree of interest in them than another; and so long as 
 we study the ways of Providence with a philosophic 
 comprehension and a kindly heart, no place can be 
 found for arrogant pretension, but all place for majes- 
 tic humility, Christian charity and boundless hope. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle, with his characteristic mannerism, has 
 said, "the best thing England ever did was Oliver 
 Cromwell." With more soberness of style Mr. Southey 
 
 165 
 
1 66 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 has justly observed, "that there is no portion of his- 
 tory in which it so much behooves an EngHshman to be 
 thoroughly versed as in that of Cromwell's age." Oli- 
 ver Cromwell was New England working on British 
 soil. Puritanism has had two homes and histories, 
 trans-Atlantic and cis-Atlantic. The origin and sub- 
 stance of the thing was one, but the stream was des- 
 tined early to be divided, a part running down in the 
 regular channels of British history, and a part passing 
 under the sea and reappearing upon our own shores 
 with prodigious advantages in its favor. A noble 
 theme, indeed, is Puritanism in its relations to the poli- 
 tics, the literature and the religion of the British Isles ; 
 great things has it accomplished, whereof we are glad, 
 in its native home; reformed abuses, secured rights, 
 promoted freedom ; but its cis-Atlantic development has 
 been in a new world, on a virgin soil, far removed from 
 those ancient institutions and associations which else- 
 where have modified its form and embarrassed its life. 
 Nor let us suppose that Puritanism is an obsolete tradi- 
 tion. It is active now ; its work is still needed ; its his- 
 tory is not yet ended. The long struggle between 
 freedom and despotism is not yet decided. We have 
 still need to be fortified in the principles of our fathers. 
 When the gentle spirit of Christian liberty is in danger 
 of encroachment on the one hand from the old form of 
 arrogant authority, and on the other from the stealthier 
 corrosion of false philosophy, it is well for us to recall 
 the forms of our canonized forefathers; to study the 
 lessons which, though dead, they still speak to us; or, 
 as they themselves would have expressed it, when 
 Christ is in danger of being crucified afresh between 
 two thieves, it is time that many of the Saints who 
 sleep should arise and come out of their graves and 
 appear unto many. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 167 
 
 A good history of Puritanism is yet a desideratum 
 in English Hterature. That history has been under- 
 taken by writers not a few, from different positions; 
 but, as with a good picture, there is only one point from 
 which it can be viewed aright ; every other is too high 
 or too low, too near or too remote. We have often 
 wished that Milton had brought down his history of 
 England to his own times. Perhaps his poetic genius 
 would have been a hinderance rather than a help; cer- 
 tainly he was too near the origin of Puritanism to de- 
 scribe those triumphs and rewards of freedom which 
 gladden our eyes. If one would learn the affluence and 
 rotundity of the English language, we should certainly 
 advise him to study the pages of Lord Clarendon ; if he 
 would acquire forensic eloquence, or the art of special 
 pleading, we should counsel him to read Mr. Hume. 
 But who would think of discovering in either of these 
 distinguished authors a just conception of the English 
 Puritans? Besides that which is substantial, there is 
 much extrinsic and incidental in their life, which may 
 catch the eye of the most superficial observer ; shadows 
 to displease, and charms to attract ; much that is repul- 
 sive, and much that is heroic ; and many a bright gleam 
 of beauty shines in upon their serious life, as the win- 
 ter's sun casts its warm smile upon the solemn pines 
 and cedars of New England woods. But when we pass 
 beyond all forms and accidents to the very soul of their 
 history, we find it, where the sympathies of many his- 
 torians cannot reach — in an earnest religion. By an 
 effort of the imagination, I can conceive of Juvenal 
 writing odes on chastity, Congreve composing church 
 psalms, Byron writing Hebrew melodies, and Percy B. 
 Shelley discoursing on theology ; the only incongruity 
 which my imagination absolutely refuses to entertain is, 
 that David Hume, the sophist and the skeptic, was in 
 
1 68 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 any respect qualified to write an impartial history of the 
 Puritans. 
 
 Besides these deep-seated antipathies of authors, 
 there are other difficulties in the way of an impartial 
 description of these remarkable men. As a party they 
 were not homogeneous. No one man stands forth as 
 their exponent and representative. There were many 
 differences among those who usually pass under one 
 name. Some of the best of the Puritans, considered as 
 to doctrinal belief, never separated themselves from the 
 National Church ; yet were they as really of the move- 
 ment as any who went to Frankfort or Geneva. Some 
 struck for civil liberty only as that was incidentally re- 
 lated to the cause of religion; while others, with little 
 thought or care for religion, were willing to be classed 
 with the Puritans, because of their enthusiasm for po- 
 litical freedom. It has ever been the constant tempta- 
 tion of authors to lose sight of the real question at issue 
 in the battle, in a description of some one of the many 
 heterogeneous and motley hangers-on of the army. 
 
 Then again, reformers are, of necessity, men of pe- 
 culiar qualities. Bold, impetuous, severe, rather than 
 refined, elegant and loveable. Their weapons are not 
 of lath but veritable steel. In days of ease, we pass a 
 false judgment on men who wrote with fire within, and 
 real fire around them. Open any book in our language, 
 and you may know, from the very style of its composi- 
 tion, to what period of history its author belonged. 
 Every page of Addison breathes of luxurious tran- 
 quillity, rural and metropolitan. Look at Harrington, 
 Latimer and Milton, and you feel that you are in a for- 
 tification in a time of siege, and the words fiy hard- 
 shotted, and at a white heat. From this fact it happens 
 that we cannot always describe reformers by the quali- 
 ties of more pacific times. Some things existed in 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 169 
 
 excess, and some things were in utter defect. We must 
 subtract and concede, and then form a judgment. 
 Their life was not a simple equation. You cannot de- 
 scribe it by indiscriminate eulogy, nor indiscriminate 
 censure. There was action and reaction, advantage 
 and disadvantage, good and evil ; and we are only con- 
 cerned to know whether, after all allowances and sub- 
 tractions, the good does not preponderate. Stand by 
 the side of the ocean when the sea is coming in, and you 
 behold weeds and wrecks, the dead fish and the swollen 
 carcasses of animals, things unsightly, heterogeneous 
 and confused, drifting to the shore; and you listen to 
 the wild scream of the sea-birds, with their melancholy 
 cry, but, notwithstanding, we tell you that it is the 
 great tide which is rising, lifting the stranded ship 
 from the bar, bearing argosies of wealth upon its bo- 
 som, filling up all the channels and inlets, and bringing 
 with it the healthful breeze which fans a continent 
 with the tonic airs of life. 
 
 In that ingenious classification of sciences proposed 
 by Auguste Comte, a prominent place is assigned to 
 what he calls sociology, or the science of human so- 
 ciety. Whether we accept the speculations of the 
 French thinker or not, we must hold that there is such a 
 reality as the philosophy of history. It disturbs our 
 intellectual repose, to be told that events occur, sub- 
 ject to no law, proportioned to no plan, and controlled 
 by no Providence. It was a beautiful conception of 
 classical mythology, that the Muse of history was the 
 daughter of Jove ; and the conviction that there is some 
 design which gives unity to human history, is a corol- 
 lary from the belief that there is a God who governs 
 the world which he has made. By some infelicitous 
 judgment, what is termed Ecclesiastical History, is 
 made the special reading of divines. All history is ec- 
 
170 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 clesiastical history; for the Christian religion is the soul 
 of the world, the end and solution of its creation. 
 It was not a clergyman, but Frederick Von Schlegel, 
 who said, "without this faith the whole history of the 
 world would be naught else than an insoluble enigma, 
 an inextricable labyrinth, a huge pile of the blocks and 
 fragments of an unfinished edifice, and the great trag- 
 edy of humanity would remain devoid of all proper 
 result." ^ We wonder not that many, eminent for their 
 genius, have confessed to a distaste for historical read- 
 ing, so long as they have never discovered the true 
 point of perspective from which to study the picture 
 which God's hand has thrown upon the wall. What 
 care I to know that Csesar conquered Judea ; that James 
 was a bigot; that the Puritans went into exile; if I do 
 not perceive the relations of these events to that true 
 optimism, the Christian faith, which involves the life 
 and liberty of the world. What a meagre idea of the 
 Christian religion is that which represents it as sym- 
 bolized in creeds and catechisms, well enough to be 
 learned by children, and used for sharpening the intel- 
 lect of those who have taste and leisure for discussing 
 its dry abstractions; or as a salutary medicine for the 
 bruised in spirit; a form which hovers chiefly around 
 churches and churchyards, the domain of the clergy- 
 man and the undertaker; its light like that which su- 
 perstition has seen flickering over old graves ; a skele- 
 ton at the feast while the music and the revelry go on ; 
 its great help to man being to throw a bridge over the 
 river of Death, and conduct him safely to another 
 world. Religion is life, it is power. Every memory 
 associated with this day honors it as the parent of Re- 
 publics, the patron of well-governed States, the soul of 
 justice, enterprise, freedom and commerce; and not 
 * Philosophy of History, Lect. X. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 171 
 
 more certain is it that the whole body of the sea is 
 swayed by the attractions of the heavenly orb, than that 
 the whole surface and depths of society are yet to be 
 governed by the potent laws of the Christian faith. 
 
 Think not that I have proposed a mere professional 
 service — though it be true, according to Cicero, that 
 the Syrian rhetorician would have been more at home 
 had he spoken before Hannibal of rhetoric rather than 
 war, — if, pressing at once to the heart of my theme, I 
 undertake to show what were the relations of religion 
 to the event which we celebrate, and how it is that reli- 
 gion is the imperishable seed of true liberty. I confess 
 to an inability to comprehend the history of the Puri- 
 tans, their essential life and their accidental forms, their 
 wisdom and their mistakes, if surveyed from any posi- 
 tion other than that we have now chosen. 
 
 In the Royal Museum at Stockholm, among other 
 great curiosities, is preserved, with religious care, the 
 small, unpretending, Latin Bible of Martin Luther; its 
 margin covered with notes in the Reformer's own hand, 
 a prize brought by Gustavus Adolphus out of Ger- 
 many, and worthy to be saved as the Ithuriel weapon 
 which, in the lifetime of its owner, roused fifty millions 
 of people to life and freedom. We say it most delib- 
 erately and soberly, and it will be for me to show it, the 
 history of later times is the history of a free Bible. Its 
 working, or its want, explain all the phenomena of 
 modern society. I say the Bible, because, by the inven- 
 tion of the art of printing, that book is made, what, be- 
 fore, the organism of the Church assumed to be, the 
 visible symbol and exponent of Christianity itself. 
 
 The Protestant Reformation was not an ecclesias- 
 tical schism, but a great moral movement, which sent 
 the pulses of life through every channel of society. In 
 the year 1802, just half a century ago, the National 
 
172 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Institute of France offered a premium for the best dis- 
 sertation on this question : "What has been the influ- 
 ence of the Protestant Reformation on the poHtical con- 
 dition of different European States and the progress of 
 letters?" Villers, the successful competitor, with con- 
 summate fehcity, opens his admirable essay after this 
 manner : "Had an assembly of savants, prior to the six- 
 teenth century, wished to ascertain the influence of any 
 schism from the Roman See, they would undoubtedly 
 have propounded the question in this form : 'What are 
 the evils which have followed this impious and perni- 
 cious doctrine?' But now that many European States 
 are separated from the Papal power, an assembly of 
 philosophers in a country still attached to her commu- 
 nion, proposes to fix the influence of the reformation on 
 European society and the progress of letters. This 
 change in the language implies a change in opinions; 
 and the very form of the question conveys its own 
 answer." 
 
 The first remarkable conjunction of events, demon- 
 strating the superintendence of Divine Providence in 
 our history is, that Columbus discovered the New 
 World, not until after the birth of that German Re- 
 former, who was destined to give form and direction to 
 the new movement of society. As the Island of Delos 
 floated about unfixed and unknown, till she who was 
 to be the mother of Apollo and Diana, needed it for an 
 asylum, when, by the command of Jove, it rose from 
 the sea, pillared firm on the foundations of the earth, 
 to be the birthplace of Wisdom and Freedom, and the 
 chosen site of that temple to which all nations should 
 bring their offerings, so was this New World envel- 
 oped in the mists of the ocean, its rivers running si- 
 lently to the sea, its vast surface waiting for a future 
 population, its existence altogether unknown, till the 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 173 
 
 auspicious moment had arrived, when God's hand Hfted 
 the veil of the sea, and a new continent was revealed as 
 the home of new men and the theatre for a new act in 
 human history. 
 
 It is a well-known literary fact, that Mr. Hume 
 wrote his history of the Stuarts before the narrative of 
 preceding events. As well begin a man's biography at 
 the fiftieth year of his age; or describe a ship of war 
 under full sail, ploughing the waves, with no mention 
 of the little plank, under the water, which turns about 
 her bulk and glory. True and well-chosen are the 
 words, with which Shakspeare begins his historical 
 drama of Henry VIII. : 
 
 "I come no more to make you laugh ; things now 
 That bear a weighty and a serious brow, 
 Sad, high and working, full of state and woe, 
 Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, 
 We now present." 
 
 In all history there is not one cycle better defined and 
 more complete than that which sweeps from the reign 
 of the monarch after whom the dramatist has named 
 this interlocutory chronicle, down to the passage of the 
 later reform bills of England ; and the soul of the whole 
 period is Religious Liberty. Are we sure that we com- 
 prehend the real meaning of these familiar words ? 
 
 The Reformation in England, unlike its contempo- 
 rary movement on the Continent, which beginning with 
 religion went on to politics, began with politics and 
 went on to religion. It has been given as a humorous 
 description of man, that he is a creature with a will of 
 his own, who longs to be Pope. King Henry verified 
 the definition in his own case; and impatient because 
 the incumbent of the Papal Chair would not favor his 
 matrimonial fancies, this royal Bluebeard resolved that 
 
174 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 he would do as he hked, and set up Pope for himself. 
 His Protestantism amounting to nothing but indepen- 
 dence from a foreign authority, his position was won- 
 derfully unique and anomalous; maintaining Papal 
 dogmas, yet defying Papal supremacy; oddly enough 
 dragging Protestants and Papists to execution on the 
 same hurdle; the former for disbelieving transubstan- 
 tiation, the latter for believing the Pope was supreme. 
 But the beginning of strife is as the letting out of 
 water ; first a drop, then a stream, and then a flood. A 
 change in one respect promised changes in all. Mythol- 
 ogy informs us of an eagle, purloining meat from the 
 altar of the gods, who saw not the coal of fire cleaving 
 to her prize, wliich, borne away, consumed her nest. The 
 Protestantism of the King began in self-will and pas- 
 sion; but the Protestantism of his subjects had a celes- 
 tial origin, and was fanned to a larger and yet larger 
 flame, till it burned up the last relic of intolerance and 
 despotism. While the politics of the King were filling 
 the eye and ear of the world, there was a new power 
 beginning to work, without observation, which was 
 destined to change every aspect of the controversy. 
 The translation of the New Testament, by Tyndale, into 
 the English tongue, synchronizes with Henry's rupture 
 with Leo X. It was read with prodigious eagerness by 
 the people. The translation of the whole Bible soon fol- 
 lowed. Disposed to favor an act which sanctioned his 
 pretensions in the controversy with Rome, the King 
 himself authorizes its distribution, and enjoins it upon 
 all preachers to insist upon its use. When this potent 
 book had been working upon the minds and hearts of 
 multitudes for twelve years, the passionate monarch 
 saw his mistake, and endeavored to rectify it. He in- 
 terdicted what before he had permitted. Pie put Tyn- 
 dale to death for having translated the book which now 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 17 S 
 
 he feared. A little book is that, but it has kindled a 
 great fire. Let the "Defender of the Faith" pursue his 
 own policy, play his own game; like the electric chain 
 which feels not the power it transmits to others, he has 
 let down the lightning of heaven into the heart of a 
 nation, which will never find rest again until it has 
 secured for itself that just freedom which is the birth- 
 right of man. The controversy has now fairly com- 
 menced. Here is a reformation, not extrinsic and acci- 
 dental, but with a soul in it. The parties perfectly 
 understood one another; though there were many side 
 issues and collateral disputes, all which was vital, as 
 we shall presently see, was included in this controversy 
 concerning the freedom of God's word. 
 
 It were too much in a discourse like this, to write the 
 history of this great strife. But observe a few facts. 
 In the reign next succeeding, that of Edward VI, 
 facilities for the circulation of the Bible were multi- 
 plied ; and just in that proportion, changes occurred in 
 the thinking of the nation. Then ensued the reign of 
 Mary, when bigotry sought to quench the heavenly 
 spark in blood. The four winds blow upon the great 
 sea, the storm rages, and the floods arise and foam. 
 Fear not the issue ; for that little book, by this time, has 
 sent its roots into many hearts, and they will be the 
 tougher and stronger for the rocking of the tempest. 
 "When Queen Elizabeth was conducted through Lon- 
 don, on her accession to the throne, amidst the joyful 
 acclamations of her subjects, a boy, who personated 
 Truth, was let down from one of the triumphal arches, 
 and presented her a copy of the Bible. She received 
 the book with the most gracious deportment, placed it 
 next her bosom, and declared that, amidst all the costly 
 testimonies which the city had that day given her of 
 their attachment, this present was by far the most 
 
176 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 precious and acceptable."^ Hail, ethereal stranger! 
 Thou hast survived the flood, and hast received a royal 
 welcome ! Art thou the coal of lire from the altar, des- 
 tined to repeat and finish thy former service, in con- 
 suming the hay, wood, and stubble of the eagle's nest? 
 Little enough did that haughty daughter of the Tudors 
 understand what she did, when, on that day of pa- 
 geantry, she so honored the Book of God. We shall 
 hear of great things in her reign, which were not in the 
 programme of that public show. Let her cleave to her 
 semi-reforms; addict herself to papal ceremonies; insti- 
 tute her star-chamber and high commissions ; refuse all 
 toleration to sectaries; determine that "no man should 
 decline right or left from the drawn line of her author- 
 ity;" it is all too late to reinstate the ancient thraldom. 
 What she did in form, multitudes had done in earnest ; 
 pressed that Bible to their hearts; and no power could 
 destroy the freedom which was nurtured by its potent 
 contact. We will not liken that Divine Book to the 
 Trojan horse, which was drawn into the besieged city 
 by the inhabitants themselves ; for that contained within 
 itself a host of martial men, and the rattling of arms 
 was heard as it went over the wall; but we are sure 
 that, pacific, truthful and celestial as is its nature, it 
 will plant the seeds of great revolutions, and time only 
 is necessary to ripen the results which it promises. In 
 the reign of James I. was prepared that translation of 
 the Bible, about which cluster all the memories and 
 loves of those who speak the English language in two 
 hemispheres. Let that "lubberly fellow" proclaim his 
 policy, "no bishop, no king;" boast of his skill in king- 
 craft; let him make a fool of himself in his theological 
 discussions at Hampton Court; let him resolve to 
 "harry the Puritans out of his kingdom ;"' iii enjoining 
 
 ' Hume. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 177 
 
 a standard version of the Bible, he has done one thing, 
 for which we are disposed to pardon all his pedantry, 
 all his buffoonery, all his bigotry, and all his cruelty. 
 We forget the origin of the good, in the intrinsic value 
 of the blessing; just as Samson drank of the miracu- 
 lous stream, without so much as once remembering that 
 it proceeded from the jawbone of an ass. Follow the 
 history of that book, now that it has obtained its long- 
 sought liberty, and tell me whether it is a vain fancy 
 that its history is the history of modern times. It opens 
 its seals, blows its trumpets, and utters its voices. Soon 
 we hear of it in camps and parliaments. It is made 
 the arbiter of last appeal between kings and people. 
 Cromwell reads out of it to his troops before the battle 
 of Naseby. It leads on the struggles of non-confor- 
 mity — that Protestantism of Protestantism — that dissi- 
 dence of dissent. At every stage it demands more and 
 more of right for man ; emancipates from one servitude 
 after another; and, at each advance, secures a better 
 and a safer liberty. Literature revives at its presence, 
 as verdure is nourished by flowing fountains. All the 
 literature of the English tongue has been created since 
 our vernacular version of the Scriptures. Pactolus, 
 with its sands of gold, rolls not so rich a flood as that 
 which a free Bible has poured along the affluent chan- 
 nels of our language, producing fertility wherever it 
 spreads. We trace its eiffects, not merely in the Bax- 
 ters and Howes, who, for fire of patriotism, force of 
 eloquence, vastness of learning, depth of erudition, 
 never had their superiors ; but in the large observation 
 and serious truthfulness of Shakspeare ; and when Mil- 
 ton wrote those immortal poems which are the crown- 
 jewels of our language, it was as if religion, emerging 
 from her conflicts, had reached her royal coronation, 
 and put the well-earned diadem upon her head, amid a 
 
178 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping sym- 
 phonies." That same emancipated book, comes over in 
 the Mayflozvcr; the first compact of constitutional lib- 
 erty was written on its cover; it has a home in every 
 cabin which sends up its smoke in the wilderness; it 
 cheers the toil of the lonely exile ; it was read in every 
 school and family ; it was carried in their knapsacks by 
 the soldiers of the Revolution ; and when the American 
 Republic was founded, George Washington laid his 
 honest hand upon this book, to take the oath of office; 
 and by this time, a whole nation was so thoroughly 
 bred in its precepts, that the idea that an official oath 
 could be falsified by any coup d'etat, never so much as 
 entered the imagination of an American citizen. 
 
 Now let us go back and show that this synchronism 
 of events was not accidental, and verify our assertion, 
 that the freedom of the Bible was the source and 
 pledge of all other freedom. Let me prove to you, 
 that the key which we now have in our hands is the 
 only one which can unlock the character of the Puritans, 
 explaining alike their virtues and their errors. 
 
 They claimed the right to possess, read, and inter- 
 pret the Word of God. That right was denied; and 
 here the controversy began. In that principle which 
 they asserted, you have the right of private judgment, 
 which is the very soul of freedom. How shall we de- 
 fine the right of private judgment? I answer, partly 
 in the words of Mr. Macaulay, "We conceive it not to 
 be this, that opposite opinions may both be true; nor 
 this, that truth and falsehood are both equally good; 
 nor yet this, that all speculative error is necessarily in- 
 nocent; but this, that there is on the face of the earth 
 no visible body to whose decision men are bound to 
 submit their private judgments on points of faith." 
 The written Word of God is the only authority in mat- 
 
WILLIAM. ADAMS 179 
 
 ters pertaining to religion; to every man belongs the 
 right of consulting, interpreting, and obeying this for 
 himself, uncoerced by penalties, unbribed by partiali- 
 ties. No human power, individual or organized, may 
 in any form or degree restrict this absolute freedom. 
 See you not that the very first claim by the Puritan was 
 a blow struck for human rights and human liberty? 
 He looks into the Book of God, and learns that he is 
 a man. In finding his religion, he finds his humanity. 
 His soul dilates with the conception that the Creator 
 speaks to him as his own child and image, addressing 
 his reason, affections, and choice. With Moses, he 
 ascends the mount of the law; with Elijah, he hears 
 the still small voice of God on Horeb; with the Apos- 
 tles, he accompanies our Lord to the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration ; and with John, is he caught up to the third 
 heavens, to behold the vision of the new Jerusalem. 
 The first claim of Puritanism was an assertion of the 
 democratic idea in its purest and sublimest form. Its 
 very rudiment was religion asserting popular rights. 
 Shall man take away what God has given ? That which 
 began with one claim was sure to advance to others. 
 Withstanding arrogance and despotism in the assertion 
 of the right to the book which God had addressed to 
 our individuality, Puritanism from the beginning was 
 pledged against all forms and acts of tyranny, and po- 
 litical reforms were born of religious liberty. In that 
 remarkable production, the "New England Primer," 
 familiar in past times to all the homes and schools of 
 our country, whose pictorial representations, if they 
 did not inspire a taste for the fine arts, most certainly 
 created an undying hatred of all tyranny, are many 
 things "hard to be understood." We wonder not that 
 many a young memory and understanding broke down 
 at effectual calling. But as we reach habits of thought- 
 
i8o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 fulness and observation, we grow into the meaning of 
 the compendious truth, "They who are effectually 
 called do partake of justification, adoption, and sancti- 
 fication, and the several benefits zvhich in this life do 
 either accompany or Hozv from them" What an afflu- 
 ent stream is that which flows from such a fountain ! 
 What benefits are those which accompany such a lofty 
 vocation ! What manifold rights of the people are in- 
 volved in the first great law of religion, that the soul 
 shall be free! What a growth of intelligence, enter- 
 prise, industry, wealth and happiness, is included in 
 that germ of a personal relation to God ! Wonder not 
 that when Sir Edmund Andros came over as the emis- 
 sary of James II., to take away the charter of the colo- 
 nies, the inhabitants of Massachusetts, bred in the great 
 principles of religion, in the fearless assertion of civil 
 liberty, quietly locked up that august personage in the 
 castle of Boston before they ever had heard of the dis- 
 placement of the Stuarts and the accession of the 
 Prince of Orange. This is the way in which God 
 makes free Republics; not by philosophical theories, 
 and French politics. He makes free incn by a free 
 Bible; the grant of one liberty is the Magna Charta 
 of all. 
 
 It is customary in many quarters to represent the 
 Puritans as "ridiculous precisians," quarrelling about 
 vestments and forms. One might think, so much is 
 said about caps, surplices and rochets, that there was a 
 sober truth in the humorous conception of Sartor Re- 
 sartus, that "Society is founded on clothes.'' But this 
 is a superficial view of the matter. Those ecclesiastical 
 vestments concerning which disputes ran so high, were 
 only the symbols of antagonistic principles. You 
 would not scoff at the American Revolution as a con- 
 test about a few chests of tea ; or the ^^''ars of Succes- 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS i8i 
 
 sion as waged for the color of roses; nor ridicule the 
 strife of great parties as a dispute concerning the hue 
 of the cockades they wore in their hats. The Puritans 
 had read in that free book, which was their law and 
 light, that man is justified by faith, and while they 
 were exulting in their spiritual freedom, there crossed 
 their path the form of arrogant authority, which, in 
 God's name, demanded of them something above what 
 was written. And what was it that they were required 
 by royal authority to wear? Those garments and ap- 
 pendages which, by long usage and mystical meaning, 
 were associated in every mind with that ultramontane 
 power whose jurisdiction they had disowned and ab- 
 horred. Thus it happened that one of the first points 
 at which great principles met in battle, related to mat- 
 ters so trifling as ecclesiastical vestments and forms of 
 worship. But why dispute at all upon points so trivial ? 
 Were they not things in themselves indifferent? No 
 sensible person did dispute concerning them so long as 
 they were regarded as indifferent. Had the dress pre- 
 scribed to be worn by the clergy been a simple scho- 
 lastic garb, suited to the decency and gravity of public 
 worship; had this been recommended , rather than pre- 
 scribed under penalty of deposition, no Puritan would 
 have objected to its use. The ground assumed by 
 Bishop Hooper in refusing to be consecrated in the 
 specified vestments, is sufficiently catholic, modest, and 
 manly. But when the matter in dispute was known by 
 all parties to involve the vital questions of the times; 
 when it was perfectly well understood by all, that, 
 wrapped up in the folds of those clerical habits, was the 
 old controversy concerning the supremacy of God and 
 the freedom of man, there was no place for indecision. 
 The Puritan saw that the book of Leviticus belonged 
 to the Old Testament and not to the New; and he 
 
1 82 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 would not put "petticoats" in the place of faith. When 
 Bishop Day spoke to Archbishop Gardiner of justifica- 
 tion by faith, that intolerant hierarch exclaimed, "If 
 you open that gap to the people, then farewell all 
 again." Both parties knew perfectly well what they 
 were about; and when the one enjoined and com- 
 manded, as God's representatives, human inventions 
 and the badges of human pretension, the others, know- 
 ing the result to which the first admission would lead, 
 that the controversy could be settled just as well on an 
 inch as a continent, afraid of that bondage which would 
 begin its thraldom in requirements soft and silken as 
 satin vestments, took their ground and exclaimed aloud, 
 "Out with the bondwoman and her sons, we are chil- 
 dren of the free." When the monarch undertook to 
 force them into conformity to Popish habits under pen- 
 alty of that English inquisition, the Court of High 
 Commission, it stirred their blood, and you cannot cen- 
 sure their course without condemning the Revolution 
 of 1688 and the accession of the Prince of Orange — 
 the latter being only an advanced result of the former. 
 Puritanism a dispute about clothes ! A rag may prove 
 the volume, rapidity and power of the swollen current 
 on which it rides. That glorious flag which is our 
 pride and protection, by sea and land, what is it but a 
 piece of woollen bunting, with imitations of certain 
 stars and stripes? Aye! what is it? There is a 
 whole history in it. It is the symbol of a nation's free- 
 dom and independence. The memories, pride, patriot- 
 ism of a whole people are in its folds ; and as oft as it 
 is spread over our heads, the heart strikes quicker and 
 stronger, and the step is firmer and manlier. Whoever 
 would ridicule the precision of the Puritan in refusing 
 to wear the prescribed Papal habits, let him know that 
 that refusal was born of the freedom of the New Testa- 
 ment; and we shall meet it again in political history. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 183 
 
 when the controversy relates to such littlenesses as ship 
 money and paper stamps. 
 
 It is said to be a peculiarity of people born in New- 
 England, by which they may always be known, that 
 they have a habit of asking questions. Undoubtedly 
 they have. But that habit was not born of a discour- 
 teous and impertinent inquisitiveness, a meddling with 
 other men's matters; it has a nobler pedigree. There 
 underlies this national and sometimes troublesome pe- 
 culiarity, a great and potent principle, the root of our 
 history and the marrow of our bones. All reforms begin 
 with asking questions. A few centuries ago the world 
 was overshadowed with authority. Opinions were pre- 
 scribed alike in politics, philosophy and religion, by one 
 uniform despotism. The dialectics of Aristotle reigned 
 supreme in the Universities, when Lord Bacon began to 
 experiment and inquire, throwing into the crucible, and 
 asking what things were made of and made for; and 
 forthwith the new Philosophy was born. The Puritan 
 also began to ask questions ; how it was that a woman, 
 whom the Apostle had forbidden to speak in public, 
 could be the Chief Bishop of the Church? Who it was 
 that had the right to curtail his freedom in the worship 
 of God ? Whence did that right proceed ? Just so soon 
 Religion was reformed, put on her beautiful garments, 
 and bounded on her career of light and freedom. 
 James enraged and alarmed his subjects, by affirming 
 that they had no more right to inquire what he might 
 lawfully do, than what the Deity might lawfully do; 
 but the Puritan, believing that the Church of England 
 was originally founded on the right of private judg- 
 ment alone, immediately asked why he should submit 
 his private judgment to that. The political reformer 
 caught the spirit of investigation, and began to ask. 
 What is the foundation of this old adage : "The King 
 can do no wrong?" Do not crowns and thrones some- 
 
1 84 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 times cost more than they come to, asked the Round- 
 head; and RepubHcs were born in their place. So be 
 it that the questions propounded are sensible, they are 
 the voices of freedom and the index of manhood. 
 Doubtless the habit may exist in excess, degenerating 
 into frivolity or exaggeration. Many a beautiful work 
 of Art and production of Nature has been spoiled by 
 inquisitive boyhood wishing to see what was inside of 
 it; but we say it soberly, that investigation is the parent 
 of all freedom; free inquiry the stability of all right; and 
 that so soon as it is gone, nothing but insipidity or des- 
 potism remains. In the history of forensic eloquence, 
 it would be difficult to find more political wisdom or 
 common sense than were packed into the brief speech of 
 the late Duke of Wellington on the Reform Bill : "My 
 Lords, this measure was demanded by the people; it 
 has passed the House of Commons. I think it wise 
 that it should pass the House of Lords. Otherwise the 
 people may take it into their heads to ask the question, 
 'What use is there in having any House of Lords at 
 all?'" 
 
 If our fathers, as the freemen of the Lord, had not 
 pressed the right sort of questions, there had remained 
 to us no freedom whatever. 
 
 Again, it has been said that the Puritans rendered 
 themselves and their cause ridiculous by the nakedness 
 of their religion, the sourness of their faces, and the 
 austerity of their manners ; that they did violence to the 
 finer instincts of our nature, and are responsible for the 
 licentiousness and infidelity which afterwards ensued. 
 Mistakes, undoubtedly, they made; but we are disposed 
 to say, with Horace : 
 
 "Vernm ubi phira nitent in carmine, non ego paucis 
 Offendar maculis ;" ^ 
 
 ^ De Arte Poetica. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 185 
 
 which, in a free translation, may be rendered, "When 
 the sun shines, never mind the spots." Mistakes, grave 
 and sorrowful they made, we admit. Had they avoided 
 them, they would have been more than human. You 
 cannot understand those mistakes unless you bear in 
 mind the controversy in which they were engaged. As 
 with their virtues, so with their errors, both are to be 
 accounted for by the issue between Freedom and Tyr- 
 anny, to which they were pledged. Do you not know 
 that in polemics men always drive one another to ex- 
 tremes; and that, in proportion to the violence of the 
 contact, is the force of the rebound? The pendulum 
 which is thrown to the utmost limit in one direction, is 
 sure to swing as far in the opposite; and it will oscil- 
 late for a long time backwards and forwards, before it 
 reposes in the true medium. You laugh at the Puritans 
 because they gave their sons and their daughters such 
 uncouth names, out of the Old and New Testaments; 
 by the strangest solecism, calling their first-born son 
 Ichabod; their well-beloved daughter Tribulation, 
 or Godly Sorrow ; interlarding their conversation and 
 speeches with Scriptural phrases, and appending or 
 affixing to the names of their captains and leaders 
 whole verses out of the Bible, as if it were their study 
 to become as disagreeable and ridiculous as possible. 
 But we have seen that the very question at issue be- 
 tween them and their antagonists related to the author- 
 ity and freedom of the Bible; and, just in proportion as 
 that authority was denied, and that freedom was cur- 
 tailed, they were resolved that both should be asserted 
 and honored. That which strikes our ear as a laugh- 
 able mistake, at this distance of time, had no such sound 
 when the old battle was raging. If the one party stud- 
 ied to avoid the Bible, and do it despite, choosing the 
 names of their children out of profane classics, the ro- 
 
1 86 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 mances of the Troubadours, or the Roman Calendar, 
 would it not be the likeliest thing in the world, that the 
 opposite party would show their hand by selecting prae- 
 nomens out of the Book for which they were contend- 
 ing; and that with an utter disregard of sound and 
 sense? Is there no principle of our nature, to say 
 nothing of religion, by which we readily explain the 
 fact that, when the King issued his Book of Sports, 
 commanding men to frequent bear-gardens on Sun- 
 days, on that very account they would go in greater 
 numbers to the conventicle; and that, on their way 
 thither, their faces would be drawn down into an un- 
 usual length and awful gravity? If bacchanalian cho- 
 ruses were the choice of the roystering reprobates on 
 the one side, do you wonder that barbarous versions of 
 the Psalms, and these delivered by some with an un- 
 necessary drawl and nasal twang, were in use by the 
 opposition? When the war was active between two 
 immense forces, is it strange that every sign, badge 
 and emblem of the one should be stripped off, and even 
 trampled under foot by the other ? Because the cross, 
 that beautiful symbol of our faith, was then the ensign 
 of a political party which they esteemed aggressive 
 and despotic ; therefore, the Puritans took it down from 
 their church steeples, and substituted a bare weather- 
 cock, guiltless of all such associations. Say now, in 
 these easy days of toleration, that they carried their 
 antipathies too far; but go back to the times when the 
 strife was pending to which all our liberties are to be 
 traced, and say whether you cannot do more than jus- 
 tify, even honor the sacrifice which stripped off the 
 decorations of Religion in order to save its life. It was 
 Abraham offering up his own son, Jephtha sacrific- 
 ing his own daughter, when the Puritan showed his 
 purpose to forego some of the sweetest privileges of his 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 187 
 
 faith, on the principle that what was lawful, in itself, 
 was not expedient or right in those critical exigencies 
 which were to decide the destinies of generations. I 
 speak not of the present times, but there is not a man 
 of us who, had it been his lot to take part in the strug- 
 gles of our fathers, would not have refused the observ- 
 ance of Christmas, that annual festival which was gar- 
 landed with all the memories of ancestry, just so soon 
 as it was understood that the name itself was a symbol 
 of the great strife to which all were pledged. For the 
 same reason was it, because one party addressed prayers 
 to a multitude of Saints, some of whom, to say the 
 least, were of a doubtful character, therefore the Puri- 
 tan refused the prefix of Saint even to the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles, and the Disciple who leaned on Jesus' 
 bosom. Because the Romanist prescribed the duty of 
 praying for the dead, the Puritan, to avoid the least im- 
 putation of what he regarded an unscriptural error, 
 declined all religious services at the interment of his 
 friends. The first instance in which it is known that a 
 prayer was offered at a funeral in New-England, was 
 so late as 1685, at the interment of Rev. William 
 Adams, of Dedham, Massachusetts, an act which at- 
 tracted much observation and comment at the time.^ 
 Puritanism, the nakedness of religion! It was the 
 nakedness of the athlete, entering the arena, stripping 
 himself of every robe which w^ould embarrass his limbs, 
 before wrestling for very life. The struggle past, won- 
 der not that the victor, as he carried away the Book for 
 which he had fought, held up high and foremost his 
 glorious prize; that, in the outburst of his enthusiasm 
 and exultation, he poured scorn on all things profane 
 and human, in opposition to the object of his reverence 
 and faith. Wonder not that when he took it with him 
 * Sewall's Diary. 
 
1 88 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 into the cabin of the Mayflower — a free dove into the 
 ark — he solaced his lonely voyage with its sublime reve- 
 lations; that three sermons a day throughout the pas- 
 sage charmed the weariness of the exiles, and that their 
 jubilant psalms mingled day and night with the roar 
 of the winds, and the everlasting anthem of the ocean. 
 Think it not strange that men, emerging from such a 
 history, should require some time to relax their reli- 
 gious austerity, and discover, in new circumstances, the 
 happy medium. Smile not at the great truth which is 
 hidden in the playful remark of that veracious histo- 
 rian, Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, that "the colonists 
 unanimously resolved that they would take the legisla- 
 tion of Moses as the laws of the province, till such time 
 as they had leism-e to make better." What else, in all 
 consistency, could they do, than honor the Book against 
 which government, authority and letters had so long 
 been in arms? Thus of necessity, from the very en- 
 thusiasm of their success, they pendulated into the ex- 
 treme of severity. The forced conformity of the Eng- 
 lish commonwealth, and the legislative gravity of the 
 New-England colonists, were mistakes, as we say; but 
 they were mistakes which no human wisdom could 
 have escaped. There are some things in our nature 
 which never can be coerced. Seriousness is one, and 
 laughter is another. The Puritans rebelled when King 
 James commanded them to play according to law. We 
 wish now that they could have remembered the same 
 law of humanity when they sought to make men serious 
 according to statute. For myself, I have never won- 
 dered at the phenomena of New-England witchcraft. 
 Unless human nature has materially changed since the 
 days of our boyhood, I incline to think that, were the 
 same enactments in force now which existed two centu- 
 ries ago in Massachusetts, relative to the forced gravity 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 189 
 
 of the young, queer things would occasionally make 
 their appearance down the chimneys ; incomprehensible 
 pins would be stuck into the flesh of aged gravity, and 
 unaccountable missiles would be projected by invisible 
 hands. 
 
 Nor is this all which can be said of Puritanical aus- 
 terity. There is a liberty which leads to lawlessness. 
 The heroes of Plutarch, with their passionate love of 
 freedom, had no conception of the laws by which that 
 freedom should be moderated and restrained. No ser- 
 vitude is so debasing as liberty without law. All his- 
 tory had chronicled the same story — those who would 
 be free, baffled by their own success, and buried beneath 
 their own triumphs — independence leading to wealth, 
 wealth to luxury, luxury to impatience of control, and 
 this, by rapid stages, to effeminacy, corruption, vassal- 
 age, and destruction, A new thing was that which the 
 Puritan had undertaken. Liberty, which tends to ex- 
 cess, he sought to moderate and control. Hence he 
 subjected himself to severe discipline. Breaking away 
 from the authority of the King, in a peculiar sense, he 
 put himself under the authority of God. He struck for 
 freedom, and conquered himself. He demanded his 
 rights, and passed his "self-denying ordinances." The 
 more he was coerced into rebellion against political and 
 ecclesiastical usurpation, the more weights and laws, 
 denials and mortifications, he laid on himself. That 
 liberty which he espoused was not the goddess of 
 which Pagans had sung, with a loose dress, a flushed 
 cheek, bacchanalian voice and dancing step ; rather was 
 it, in the imagery of the book he had studied so wisely 
 and loved so well, a "chaste virgin," whose very smile 
 was sobered with gravity, whose beauty was that of 
 serious thought, and whose every grace of garment, 
 word and manner, declared not only the spirit of life, 
 
I90 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 but the lazv of religion at the heart. The Puritan was 
 not the first man who had fought heroically and suc- 
 cessfully for freedom ; but he was the chief of those, 
 who having obtained it, however intolerant he may 
 have been, was not intoxicated and ruined by it. He 
 did more than break the bands of the Philistines; he 
 avoided the effeminacy of pleasure, and rigidly adhered 
 to that self-control and abstemiousness in which was 
 the secret of his strength. Hence gravity with him was 
 a study, and austerity a law. His dread of the play- 
 house, the bear-garden, the dance and the revel, was his 
 mode of expressing a great truth — that man, if he 
 would preserve and enjoy liberty, must keep himself 
 from those things, which tend to the destruction of lib- 
 erty. Say he was mistaken as to modes and degrees; 
 who shall question the truth of his judgment? Our lib- 
 erties may be secured in charters and constitutions; 
 but who or what shall guarantee us against the ex- 
 cesses of liberty but self-control in the individual man? 
 The motive power, the mainspring, the regulator, bal- 
 ance and detent, must be combined in the same mechan- 
 ism. Give to the comet its centrifugal force alone, and 
 it will burn and destroy, strewing its lawless flight 
 with blazing ruin : but join therewith the centripetal 
 power, and it will be sure to turn at the right point, and 
 shoot along its boundless path, itself a world of fire, 
 yet passing between other worlds without collision or 
 harm, awakening only admiration at the harmony and 
 beauty of the mighty laws it obeys. Show us where 
 and when there has been a political revolution in these 
 modern times, favorable to liberty, which has been suc- 
 cessful without this combination of life and law, im- 
 pulse and restraint, which is secured by the Christian 
 faith. No man understands the politics or literature 
 of Continental Europe, who remembers not that infi- 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 191 
 
 delity once arose in mighty wrath against despotism, 
 enlisting herself in the cause of justice and humanity, 
 asserting man's rights with an eloquent tongue and de- 
 fending his weakness with a strong arm ; but when the 
 old tyranny was dethroned, the successful combatant 
 put the torch to the temples of religion and liberty, 
 burned up its own house, and like the demoniac in the 
 New Testament, went raging about among the tombs, 
 cutting its own flesh, and refusing alike the restraints 
 of chains and clothes. English Puritanism uprose 
 against the same despotism ; but when its victories were 
 won, it reared its churches and school-houses; casting 
 away the chain, it held itself in firm faith to truth and 
 duty ; with the Bible in its hand and prayer in its heart, 
 it went to work to build up free institutions on the 
 foundations of religion. Therein lies the difference be- 
 tween the history of Puritan republicanism and all the 
 mournful disappointments of the world. 
 
 One thing more remains to be said to complete our 
 analysis. That book which was the Puritan's law, had 
 taught him a great truth of history — the justice of the 
 Almighty; in the faith of the ultimate vindication of 
 which he was armed for duty and endurance. There 
 are many forms of heroism ; the highest often the least 
 honored. The soldier sits composedly on his charger 
 in the face of danger, or rushes into "the imminent 
 deadly breach," but it is with the flag of his country 
 floating proudly over him, with the inspiration of mar- 
 tial music thrilling his every nerve; with the proud 
 consciousness that a nation's eyes are fixed on his bear- 
 ing, and should he fall, a nation's hand would hang 
 wreaths of honor upon his urn. Our fathers espoused 
 a good cause, and believing that a just God would, one 
 day, vindicate it and them, they displayed the higher 
 heroism of patient fortitude under suffering unob- 
 
192 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 served and unapplauded. Nor are we to suppose that 
 to them was given any adequate conception of the mag- 
 nificent results of their decision. Cod makes men great 
 by withholding from them the knowledge of their 
 greatness; hiding, as by a veil, pierced here and there 
 for mere glimpses of the future, the splendid rewards 
 of their actions, while strengthening them in a stead- 
 fast trust in present duty. Could they, whose serious 
 features we recall to-night with filial reverence, have 
 foreseen all the results which we now behold; the laws, 
 the governments, the civilization which have followed 
 their wisdom and valor; could they have known what 
 changes in the world would occur in consequence of 
 their great sacrifices, the enthusiasm of that vision 
 would have relieved their life of all its bitterness. But 
 this was the heroism of their faith. Like their Lord 
 and Master they made themselves of "no reputation." 
 They went out of their own gates, turning their backs 
 on the universities in which they had courted letters ; 
 on the pulpits in which they had preached righteous- 
 ness; on the homes in which their affections had nes- 
 tled ; expatriated themselves in a strange land ; braved 
 the terrors of the Western Ocean, the cold of an un- 
 known sky, the solitude of an unexplored wilderness, 
 cut the last link which bound them to the civilized 
 world, and were alone with the stars and with God. 
 The}'' staggered in the faintness of famine; with their 
 own hands they dug the graves of wife and child ; when 
 half were buried, they knew not but that all would die 
 before the return of the bird-singing, and the whole 
 might die and not be missed by the world they had left ; 
 notwithstanding all which, such was their faith in the 
 justice of God, that they who survived were sure, 
 though the stars over their heads should fall, and the 
 pillars of heaven should tremble, the truth and the right 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 193 
 
 would triumph at the last; and having withstood in 
 the evil day, they planted their feet firm as the rock on 
 which they stood, and in the sublimest of all heroism, 
 resolved, having- done all things else, to stand. How 
 has that justice been vindicated! Look at the Puri- 
 tans when depressed and despised under the Tudors 
 and Stuarts — the persecuted band in the perils of their 
 exodus and pilgrimage in the wilderness, and you 
 might be ready to scoff at the folly of faith, and doubt 
 the justice of Heaven. But time is long, and God is 
 calm. The drama is not yet to be ended. That which 
 once was a reproach is in honor now, as if the Almightv 
 were emptying his affluence to vindicate his equity. It 
 has its schools and its universities, its freedom and its 
 laws, its spindles and its ploughs, its steam-presses, 
 steamships, and speech-lightning; its commerce and its 
 navies; a world-continent, with room enough and to 
 spare ; its declarations and constitutions ; its millions of 
 men, with free thought and free speech, and where is 
 the power of the world to-day? Not in Venice, nor 
 Florence, nor Lisbon, nor Madrid, but with those who 
 SDeak the English language, freighted as it is with all 
 the thousfhts and voices of freedom. 
 
 Behold the auspices under which we are called to 
 frame here a new form of human society. 
 
 First of all are the memories of ancestry, and the 
 traditions of a long and eventful history. From the 
 tone of contempt which has been affected by some, it 
 might be inferred that we were a people without a 
 rightful ancestry, unacknowledged before the world, 
 "disgraceful foundlings, blushing at the bend of ille- 
 gitimacy in our coat armorial." Can any thing be 
 more absurd? Can any inhabitant of the British isle 
 boast of a prouder pedigree than we? The pride of 
 those who still hold the ancestral cliffs, records our 
 
194 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 consanguinity in every blazon of their honors. The 
 old unconquered British, the Saxon, Rollo's Scandi- 
 navian blood, are ours.* Our bones are full of the 
 memories of British history. The blood which flows 
 in our veins is the same which once warmed the brave 
 hearts now sleepinsf in the moss-grown graves of Eng- 
 land's martyrs. If there be anv virtue in historic lin- 
 eage, the literature and life of England are ours; nor 
 can any man between Land's-End and the Orkneys, 
 possess a greater claim to the fame of one iurist, poet, 
 philosopher, or defender of libert)'- in British history, 
 than we ourselves. Does the act of transnlanting a 
 tree dispossess it of any of the layers of fibre which 
 form its substance? 
 
 While this identity of history and langnage exists, 
 one thing is to be named wherein we stand alone. The 
 circumstances under which England was separated 
 from the Roman dynasty in the reign of Henry VTTI, 
 have entailed a connection between Church and State 
 which has embarrassed her secular policv, and will em- 
 barrass it for a long time to come. By slow degrees 
 we have reached, what as yet no other nation has at- 
 tained, the entire separation of Church and State, with 
 no diminution, but an increase of the power of true 
 religion. Not to speak of politicians who have had 
 their own ends in view, men like Hooker, Stillinefleet. 
 Burnet, Warburton. Paley, Gladstone, and Chalmers, 
 have defended the alliance of ecclesiastical and secular 
 politics, on different grounds: but chiefly because of 
 an assumed obligation of the Government to provide 
 for the highest interest of the people. It was for our 
 land to solve the problem at which piety and wisdom 
 had toiled elsewhere in vain, how the power of religion 
 could be increased over a people, at the same time that 
 * James H. Hillhouse. 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 195 
 
 it borrowed no aid nor support from the Civil Gov- 
 ernment. The facts of the last census will be a cheer- 
 ing voice to those who are elsewhere striving for the 
 same freedom. England tolerates all religions; but 
 toleration is an odious word. While one form of reli- 
 gion is permitted, another is established by law and 
 statute. The blaze of those bonfires, and the ringing 
 of those bells which announced the national joy on the 
 repeal of the test and corporation acts, have scarcely 
 yet died away. But this was but a partial advance 
 towards that liberty which we had attained long be- 
 fore, and the presage of yet other advancements which 
 we have left far behind us. Some of the best men in 
 England at this moment are debarred from their just 
 rights at the universities and elsewhere, because con- 
 science compels them to dissent from the established 
 religion. We have no dissenters in America. We 
 boast not of toleration, but of universal freedom and 
 equality. The truth on this subject was not reached 
 all at once. When that noble man, John Robinson — 
 fit in every quality of learning, prudence and piety, to be 
 the leader of the brave band whose deeds we celebrate 
 — bade them, in the memorable address which he made 
 to them on the eve of their embarkation, to remember 
 that more light was yet to "break out of God's zuord, 
 that the Reformation was not yet complete, that Luther 
 and Calvin had stopped short of the whole, it was not 
 of any occult philosophy hidden beneath the surface of 
 the new Testament of which he spake: undoubtedly it 
 was of this very thing, the relations of religion to the 
 civil power, that he intended to be understood. Some 
 glimpses of the truth on this subject had he, and be- 
 fore God and his elect angels he charged them to keep 
 their minds open to receive the whole when it should 
 come. Bv little and little did it come, till the last dis- 
 
196 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ability was removed, and legislation utterly ceased from 
 all attempts at installing- one form of religion at the 
 expense of another ; and here is a vast continent, where 
 religion now asks no other support than the intelligent 
 minds and warm hearts of her own disciples. This 
 perfect liberty and equality for all forms of religious 
 opinion sometimes brings with it, of course, sentiments 
 which are noxious. But there can be no true freedom 
 for what is good, except there be freedom likewise for 
 what is bad ; and where is the bad so likely to be neu- 
 tralized and counteracted, as where running waters 
 meet together and purify themselves by a gentle effer- 
 vescence of contrary qualities, instead of stagnating in 
 a feculent pool, where no breeze or current disturbs 
 the slime which mantles its surface. The best mode 
 of refuting error is to let it out into the air. Powder 
 is harmless if thrown loosely on the surface: when 
 rammed hard into a barrel it becomes powerful and 
 perilous. The danger is not so much from what is 
 allowed to come out freely from men's mouths, as from 
 what is forced down into their silent hearts ; and when 
 any government has succeeded in putting pulpits and 
 presses under the most complete censorship, then look 
 out for explosions. The more still it is the nearer is the 
 tempest. In the very last report he ever made to his 
 monarch. Archbishop Laud declared that never was 
 there a church or kingdom in such complete and quiet 
 conformity ; and this on the very eve of the storm which 
 drove king and primate before it as the whirlwind 
 drives the chaff. If any man has a conceit in his brain, 
 let him preach it and print it. If the snake has a fang, 
 thanks to Providence it has a rattle: the noise of its 
 free motion renders it harmless. Great confidence have 
 we in the common sense of mankind : greater still in all 
 truth, which never yet has suffered in free and full dis- 
 
 [ 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 197 
 
 cussion. Weapons which seem at first to pierce her 
 through and through, leave her spiritual form un- 
 harmed. We fear at first, we are shocked when things 
 false and irreverent are said of what is true and holy. 
 For their own sakes, and for the mischief they do to the 
 unwary, we greatly deplore that there should be so 
 many vipers brought out by the kindling fires of free- 
 dom ; but on this account we cannot consent to put out 
 the fires, and freeze to death on the barbaric island of 
 despotism.^ When the warm sun of the summer is up 
 it brings all unclean and creeping things to life; the 
 grass is full of all manner of vermin, so is the bark of 
 the trees, and the adder crawls out to bask in the glow- 
 ing heat; but whole harvests of grain are overtopping 
 and concealing the mischief, the trees are growing taller 
 and taller, spreading out their fruitful boughs wider 
 and wider ; and with every abatement and disadvantage 
 which can be conceived of by those who are the most 
 fearful and intolerant, we point the friends of freedom 
 throughout the world to our own history to prove that, 
 where liberty is greatest its evils are fewest ; where reli- 
 gion is altogether unsupported by law, it is supported 
 most and best. Men of progress and men of enter- 
 prise are here its decided friends, and such a vast 
 growth of hopes gladdens our hearts under its smiles, 
 that we scarcely think, of the small mischiefs which at- 
 tend its imperial munificence. 
 
 When the earth was depopulated by a flood. My- 
 thology informs us that Deucalion was directed to re- 
 plenish it by casting over his head the bones of his 
 mother, or, in less poetic phrase, the stones of the 
 ground. So much as this may be derived from the 
 
 * The Author has allowed ten by him for the Christian 
 himself to repeat here a few Review, Jan. 1852. 
 sentences from an article writ- 
 
198 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 fable — that the greatest renovations of society are ac- 
 complished by going back to simple and original prin- 
 ciples. That which was our origin must be our preser- 
 vation ; that which was our cradle must be our bulwark. 
 Our trust for the future, both for ourselves and for the 
 world, under God, is in the two old-fashioned, unpre- 
 tending, unvarnished things, which our fathers laid as 
 the foundation of the Republic, a Spelling-book and 
 the Bible. With God's blessing, these potent agents 
 will accomplish results surpassing poetic fancy ; but all 
 the wisdom and power and progress of the world, will 
 never make a safe, happy and self-governed freeman 
 WITHOUT them. Let intelligence and religion go hand 
 in hand, and every peril will vanish from our path. 
 Letters are not like the dragon's teeth of Cadmus, 
 which, sown on the earth, spring up a frightful host of 
 armed men; they are the manna with which Heaven 
 has whitened the whole surface of the ground around 
 our camp, as food for the people. We cannot reason 
 with a man who questions the utility of a free Bible. 
 The absurd pretensions of Oriental barbarism excite 
 smiles, rather than arguments. A little bigotry amuses 
 us; a good deal disgusts us; but when it is excessive 
 and monstrous, it is positively ludicrous. We look at 
 it as upon the portentous feats of a harlequin, wonder- 
 ing what in the world he will do next. Fast as the 
 forest drops before the march of civilization, let the 
 school-house and the church go up, as they rose in all 
 the infant settlements of New England. In the one, 
 let every child be taught to spell the great words, God, 
 man, liberty and law; and in the other, let a whole 
 people be trained in that religion which, lighting up 
 the hopes of immortality, is the blessing, the protection, 
 the ornament of time. The world is coming to us, and 
 so it is that we are acting not for ourselves only, but 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 199 
 
 for the world. As all the tribes of the earth are has- 
 tening into our confederacy; the German bringing a 
 language laden with multifarious learning; the French 
 a tongue with much of pure science and every thing 
 besides; as dialects yet more strange begin to mingle 
 with our speech ; as the feet of our children are already 
 on the Pacific; as China at last has been tapped by an 
 emigration foreshadowing we know not what, and the 
 Jericho-walls of her barbaric exclusiveness are falling 
 down before the universal Peripatetics who circumam- 
 bulate them, we rejoice in this, that all will here acquire 
 a language which just now is the only one in all the 
 world in which a man may speak out an honest mind, 
 blunt and bravely, on all subjects, the language of com- 
 mon sense, of liberty and of religion. Here they come 
 in contact with that open Book, the symbol of a free 
 Christianity, which inculcates intelligence, industry, in- 
 dependence, self-reliance, republican virtues, as they 
 may be called ; a book, whose first lesson, by awakening 
 the sense of individuality, is, that under God, a man 
 may do more for himself than all the governments and 
 churches of the world can do for him ; and which, when 
 independence tends to excess and disintegration, los- 
 ing reverence and love, interposes a social law, which 
 forbids self-absorption, and discloses the highest good 
 of one in the highest prosperity of all. 
 
 Next to an extreme individuality, by which multi- 
 tudes of good men are tempted to leave politics to care 
 for themselves, or to those who are least to be trusted, 
 our greatest peril springs from an immense prosperity 
 stimulating a thirst for gain, and intruding at length 
 its golden bribes into the sanctities of public legislation. 
 As he who ran with Atalanta in the race provided him- 
 self with golden balls, by which to turn her out of her 
 straight and lawful course; so our only danger of de- 
 
200 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 feat in the nimble-footed race we have begun, is in 
 being diverted by sideway prizes, out of the straight 
 path of downright honesty and virtue. Against for- 
 eign assailants we might arm ourselves ; but what shall 
 save us from corruption at the heart, save the self- 
 preserving salt of religion? 
 
 While the statute books of a single nation form an 
 immense library, the surpassing wonder is, that all the 
 legislation of God for the world should be contained 
 in one small book; for man is a microcosm, and law 
 for one is law for the universe. Before the Christian 
 era, there was no international law but that of ambition 
 and strength. It was on the mind of Grotius, as a 
 jurist, that the truth first dawned, that the great prin- 
 ciples which the Christian religion has prescribed for 
 the conduct of individuals have an equal application to 
 nations ; and ever since we have been gradually nearing 
 the conviction, yet to become universal, that the whole 
 code of international law is packed away in that brief 
 formula of justice and love, which Christianity has 
 made the law of the nursery — "Whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do unto you, do ye also the same to 
 them;" the poet's dream realized in a sublime fact — a 
 fairy tent, folded up like a lady's fan, yet spreading out 
 into dimensions sufficient to hold all the armies of the 
 world. 
 
 When Hercules joined battle with Achelous, the 
 latter assumed the form of a fierce and furious bull, 
 and then of a hissing serpent; but the former retained 
 his simple human form; and with naked hand encoun- 
 tered the monster. The struggle is not yet ended be- 
 tween good and evil. Let every American preserve 
 unchanged the form of a simple, honest, earnest man- 
 hood ; with the love of liberty and of God in his heart ; 
 the law of truth in his speech ; the light of intelligence 
 
WILLIAM ADAMS 201 
 
 in his eye, and the bounty of goodness in his hand, and 
 so courageously battle against all the violence, and 
 poison, and wrong of the world. God prosper the 
 right! And when the victories of truth and freedom 
 are universal, then and not till then will be the time to 
 write the eulogy of our Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 We enter upon this anniversary beneath wreaths of 
 cypress and not of laurel.^ Meet is it that the voice of 
 festivity should be hushed; for he who had so often 
 been with us on these occasions, whose sonorous voice 
 had so eloquently celebrated this day of our forefathers 
 in words which will ever adorn our national literature. 
 New England's greatest son, has gone from private 
 friendships and a nation's honors, to rest in that Pilgrim 
 dust which he so much loved and honored. While 
 others have eulogized his learning and eloquence as a 
 jurist, his greatness as a statesman, it is only appro- 
 priate to this occasion for me to say that he was the 
 genuine growth of our own soil, and the peculiar prod- 
 uct of our own institutions. No flags floated over 
 baronial halls in honor of his birth; no fretted ceiling 
 and storied arch of universities looked down upon his 
 education. Springing from the bosom of the people, 
 working his way upward by his own spontaneous and 
 irrepressible force, he could not have been what he was 
 but for the peculiar influences of his New England 
 home. The small, low, brown house of a plain New 
 Hampshire farmer, with its well-sweep and trees; the 
 patriotic father who told him of the battles of the 
 Revolution ; the pious mother who taught him the cate- 
 chism and the Sabbath hymns; the ploughed field and 
 the mown meadow ; the trials and struggles of the hon- 
 
 ^ Because of the recent de- dispense with their annual 
 cease of Hon. Daniel Web- dinner, 
 ster the Society had voted to 
 
202 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 est poor ; the winter district-school ; the snow storm ; 
 the aspirations after knowledge ; the difficulties in meet- 
 ing the expenses of an education ; the sympathy of lov- 
 ing brothers; the affectionateness of humble kindred; 
 the New England College ; the meeting-house ; the Sab- 
 bath; Thanksgiving Day; in a word, all the scenery 
 and institutions of his native land, these were the influ- 
 ences which lay about the roots of his character, and 
 made him what he was, in every thought, memory, in- 
 stinct and sympathy, thoroughly American. 
 
 And he has gone! We have laid him down in the 
 spot which he had himself chosen, by the side of our 
 forefathers, and within sight of the Rock which their 
 feet first touched. Should the time ever come when 
 the memories of our origin and our history should fade 
 into dimness; should the national sentiment grow fee- 
 ble at the heart; should there be found one among us 
 so dead to all patriotism as to care not for the noble 
 lessons which his wisdom gave us, him will we lead to 
 that simple and unpretending tomb, hard by the shore 
 which first welcomed the Pilgrims, hoping that the 
 name and memory of Daniel Webster will rouse his 
 dormant spirit, even as the bones of Elisha imparted a 
 new life to the dead man who was let down into his 
 sepulchre. 
 
THE CENTRAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 MARK HOPKINS, D.D. 
 1853 
 
MARK HOPKINS 
 (1802-1887.) 
 
 The celebration at the Church of the Puritans in 1853 was ad- 
 dressed by that master among teachers, Dr. Mark Hopkins, for 
 thirty-six years president of Williams College, and for thirty 
 years the strong and wise head of the American Board of For- 
 eign Missions. Eminent as a student, thinker, and speaker, he 
 was greatest in his personal influence on those about him. 
 When he took its leadership, Williams was still a small institu- 
 tion. Under his wise and self-denying presidency, it became 
 one of the powerful colleges of the country. Dr. Hopkins was 
 a native of Stockbridge. He graduated from Williams in 1824, 
 and shortly returned to it as a tutor. An offer of the chair of 
 philosophy and rhetoric changed his arrangements for entering 
 medical practice in New York, and made Williamstown his 
 permanent home. Six years later, at thirty-four, he was 
 elected president. Many of his courses of lectures were pub- 
 lished, receiving wide attention, and it is interesting to note 
 that Dr. Hopkins was a forerunner of those who now empha- 
 size the value of study of the natural sciences. 
 
ORATION 
 
 THE celebrations and amusements of a people indi- 
 cate their character. A populace, such as des- 
 potism and superstition produce and imply, require to 
 be amused by pageants, and processions, and sports, 
 and masquerades. Giving up the care of their gov- 
 ernment to the king, and of their salvation to the priest, 
 what have they to do but to convert their holy-days 
 into holidays, and when a prescribed formality has sat- 
 isfied the conscience, to follow a monkey, or a tumbler, 
 to visit the cock-pit or the gaming-table, to be gay, and, 
 shall I say, happy, — no, not happy — but to be amused 
 and managed like grown-up children. To such, the 
 idea of a Sabbath as a day of holy rest, is inconceivable. 
 
 A people, on the other hand, reflective, self -governed, 
 feeling their individual and immediate responsibility to 
 God, will create an atmosphere stifling to all pageantry 
 and mummery. They will keep their Sabbaths; their 
 festivities will be irradiated by a rational joy, and their 
 celebrations and holidays will not be without something 
 to strengthen principle, and nourish the affections. 
 These days will be consecrated to the progress of the 
 peaceful arts; they will commemorate the bounties of 
 Providence, the struggles and triumphs of freedom, the 
 piety and heroism of Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers ! What wealth of hallowed associa- 
 tions is garnered in these words! B)'' what others in 
 
 205 
 
2o6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 the English language should we prefer to designate our 
 ancestors ? 
 
 They were Pilgrims — and such Pilgrims. They 
 sought no shrine already hallowed. Not by super- 
 stition, or fanaticism, or the love of adventure, or 
 desire for gain, singly or combined, were they moved ; 
 but, like Abraham, they went out in the grandeur of 
 simple faith, not knowing whither they w^ent. They 
 went, as they themselves say, "with the great hope and 
 inward seal they had of laying some good foundation 
 for the propagating and advancing the kingdom of 
 Christ in these remote parts of the world." ^ 
 
 That the object assigned by them was their great 
 object, God has been careful to make evident, not from 
 testimony alone, but precisely as he did in the case of 
 the Apostles and first Christians. So close indeed is 
 the parallel, in circumstances, in character, and in re- 
 sults, that the same language wall apply to both. 
 
 It was only through long inward struggles, and 
 searchings of the Scriptures, and much prayer, that 
 both were brought to separate themselves from a 
 Church in which they w^ere born, but which had sub- 
 stituted the traditions of man for the word of God, and 
 the forms of religion instead of its spirit. And in 
 making this separation, the temper and sincerity of 
 both were tried to the utmost. Both were forbidden to 
 preach or to teach under heavy penalties, were impris- 
 oned, deprived of their property, put to death, driven 
 from their country and scattered abroad by persecution. 
 Both were placed socially under ban, and utterly scorned 
 by all that passed for refinement in their day — were re- 
 garded as "the filth of the earth, and the off-scouring of 
 all things." Against both. Providence itself and the 
 very elements sometimes seemed to conspire, as when 
 ' Young's Chronicles. 
 
MARK HOPKINS 207 
 
 Paul was imprisoned for years, and was shipwrecked, 
 and was a night and a day in the deep; and when the 
 Pilgrims attempted to leave England, and the enemy 
 came upon them and divided their families, and the 
 storm arose. 
 
 But in these trials they were alike patient and confi- 
 dent in God. Paul could say, "I knoiv whom I have 
 believed." John Penry could say just before his mar- 
 tyrdom, "I testify unto you for mine own part, as I 
 shall answer it before Jesus Christ, and his elect angels, 
 that I never saw any truth more clear and more un- 
 doubted than this witness wherein we stand." Paul 
 could say, "I am ready to be offered." Penry could 
 say, "And I thank my God, I am not only ready to be 
 bound and banished, but even to die for this cause, by 
 his strength." Paul could say, "I am in a strait be- 
 twixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, 
 which is far better" — but added — "Nevertheless, to 
 abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Penry 
 could say, "I greatly long, in regard of myself, to be 
 dissolved and to live in the blessed kingdom of heaven 
 with Jesus Christ and his angels." And he too could 
 add, "I would indeed, if it be his good pleasure, live yet 
 with you to help you bear that grievous and hard yoke 
 which ye are like to sustain, either here or in a strange 
 land." And if the Apostle had had a wife and chil- 
 dren, he could hardly have committed them with 
 stronger faith to exile and the promises. "And here," 
 says Penry, "I humbly beseech you, not in any outward 
 regard, as I shall answer it before my God, that you 
 would take my poor and desolate widow, and mess of 
 fatherless and friendless orphans, with you into exile 
 whithersoever you may go, and you shall find, I doubt 
 not, that the blessed promises of my God made to me 
 and mine will accompany you. . . . Only I be- 
 
208 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 seech you, let them not continue after you in this land, 
 where they must be forced to go again into Egypt." 
 
 Such was their spirit. Persons of all conditions and 
 of all ages were thus sustained through years of desti- 
 tution and suffering. Some dying in prison, as Neale 
 says, "like rotten sheep," and some enduring the perils 
 and hardships of the wilderness; but all cheerful and 
 confident in God. 
 
 Nor were these persons, as a body, more than the 
 early Christians, narrow, or bigoted, or sour, or fanat- 
 ical, or turbulent, or seekers of novelties. Says Rob- 
 inson : "As they that affect alienation from others make 
 their differences as great, and the adverse opinion or 
 practice as odious as they can, thereby to further their 
 desired victory over them, and to harden themselves and 
 their side against them, so, on the contrary, they who 
 desire peace and accord, both interpret things in the 
 best part they reasonably can, and seek how and where 
 they may find any lawful door of entry into accord and 
 agreement with others : of which latter number I pro- 
 fess myself, by the grace of God, both a companion and 
 a guide, especially in regard of my Christian country- 
 men . . . accounting it a cross that I am com- 
 pelled, in any particular, to dissent from them, but a 
 benefit and matter of rejoicing when I can in any thing, 
 with good conscience, unite with them in matter, if not 
 in manner, or, where it may be, in both." ^ "We up- 
 hold," says he, "whatsoever manifest good we know in 
 the Church of England, whether doctrine, ordinance, 
 or personal grace, to our utmost. We do acknowledge 
 in it many excellent truths of doctrine which we also 
 teach without commixture of error; many Christian 
 ordinances which we also practice — being purged from 
 the pollution of Anti-Christ — nnd for the godly per- 
 
 * Works, vol. iii., p. 354. 
 
MARK HOPKINS 209 
 
 sons in it, could we possibly separate them from the 
 profane, we would gladly embrace them with both 
 arms." ^ How noble this in a persecuted and exiled 
 man! So far were they from seeking novelties, that 
 he says : ''But we, for our parts, as we do believe, by 
 the word of God, that the things that we teach are not 
 new, but old truths renewed, so are we no less fully per- 
 suaded that the church constitution in which we are 
 set is cast in the apostolic and primitive mould, and not 
 one day nor hour younger, in the nature and form of it, 
 than the first Church of the New Testament." ^ 
 
 Our fathers had no "mad rage" against what Hume 
 calls "inoffensive observances, surplices, corner-caps 
 and tippets." ^ They contended for a great principle, 
 precisely as Paul did. As a matter of expediency, Paul 
 took Timothy and circumcised him. He cared nothing 
 about circumcision one way or the other, but when it 
 was attempted to impose circumcision as binding, and 
 the great principle of religious liberty was at stake, he 
 "gave subjection to them, no, not for an hour." He 
 was then as precise as any Puritan ever was, and would 
 have gone to prison and to death for a thing indifferent 
 in itself, just as the Puritans did. When a great prin- 
 ciple is in question, it matters little what brings the 
 conflict on. It may be a sixpenny tax, or a pound o£ 
 tea, or a tippet, or a surplice. No body cares any thing 
 about the tea or the tippet; but we thank God that 
 there have been men who would set a continent on fire, 
 and spend millions of money, and lay down their lives, 
 rather than pay that sixpenny tax when its payment 
 would have conceded the right to exact it; and we 
 thank God that there have been men who, rather than 
 
 * Works, vol. ii., p. 14. Principles, by Dr. Hall, Int. 
 
 ^ Works, vol. iii., p. 43. Lect. 
 
 ^ See the Puritans and their 
 
210 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 wear a tippet or surplice, when to have done so would 
 have compromised the great principle of religious lib- 
 erty, would go to prison and to death. 
 
 But those who urge that the Puritans were over-scru- 
 pulous, may not perceive that that is a two-edged 
 sword ; for if the points were thus indifferent, what shall 
 we say of the intense bigotry and narrowness of those 
 who, for want of conformity in things indifferent, could 
 turn two thousand ministers from their pulpits, and im- 
 prison men, and put them to death? No, both parties 
 understood well what they were contending for, and if 
 the Puritans had submitted to the imposition of tippets 
 and surplices, this continent would have had another 
 history. 
 
 And this leads me to say, that the seal of God in the 
 success and moral glory that have crowned their enter- 
 prise has not been less unequivocal in the case of our 
 fathers than in that of the early Christians. In each 
 case there was but "a handful of corn in the earth, and 
 God made the fruit thereof to shake as Lebanon." 
 The sun does not look down upon better results of a 
 pure Christianity in families, in churches, in schools 
 and colleges, in missions, and in civil freedom, than can 
 be traced directly and wholly to their sufferings and 
 labors. If we consider their feeble beginnings, and the 
 obstacles they had to encounter, the world has seen 
 nothing like it. 
 
 Nor is it in this country alone that the fruits of their 
 principles are seen. The civil liberty of England was 
 from them alone. Not to mention the explicit passage 
 so often quoted from Hume, Lord King says : "As for 
 toleration, or any true notion of religious liberty, or any 
 general freedom of conscience, we owe them not in the 
 least degree to what is called the Church of England. 
 On the contrary, we owe all these to the Independents 
 
MARK HOPKINS 211 
 
 in the time of the commonwealth, and to Locke, their 
 most illustrious and enlightened disciple." "I fear- 
 lessly confess it," says Lord Brougham, as if it re- 
 quired even yet no little courage to speak the truth of 
 the Puritans, "with whatever ridicule some may visit 
 their excesses, or with whatever blame others, they, 
 with the zeal of martyrs, and the purity of early Chris- 
 tians, the skill and courage of the most renowned war- 
 riors, obtained for England the free constitution she 
 enjoys." ^ 
 
 If, then, we except miracles, what seal which God set 
 upon the labors and sufferings of the early Christians 
 has he withheld from those of our fathers? We claim 
 for them no perfection, but we see in them serious, ear- 
 nest, prayerful, intelligent, self-denying Christians, wit- 
 nesses for God, and on the whole, the best representa- 
 tives and truest successors of the Apostles and early 
 Christians then on the earth. We even venture to 
 question whether John Penry, a minister regularly or- 
 dained, with so many points of resemblance to the 
 Apostle Paul, and like him laying down his life for the 
 cause of Christ, was not quite as much in the true line 
 of apostolical succession as the Archbishop who signed 
 his death-warrant. 
 
 Our fathers, then, in coming to this country, were 
 pilgrims of the highest order; not simply wanderers, 
 but wanderers as Abraham was, because they too 
 "sought a city that hath foundations." As such we 
 venerate them. We rejoice at the incorporation into 
 their designation of a term which also designates the 
 sublimest feature of human existence, and which should 
 teach us and each of their descendants to say, "I am a 
 pilgrim, and I am a stranger on the earth." 
 
 And the Pilgrims were also Fathers. Far beyond 
 ^ The Puritans and their Principles, Int. Lect. 
 
2 12 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 any other founders of states does this title belong to 
 them. Their purpose was to lay foundations. They 
 brought their families with them. They had tender- 
 ness, and forethought, and self-denying labor, and 
 prayerful anxiety. No characteristic was wanting that 
 could entitle them to that tender and venerable name. 
 
 They were Pilgrims, and they were Fathers; trav- 
 ellers towards a better country, that is, an heavenly; 
 and the fathers and founders of a mighty empire on the 
 earth. 
 
 As Pilgrim Fathers, their immediate gift to the 
 world was New-England. From them and their insti- 
 tutions, in connection with their maritime position, and 
 the climate and soil and scenery of the country, has 
 originated the general type of character which belongs 
 to her people. These institutions, this general type of 
 character, we accept as ours, and rejoice in them. In 
 the light of history, which shows the tendency of the 
 sterner and the more hardy virtues to deteriorate where 
 the soil is fertile and the climate genial, we are thank- 
 ful that our fathers were directed to a land that necessi- 
 tated industry and frugality, and stimulated enterprise 
 and invention; fitted, much of it, as has been said, to 
 produce nothing but ice and granite. 
 
 This land we love. We love her scenery, her green 
 mountains, her transparent streams, her long summer 
 days, her gorgeous autumns, her clear, sharp, frosty 
 mornings, her winter evenings, her tasteful and thriv- 
 ing villages, her district school-houses, her frequent 
 spires, and her quiet Sabbaths. We glory in her peo- 
 ple; in their system of free schools, in their general 
 intelligence and shrewd practical sense, in their inven- 
 tions, their economy that saves to give, their true- 
 hearted kindness, their enlarged and far-seeing benevo- 
 lence, their care for the insane and the deaf and dumb 
 
MARK HOPKINS 213 
 
 and blind, in their religious missions that circle the 
 globe, in their love of a rational liberty, and in their 
 general reverence for the law under its simplest forms. 
 
 Nor are we over sensitive to the provincialisms and 
 uncouthnesses of here and there a "live" and unmiti- 
 gated Yankee, though he may flatten the ou, and whit- 
 tle, and ask questions, and boast absurdly. Others 
 smack of the soil they grew in as strongly as he. If 
 he do whittle, he will commonly whittle his way; his 
 questions are apt to be to the point; and if he boasts 
 that he is going to "cut all creation out," who more 
 likely to do it? 
 
 If, then, the Fathers had simply given the world 
 New-England, it might have been well for her sons to 
 associate themselves, as do others, to cherish local asso- 
 ciations and family traits, and to keep alive that home- 
 feeling, which is an ornament and a pleasure to the indi- 
 vidual, while it narrows neither his vision nor his heart 
 to the perception or love of all that is peculiar and good 
 in other forms of society. 
 
 But if this had been all, this day had not been cele- 
 brated as it has been, with persistency and enthusiasm, 
 from Plymouth Rock to the shores of the Pacific. We 
 do not honor the Pilgrims sim.ply as the Fathers of 
 New-England, but because they were the depositories 
 and best representatives then on the earth of the one 
 central principle on which the hopes of the race rest, 
 the progress of which measures the world's progress, 
 and gives unity to its history. 
 
 Here a wide field at once opens before us, but the 
 time will permit us only to inquire — 
 
 I St. Whether there be such a principle of unity. 
 
 2d. What it is; and 
 
 3d. Whether its ascendency would secure to society 
 all that is desirable. 
 
214 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Is there, then, indeed, the unity just spoken of in the 
 history of this world? Is there any one central prin- 
 ciple from their relation to which the early dispersion of 
 families, the settlement of continents, the rise and fall 
 of kingdoms, the waxing and waning of civilizations, 
 and the transfer of the seats of empire have derived 
 their chief significancy? Have they been parts of a 
 great whole, subservient to some one end? 
 
 That they have we can not doubt, though we may be 
 unable to see the connection with it of remote, and 
 decayed, and lost races. The early limbs of the pine 
 perish, and leave no trace on the smooth shaft when 
 centuries have gone by, and it lifts itself a hundred feet 
 into the air; but doubtless they contribute to make it 
 what it is. Such a unity we can trace in all the fixed 
 combinations, and circular and improgressive move- 
 ments of the works of God. These have evident refer- 
 ence to an end beyond themselves, as the loom with its 
 recurring movement to the pattern it finishes and passes 
 on. The earth stands now, and the seasons revolve, 
 and day and night succeed each other as they did six 
 thousand years ago. The force of gravitation, the 
 light of the sun, the capacity of the earth and air, of fire 
 and water, to minister to vegetable and animal life, are 
 the same now as then. These fixed combinations and 
 recurring movements are subservient to vegetable and 
 animal life. Moreover, in every individual plant, and 
 in every animal, are parts that minister to the well- 
 being of the whole, and then that whole thus minis- 
 tered unto, offers itself to minister to somewhat higher, 
 till we reach man, who takes up into himself every fac- 
 ulty and law in all below him, thus crowning the whole, 
 and showing that it is in subserviency to his well-being 
 that it all finds its unity. How beautiful and grand this 
 permanent order and subserviency, this circling of day 
 
MARK HOPKINS 215 
 
 and night, and of the seasons, and this ministration 
 from age to age of the heavens and the earth, to the 
 successive generations of men! 
 
 And is there a unity so vast and perfect in this fixed 
 and improgressive order of things, that is but secon- 
 dary, and shall there be none in the flow of time, in the 
 succession of the generations, in the onward sweep and 
 termination of the great current of providential move- 
 ments? Shall there be no thought or purpose, or in- 
 forming idea of God, giving its unity to this vast on- 
 ward movement, and which is ultimately to protrude 
 itself as the blossom from the stem, and then be recog- 
 nized as the end toward which every secret process 
 and the slow changes of the ages had been tending? 
 We believe there is such a central idea — it is the teach- 
 ing both of Scripture and of reason — and if so, then in 
 that, and in that alone, will be found the key to all 
 history ; and from their relation to that, the significancy 
 and grandeur of events, however splendid or humble 
 in their outward aspect, will be estimated. 
 
 We next inquire then, what that principle is? It 
 can not be the religious freedom so often spoken of in 
 connection with the Pilgrims; for that may be where 
 there is no religion, but in its stead indifiference and in- 
 fidelity. Such a freedom could avail little. That which 
 is to bless the world is not mere freedom of any kind, 
 but true religion putting itself forth in freedom, and 
 vindicating, in the name of God, all the rights and 
 means necessary to its full expansion. The central pur- 
 pose and principle in the onward movement of this 
 world we suppose then to be, the vital union of man 
 with God in moral conformity to him, and so in prepa- 
 ration for an eternal life. So only do we find an ex- 
 tension of the unity and subserviency we see in all 
 things, by linking earth and time to heaven and an eter- 
 
2i6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 nal progression. This is the principle — for this the 
 world stands; but for this, religious freedom will be 
 needed, and the demand for that will bring men into 
 such relations to human governments that that will be 
 the thing immediately contended for — the point around 
 which the conflict will be waged. It has been no love 
 for freedom in the abstract, but of freedom for the sake 
 of religion that has walked in the fiery furnace, and 
 gone into the lion's den, and said to rulers, "We ought 
 to obey God rather than men," and so has drawn on 
 and sustained a resistance to oppression that has been 
 the basis of all the civil freedom now in the world. 
 All other freedoms have died out, and will die. This 
 alone has the sap of an immortal life. 
 
 The object of religion must be the free expansion and 
 perfecting of that in man by which he is capable of re- 
 ligion. If, then, the religious nature be central in man, 
 it must be that for which all things are preparing a 
 final expansion and appropriate sphere. 
 
 That this is so appears because the religious nature is 
 that which is central in the unity of the individual man. 
 Each man has in himself a unity no less than nature 
 and the whole onward scheme of things, and the one is 
 analogous to the other. In the powers that upbuild 
 and sustain the body, as those of nutrition and circu- 
 lation, man has a circular and improgressive system, 
 that goes on from the beginning to the end of the life 
 of the individual — as the movements causing day and 
 night, and the seasons go on in nature till the end of 
 the life of the race; and this improgressive system in 
 each man is to the unfolding and progressive life of his 
 mind what the movements of nature are to the unfold- 
 ing and progressive life of the race. This system is 
 for the sake of the intellect with its perceptions and de- 
 ductions ; and this again for the emotions, as of beauty 
 
\ 
 
 MARK HOPKINS 217 
 
 and sublimity when we regard tilings, and of compla- 
 cency and love when we regard persons. But of the 
 emotions, the highest are those which are involved in 
 the love of man, and in worship — in the love and wor- 
 ship of the Infinite One ; and thus that love of God and 
 of man, in which the Bible declares true religion to 
 consist, is precisely that the capacity for which philoso- 
 phy will show lies deepest in our nature, and gives it 
 its unity. It is the central blossom, as in the palm 
 tree, without the expansion of which no individual 
 reaches his full development. But what is thus true of 
 the individual, must be true of the race. 
 
 It may be observed, too, that as the natural order of 
 the growth of the individual is, first the physical pow- 
 ers, then the intellect, and then the religious nature; so 
 in the history of the world there has been, first, the 
 ascendency of physical prowess, then of intellect; and 
 that now, when the whole world is known, and com- 
 merce and science are bringing all parts of it together, 
 religion is casting the eye of faith over it all and pre- 
 paring for its conquest. That the religious element is 
 central, appears also from the necessity of a true reli- 
 gion to any permanent progress or elevation of the 
 race. How can man be elevated except as there is 
 that above him of which he may lay hold, and with 
 which he may commune ? We must be gradually trans- 
 formed into the likeness of that with which we com- 
 mune voluntarily and with pleasure, and whoever 
 reaches a point where he supposes there is nothing, or 
 communes with nothing higher and better than him- 
 self, has reached a point where all elevation must cease. 
 Hence a man can do nothing so fatal to the best hopes of 
 the race as to lower the character of God, or to weaken 
 the impression it is adapted to make on the minds of 
 men. No heathen nation can make permanent progress. 
 
2i8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 The same thing appears from the absurdities which 
 men have received, and the impositions to which they 
 have submitted in connection with reHgion. You may- 
 connect a heavy burden with the child on the back of 
 the Indian mother, and she will bear it if you can make 
 her believe, either that it is only the weight of the child, 
 or that they are so inseparably connected that if she 
 would get loose from the one she must abandon the 
 other. How else but by connecting them with that 
 which is deepest and dearest, could men have been made 
 to submit <"o the absurdities and impositions of Brah- 
 minism and of Popery? 
 
 Again, as has been said, it is only through this that 
 this world can become a part in the unity of one great 
 moral system, the existence of which is indicated by 
 analogy, and confirmed by Scripture, and to which the 
 vast physical universe revealed by the telescope must 
 be wholly subordinate. 
 
 Once more, if we search history for the cause of the 
 most earnest and pervading movements in the past, we 
 shall come to the same conclusion. From religion in- 
 deed has proceeded the only movement that has been 
 continuous from the beginning. What but the religious 
 element could have kept the Jews a distinct people for 
 4000 years? What else could have caused the Chris- 
 tian movement? Think as we may of the religion, the 
 amount of thought and labor, and of expenditure, both 
 of money and of life, that have sprung from it, the 
 revolutions it has wrought, not only in religion, but in 
 philosophies, in art, in government, in social life and 
 the forms of civilization, and that too in spite of the 
 fiercest opposition, show the power of an element like 
 one of the great forces of nature, that "spreads undi- 
 vided, operates unspent." What but this could have 
 produced the Mohammedan movement, so volcanic, re- 
 
MARK HOPKINS 219 
 
 sistless and persistent ? To this day it is not spent, but 
 still stands so sturdily and glares so fiercely on all 
 who would attack it, that Christian missionaries turn 
 aside to more hopeful fields. In the present war be- 
 tween Turkey and Russia, we all know what will infuse 
 into the conflict its fiercest, most destructive and un- 
 manageable elements. Through what slumbering ele- 
 ment but this could all Europe have been precipitated 
 in the crusades, like a fiery flood upon Asia? What else 
 could have produced the intense movement of the Ref- 
 ormation, and drawn the sharp lines of division that 
 have sprung from it? These are the great movements 
 of the race — the continents in the sea of history, em- 
 bosoming the lesser movements which spring from 
 divisions into races, and the love of conquest, and per- 
 sonal and family ambition. 
 
 Nor has the influence of the religious principle been 
 less where it has not been ostensibly the dominant ele- 
 ment. By all lawgivers and despots, whose immediate 
 object has been power, religion has been so incorpo- 
 rated into the state as to be subservient to the purposes 
 of ambition, and has really been the cement of all en- 
 during despotisms. It has been the art of king-craft 
 and of priestcraft to identify the interests of the clergy 
 with those of the ruling powers, and so to train the reli- 
 gious sentiment as to make the support of despotism 
 obedience to God. Hence, James of England, though 
 he had in Scotland professed himself a Presbyterian, 
 said he hated the Independents worse than he did the 
 Catholics. Hence the affinity of every reactionary and 
 monarchical government in France for the Jesuits, and 
 the fact that Protestantism has been uniformly perse- 
 cuted there. It is felt that the religious liberty which it 
 implies and cherishes, especially in searching the Scrip- 
 tures, the thought which it requires, the direct respon- 
 
220 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 sibility to God which it teaches, and the power of a free 
 conscience which it educates, are antagonistic to the 
 spirit of despotism. And so they are. ReHgious free- 
 dom would fit men for civil freedom, and eventuate in 
 that. 
 
 And here I may remark, that it is this want of con- 
 gruity between Protestantism in its true spirit and the 
 forms of government in Europe that, more than all 
 other causes, has prevented its more rapid and wider 
 spread there, and that has enabled the Pope to recover 
 regions once lost. The rulers have not heartily sec- 
 onded its efforts; they have feared it, and do now. 
 They watched its first risings ; they counter-work and 
 stamp it out as they would fire. It is the presence of 
 this in Turkey that Nicholas fears, and its suppression 
 has more to do with the politics of Europe than ap- 
 pears on the surface. 
 
 It would appear, then, that even where place and 
 power have been primarily sought, the controlling ele- 
 ment has still been the religious one. This philoso- 
 phers and statesmen have sometimes scorned as a weak- 
 ness and superstition, but they have never been able to 
 disregard it with impunity, and often they have been 
 astonished and bafiled by its flaming up where they 
 least expected it. 
 
 Now it was the growth of this in freedom, that was 
 the great idea or principle that was in our fathers, and 
 wrought in them, and has come down through them to 
 us. We are not of those who disclaim antiquity and 
 discard transmission and succession, and fail to connect 
 ourselves with a vital and organized past. If we be- 
 lieve less than some in the regular succession of the 
 Popes, and in the transmission for eighteen hundred 
 years, often through murderous hands, of spiritual vir- 
 tues and powers, we do believe in the perpetual presence 
 
MARK HOPKINS 221 
 
 of the Spirit of God as of the Shekinah, in his Church, 
 and in a succession for six thousand years, in one un- 
 broken Hne from the first martyr, through Moses and 
 Daniel and the Apostles, of those who have inherited 
 the promises and died in faith; and in the transmis- 
 sion through them, so that they have always lived and 
 glowed somewhere, of the great ideas of God's su- 
 premacy, and of man's right to worship him according 
 to the dictates of his conscience. In this line our fa- 
 thers stood, these ideas flaming up in them like a bea- 
 con-light; they stood, worthy successors of those of old 
 in the same line, who "wandered in deserts, and in 
 mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth." In 
 this line we would stand. 
 
 The religious element being thus the central one in 
 the history of this world, our next inquiry is, whether 
 its free and legitimate expansion would secure all that 
 belongs to the well-being of society. Is it through this 
 that the Divine idea must find its realization and coun- 
 terpart ? 
 
 That this is so we believe, in the first place, because 
 we believe in the word of God, and that says it is so. 
 
 Again, we believe it because God has so constituted 
 this world, and, doubtless, the universe, that he who 
 aims at and secures the highest good in any department 
 or sphere, will also incidentally, and so best, secure the 
 greatest amount of subordinate good. This is the gen- 
 eral law, and whatever exceptions to it there may seem 
 to be are accidental and temporary. In this principle 
 lies the secret of the unconscious power wielded by our 
 fathers. 
 
 Upon the general illustration of a proposition so 
 broad as this we can not now enter. It must suffice to 
 notice its application in organic systems where there is 
 mutual relation and interaction of parts. In these that 
 
222 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 which is highest is indeed formed by the lower, but 
 when formed it reacts upon that lower and becomes 
 necessary to its perfection. Thus the brain, the high- 
 est and most central part of the body, is that to which 
 all the other parts are subordinate; but this reacts, and 
 ministers a pervading and vital influence to every in- 
 ferior part, essential both to their functions and growth, 
 and the perfection of the brain will both imply and 
 secure that of every inferior part. 
 
 So in the tree. For the purposes of its own growth 
 and well-being it forms the leaves highest and last; but 
 it is only as these expand freely in the air and sunlight 
 that the roots will strike themselves deepest, and the 
 trunk be enlarged, and the vitality prolonged. The 
 tree grows from its top. And here is the model of po- 
 litical and social growth. Society is built up like an 
 individual. Like a tree, it grows from its top. Let 
 the nutritive and circulatory movements of society flow 
 freely on and up to the quickening and expansion of an 
 intellectual life, and that will so react — as we see it 
 doing in our day, by the application of science to art — 
 as to give to the material interests themselves a range 
 and power entirely unknown before. And then let the 
 top still expand into the higher air and purer light of 
 beauty, and of moral and religious truth, and in every 
 fibre at the root will be felt the upward movement ; and 
 there will descend nutritive power and regulative prin- 
 ciples, causing a growth that will defy the touch of 
 time, that time will only strengthen and enlarge. The 
 elaborated wisdom of sages will descend and diffuse 
 itself into all the currents of thought, and reach the 
 springs and motives of action, and will eliminate evils 
 by those gradual organic revolutions which come on 
 like the tide, but which no human power can set back. 
 
 The difficulty with past civilizations has been that 
 
MARK HOPKINS 223 
 
 they did not form an adequate top. The products of 
 the physical and intellectual life circulated in and for 
 themselves, and hence plethora, stagnation, debility, 
 spasms, and dissolution. This is the stereotyped round 
 in which families and nations perish through prosper- 
 ity. But if these products might flow on and up, if the 
 affections might distribute them rather than appetite, 
 benevolence rather than ostentation, and principle 
 rather than fashion and caprice : if they might minister 
 to a pure and spiritual religion, and be controlled and 
 distributed by that, it is not for the imagination to de- 
 pict the beauty and blessedness that would pervade 
 society. 
 
 Particularly do we believe that there would spring 
 from this a higher culture of all that pertains to 
 beauty ; and only from this a permanent civil liberty. 
 
 There has been an impression that the virtues of our 
 fathers were stern and repulsive of beauty. And so is 
 the mountain-top stern, where the storms wrestle, and 
 the snow abides, and the ice congeals; but from that 
 mountain-top comes the beauty that looks up at its base, 
 and that skirts the stream on its long way to the ocean. 
 So will the sterner virtues always melt into beauty 
 when the storms and cold with which they have to con- 
 tend have passed away. Beauty is of God, and it can 
 not be that he who has woven the web of light in its 
 colors, and so wrought its golden threads into the tis- 
 sue of nature, who paints the flower, and unfurls the 
 banner of sunset, should not delight in all beauty, and 
 that it should not proceed from all godlikeness. We 
 believe, indeed, that only as there are with God himself, 
 the high and stern mountains of a holiness and justice 
 unapproachable, does there proceed from him the smile 
 that makes the violet glad. Neither Christ nor his 
 apostles concerned themselves with art; they did not 
 
224 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 even speak of it. The struggle with moral evil was too 
 earnest. Let this be overcome, and the alliance be- 
 tween the arts and the baser passions dissolved, and 
 there would spring up in connection with the industry 
 and science and wealth that religion would produce, a 
 diffused beauty in nature and in art of which we have 
 now no conception. 
 
 That there can be permanent civil liberty only 
 through the religious nature is evident, because it is 
 only through this that the true idea of a state, and of 
 its relation to the individual will ever be seen. Through 
 the awakening in each man, and the growth of those 
 powers by which he is connected with God and with 
 immortality, and is bound above all things to conform 
 his spiritual nature to its law, the individual becomes 
 an end in himself, and thus finds a ground for demand- 
 ing that nothing shall exist, whether in Church or in 
 state, that may stand between him and the freest, and 
 highest expansion of these powers ; nothing which shall 
 make use of him for its own sake, and so degrade him 
 from a person into a thing. This is the principle con- 
 tended for by our fathers. On this ground man has a 
 right to claim that outward institutions, civil and reli- 
 gious, shall be for the individual ; shall be means and 
 conditions of growth to his higher powers, as the air, 
 and light, and food are of the growth of the body; 
 and if they are not so, or are obstructive of that end, 
 then, on the same ground, he has a right to remove and 
 destroy them. The Church and the state can become 
 a part of the beautiful unity in the Divine plan, and 
 have a right to be, only as they fit the individual who 
 comes under their agency for a higher sphere; and 
 they are perfect, and from God, just in proportion as 
 they furnish the best possible conditions of individual 
 growth in all that belongs to a true manhood. In the 
 
MARK HOPKINS 225 
 
 light of these powers man is seen to have worth and 
 dignity, rights to have sacredness, and the hfe of the 
 lowhest is invested with a solemn grandeur. Here, in- 
 deed, is the basis of rights, and so of that freedom 
 which springs from rights and respects rights, which 
 has God for its author, the good of all through that of 
 each for its end, and for which, in the light of reason 
 and conscience, a man may lay down his life. 
 
 Now what we ask, and all that we ask is, institutions, 
 both civil and religious, pervaded by this freedom, flex- 
 ible to the demands of individual growth ; and the right 
 of the people to judge what modifications that may 
 require. Especially do we demand, in the name of hu- 
 manity and of God, religious freedom. Upon that all 
 other freedom rests. On this subject especially do we 
 demand the right of free action and of free speech, not 
 only in the church but in the street, and the day is not 
 yet when that can be taken from us. 
 
 We believe that government and rulers are for the 
 people, the church and the clergy for the laity, and 
 that God has given to men the right, as in their civil, 
 so in their religious capacity, honestly using all the 
 light he has given them, whether of reason or of reve- 
 lation, so to organize themselves, both in Church and 
 state, as will best secure civil rights and spiritual 
 growth; and organizations so originated and so result- 
 ing we believe to be of God. They are not rebellion, 
 they are not schism ; they are component parts of God's 
 one great and free kingdom which he will love, and 
 own, and bless, and they ought to be recognized as 
 such. His sun has not shone less brightly, nor his rain 
 and dew descended less bountifully upon these United 
 States since they organized themselves thus, than when 
 governed by one who was "king by the grace of God ;" 
 nor have the sunshine of his love, and the rain and 
 
226 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 dews of his grace been less abundant upon our churches 
 than upon those governed and blessed by popes and 
 prelates. 
 
 Opposed to the free and flexible systems which this 
 principle would form are those — and they include all 
 others — which have an end in themselves, to which the 
 individual is squared, and hewed, and bent, and made 
 subservient. Under these there will be, not true free- 
 dom, but a mixture of license and restraint. Those 
 who manage them are willing that the productive fac- 
 ulties of man should be sharpened to any extent; they 
 favor caste, or something equivalent, for that purpose. 
 They give full scope to the sensitive and sensuous na- 
 ture; they patronize and subsidize the fine arts; they 
 provide processions, and games, and books of sports for 
 the people, and they have standing armies to keep them 
 in order. If the sugar-plum will not do, they have the 
 whip. But, recognizing instinctively the main doctrine 
 of this discourse, they uniformly either dwarf or per- 
 vert the religious nature. They intervene in every pos- 
 sible way between man and his Maker, assuming 
 ghostly powers, and constructing conduits and channels 
 by which the grace of God may be conveyed to the pro- 
 fane people who may not have immediate access to him. 
 This is their great resource. This done, they may mock 
 at revolution and bide their time, knowing that when 
 the Louis Philippe, or the Louis Napoleon, or Santa 
 Anna, that is sure to come shall appear, the bewildered 
 and helpless people will relapse into monarchy. They 
 think little of the crimes and vices which spring from 
 the depraved appetites and passions; and if the clergy 
 will pray according to the rubric and conform to the 
 canons, they may be indolent, inefficient, dishonest, li- 
 centious, profane, without rebuke. But if a clergyman 
 cannot wear a stole, or a surplice, or a white gown, or a 
 
MARK HOPKINS 227 
 
 black one; if a few Christians meet, in a private house 
 even, for the study of the Scriptures and for prayer ; if 
 the Madiai read the Bible; if Miss Cunningham distrib- 
 ute a Bible and Pilgrim's Progress, then come confisca- 
 tions, imprisonments, banishment, death. It is for 
 those who do these things that the dungeon, and the 
 slow fire, and the rack are prepared. It is these whom 
 malice pursues after death, and casts out and buries 
 with the burial of a dog. Those who use missals and 
 say prayers, they like; those who read the Bible and 
 pray, they persecute. 
 
 There is no book that they so fear as they do the 
 Bible ; none that they are so afraid to have the children 
 read. They keep it out of their schools, and of their 
 seats of power, as they would the plague. They burn 
 it. They can evade any thing, and stand before any 
 thing but the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word 
 of God. 
 
 Such systems, whether called Christian or heathen, 
 are essentially the same. They wish to use man as a 
 thing, and so intervene between him and God. Under 
 them civilization may advance far, and aggregate 
 power accumulate, and endure long, but man zvill de- 
 teriorate, and destruction from without or within is 
 certain. Still, when one system is destroyed, another 
 will arise. Forms may be changed, but the spirit will 
 be the same; revolution may succeed revolution, till 
 they shall have as little significance as street brawls, and 
 there be as many days of July as there are days in 
 July, but there will be balanced, and permanent freedom 
 only as there is religion in liberty. 
 
 As might be anticipated from what has been said, 
 the special support of all such systems, aside from phys- 
 ical force, has been in an appeal to the religious na- 
 ture. An exclusive divine right has been claimed. 
 
228 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 That of prelates the Pilgrims rejected; that of kings 
 they conceded. Now, that of kings is exploded, at 
 least here. We put it on the same footing as the Di- 
 vine right of constables. That of prelates, being more 
 closely connected with that religious nature from which 
 is all our hope, but into which every superstition strikes 
 its roots, is still conceded by many, and is at this mo- 
 ment the one antagonistic element among us to the 
 spirit and principles of our fathers. The Pope and 
 certain bishops claim a divine right, received by trans- 
 mission in an unbroken line from the Apostles, to gov- 
 ern the Church; and in connection with this they claim 
 the power either to change bread into flesh and wine 
 into blood, or to communicate some virtue to the sacra- 
 ments which they would not have if administered by 
 persons appointed for that purpose in some other way. 
 Is this claim valid? If so, then Popery and Puseyism 
 are right, and all Protestants, Church of England and 
 all, are schismatics and heretics. If so, there are bless- 
 ings in Christianity which we cannot have by going 
 directly to God. These men hold them in their hands, 
 and the whole race is at their mercy. If so, Christ is 
 not the only priest under the new dispensation, and the 
 benefit of the sacraments will not be wholly from him 
 through faith, but partly, at least, from a mysterious 
 virtue in the elements which these persons only can give. 
 This claim we reject utterly. We say that Christ has 
 made all his people "Kings and priests unto God," and 
 nothing shall take from us the right to go directly to 
 God through the one great High Priest. All systems 
 based on this claim are and must be exclusive and intol- 
 erant, and have always been connected with an ignorant 
 and oppressed people. 
 
 Our principles, on the other hand, forbid exclusive- 
 ness, and whatever of this we may have, is due, not to 
 
MARK HOPKINS 229 
 
 them, but to personal infirmity. They call upon us 
 to exercise a large charity. Give us those essential con- 
 ditions through which the spiritual nature may be best 
 developed; give us the right of private judgment; give 
 us the Bible; — and here I wish the time would per- 
 mit me to repeat to you fully the recent words of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England, pressed 
 from him in his conflict with Popery, in which he 
 stands, not for "the Bible interpreted by the prayer- 
 book," — that would not do for him, — but for the Bible 
 alone, and says, "Whatever is not absolutely declared 
 therein, and yet claims to be implicitly received, I look 
 upon with suspicion," thus sanctioning the very prin- 
 ciple contended for by Robinson, and all that he con- 
 tended for. — Give us, I say, the Bible, and that alone 
 as our standard; and the doctrine of justification by 
 faith so far as to exclude all priestly intervention be- 
 tween us and God, and we can feel that we stand shoul- 
 der to shoulder with the multitude of our brethren of 
 every name — with the Hollanders who had the same 
 spirit with the Puritans — with the Huguenots, those 
 nobles in God's kingdom than whom none were ever 
 nobler — with the Presbyterians, whose fathers strug- 
 gled in Scotland, as ours did in England — with the 
 great company of Methodists and Baptists, and also 
 with our Episcopal brethren, so far as they will per- 
 mit us. "We would gladly embrace them with both 
 arms." We do not object to Episcopacy as a form of 
 government preferred by the people, but to its being 
 imposed upon us as exclusively of divine right, and 
 to that spirit of the clergy generally, and of the laity 
 increasingly, which says, "Stand by thyself, I am holier 
 than thou." "I belong to a church, and you do not." 
 "I have a right to preach and to administer the sacra- 
 ments, and you have not." "There are blessings in 
 
2 30 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Christianity which you can have only by coming to us," 
 — "an all-grasping" spirit "which gives no quarter, al- 
 lows no truce, but demands an unconditional submis- 
 sion." If history did not instruct us in the uniform 
 tendency of this exclusive principle, we might be sur- 
 prised to hear the excellent and venerable bishops in 
 their late address, while they claim a middle place be- 
 tween the Romanists and us, complain of the treatment 
 they receive from them, and then turn at once and 
 treat us in the same manner, not allowing that we are 
 Churches at all, or bodies of Christians even, but only 
 "forms of error." "On the one hand," say they, "we 
 behold an all-grasping Romanism which gives no quar- 
 ter, allows no truce, but demands an unconditional sub- 
 mission. On the other hand are various forms of error 
 still pervaded, more or less by the true spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, but constantly breaking into fragments, and 
 steadily tending to latitudinarianism and infidelity." ^ 
 In exclusiveness and unconscious misrepresentation can 
 any thing go beyond this? Here it is — no quarter, no 
 truce, but unconditional submission — and that, too, to 
 those who hold precisely the same relation to the Ro- 
 manists that we hold to them — unconditional submis- 
 sion, or we must be given over to "uncovenanted mer- 
 cies," and infidelity and perdition. Now all this we 
 greatly regret. Most gladly would we stand shoulder 
 to shoulder with them and try to do the work of our 
 common Master. We will try to do it still ; we too 
 have a ministry and ordinances that we think are of 
 divine institution; we have an open Bible and a merci- 
 ful God and Saviour. If he shall show us that we 
 are wrong, that he does not intend to work in accor- 
 dance with the general principle and scheme of freedom 
 of which I have spoken, that the labors and sufferings 
 * Triennial Convention, New-York. 
 
MARK HOPKINS 231 
 
 and great promise of the past were all vain and delu- 
 sive, we will abandon our cherished associations for the 
 dear sake of him whom our fathers at least sought 
 to follow. We will then give in our unconditional sub- 
 mission. 
 
 But to us the prospect is not altogether dark. We 
 are encouraged by the remembrance of the blessing of 
 God in the past, and we hope he will continue to bless 
 us. We do not believe, as they seem to think, that his 
 past signal blessings have been an unaccountable mis- 
 take which he will rectify in future; but rather, if we 
 shall not prove recreant, that they are but earnests of 
 greater blessings to come. If we see among us ten- 
 dencies to be struggled against, requiring wisdom and 
 prayer, surely we are not alone in this. We had sup- 
 posed that we were gaining strength, and not only we, 
 but the great body of kindred churches. We suppose 
 so still, and that the prospect for the diffusion and ulti- 
 mate triumph, substantially, of the great principles of 
 religious and civil freedom held by the Puritans, was 
 never more encouraging. Those principles that were 
 cabined in the Mayflower — the same once inclosed by 
 the walls of an upper chamber in Jerusalem — and that, 
 two hundred and thirty-three years ago, this day, were 
 first breathed into the atmosphere of this continent 
 from Plymouth Rock, have seemed to abide in it there 
 as a mighty spell, and have so diffused and mingled 
 themselves with it every where, that the whole people 
 breathe them in as with the very breath of their life; 
 and so that no chemistry of tyranny, civil or ecclesias- 
 tical, can ever get them out. They were never as 
 strong as they are to-day. They make little show of 
 unity by great convocations. They affect no pomp, 
 and provide no prizes for a worldly ambition. They are 
 in the world under the same aspect and conditions as 
 
232 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Christ himself was — as spiritual Christianity, and truth, 
 and civil liberty have always been. Wealth does not 
 gravitate toward them ; fashion has no affinity for them. 
 The votaries of these more often detach themselves 
 and float to other centres. In their simplicity they 
 stand, like the heavens, unpropped by visible pillars. 
 They seem, if not born, yet as it were born again for 
 this continent and this age, and for that oceanic breadth 
 and depth of movement which is clearly before society 
 and the Church. They ally themselves with all that is 
 peculiar in our free institutions, with all that is most 
 simple and grand in the works of God, with all that 
 is free and mighty in the movements of the elements, 
 with all that is comprehensive in charity, and great in 
 effort and self-sacrifice. Like the electric fluid, they 
 are subtle and pervasive, often working silently, and 
 seen only in their effects as they quicken the growth of 
 the plants of righteousness, and crystallize the gems 
 that are to be set in the diadem of the Redeemer. But 
 when the storm shall come, if come it must, that final 
 storm that is to shake "not the earth only, but also 
 heaven," that those things which cannot be shaken 
 may remain, then they will be abroad in their might; 
 now imperceptibly controlling affinities, and now flash- 
 ing out in their brightness, and speaking in thunder- 
 tones in the moral and political heavens. To the ears 
 of the oppressed in every land those tones will be as 
 music. To the grave where freedom may still be 
 buried, they will be as the trump of God. She will 
 hear them and come forth clothed in the garments of 
 her immortality, and the nations shall walk and dwell 
 with her. 
 
 These principles we receive. We wish no antago- 
 nism with any body, or any thing, except that which 
 would be necessitated by faithfulness to them. We 
 
MARK HOPKINS 233 
 
 wish to know where, and through what it is that God 
 is working, and to work with him. This we would do 
 in peace, and without being persecuted, or reviled, or 
 cast out, if we may : but at all hazards we would work 
 with him. This it is, and not mere freedom, civil or 
 religious, that is to save us ; and we receive these prin- 
 ciples because we believe that God is working through 
 them, and that by them, as by the sling and stone, de- 
 liverance is to come. We receive them because we be- 
 lieve that the might of Omnipotence is in them; and 
 that the promise of the Immutable One is theirs. 
 
THE HERITAGE OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 
 1854 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 
 
 (1818-1901.) 
 
 The oration of 1854 was given at the Church of the Messiah by 
 William M. Evarts, then eminent in his profession, though it 
 was yet some years before the Lemmon slave case gave him 
 wide reputation. He was active in the Fremont campaign, and 
 a notable member of the Seward delegation at the Chicago 
 Convention. He was defeated in the contest for the senator- 
 ship in 1861, but his ability was now clearly established. 
 Under President Lincoln he was intrusted with a private mis- 
 sion to Europe, and later he was one of the counsel of the 
 United States before the Geneva Tribunal. He defended Presi- 
 dent Johnson, and was the leading advocate for Mr. Hayes 
 before the Electoral Commission. His last public service was 
 that of six years in the Senate — 1883-1889. Of him Lord Sel- 
 borne, the counsel for England at Geneva, wrote : "He was 
 . . . keen but high-minded — in conversation sincere and can- 
 did — I could have trusted him implicitly in anything in which 
 I had to deal with him alone ... he was a good lawyer, 
 a skilful advocate, and had also the qualities of a statesman. 
 . . . Altogether he was a man of whom any country might 
 be proud." 
 
 The date of the following address drawing near, and having no 
 time in town for preparation, Mr. Evarts went for a little quiet 
 to the home of his late partner, J. Prescott Hall, at Newport, 
 where the speech was written. On the guest's departure, one 
 of the maids inquired : 
 
 "What did you have that crazy man here for?" 
 
 "She had heard me," explained Mr. Evarts, who related the inci- 
 dent with relish, "repeating sentences aloud to see if they 
 jumped right." 
 
ORATION 
 
 "Quorum glorise neque profuit quisquam laudando, 
 nee vituperando quisquam nocuit," 
 
 Air. President and Gentlemen of the New England 
 Society: 
 
 THE custom by which we celebrate this anniver- 
 sary would find its sufficient support in the senti- 
 ment of ancestral veneration. "The glory of the chil- 
 dren is their fathers." Of every worthy stock the not 
 degenerate sons cherish the names of those from whom 
 by an authentic lineage they trace their honorable de- 
 scent. With zealous affection and a pious reverence 
 they explore all sources of knowledge respecting their 
 lives, their characters, their motives, their acts. In a 
 spirit neither arrogant nor envious, they are yet jealous 
 for a just estimate of the virtue and the power which 
 marked the founders of their line; careful that no 
 malign or reckless influence shall distort the record, or 
 obscure the remembrance, of their deeds ; earnest in the 
 determination that their latest descendants shall lose 
 nothing of their heritage in these great names, in the 
 course of its descent. Nor should it be for a moment 
 supposed that the spirit of our institutions and the 
 structure of our society, which have discarded the he- 
 reditary transmission of rank and power, discouraged 
 even the succession of wealth, and made ridiculous the 
 
 237 
 
238 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 culture of a vulgar family pride, have at all weakened 
 or diverted the force of those natural ties which connect 
 us alike with our ancestry and our posterity, and sus- 
 tain and protect, as a perpetual and imperishable pos- 
 session, the glory and worth of our forefathers. Say 
 rather that, as you strip from this heritable relation, all 
 that is false or factitious, all that is casual or valueless, 
 you give new force to this genuine lineage of noble 
 character, this true heirship to greatness of purpose and 
 of action. Upon the recurrence of this day, then, al- 
 though the great transaction which has made it illus- 
 trious, had drawn after it no such magnificent train of 
 consequences as history now attributes to it, although 
 the noble undertaking had attained to no proportionate 
 grandeur of result, it would become us to meet with 
 sincere filial devotion, and add one stone to the monu- 
 ment inscribed in honor of the Puritan Exiles, one note 
 to the anthem of their fame. 
 
 But the actual course of history has not left the 
 "Landing of the Pilgrims" an isolated or fruitless oc- 
 currence, buried in the grave of the past, nor confined 
 its interest to the private and peculiar considerations 
 which should affect the inheritors of their blood and 
 names. It is as the principal and initial in a still con- 
 tinuing series of great events, as the operative and un- 
 exhausted cause of large results already transpired, and 
 larger yet surely to ensue, that we chiefly applaud the 
 transaction of this day. Upon the Rock of Plymouth 
 was pressed the first footstep of that energetic and 
 creative power in human affairs which has since over- 
 run the continent, and is stopped in its sublime progress, 
 if it be stopped at all, only with the shores of the all- 
 containing sea. Through the actual aspect of the scene 
 of the debarkation, made up of wintry sea and gloomy 
 sky, and bleak and desolate coast, we see breaking the 
 effulgence of those moral elements of light and hope 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 239 
 
 which have ever since shone with so conspicuous splen- 
 dor, and the spot seems to us the brightest and the 
 warmest on the face of the earth; bright, as the source 
 and fountain of those radiant glories of freedom in 
 whose glad light we live; warm, with the fervent glow 
 of that beneficent activity which pervades and invigo- 
 rates the life of this whole nation, which has secured 
 the progress of the past and forms the hope of the 
 future. 
 
 "Ille terrarum mihi, praster omnes, 
 Angulus ridet." 
 
 It is New England, as she was first founded, as she 
 has since been established and built up, as she now is, — 
 mother of men, source of great ideas, nurse of great 
 principles, battle-ground of great conflicts, — that we 
 celebrate in this commemoration. 
 
 There is one circumstance in our situation, as as- 
 sembled here, which cannot escape our attention. We 
 are without the borders of New England, yet no exiles 
 from our country; we are beyond the protection of 
 those governments that still rule over the soil of the 
 Puritan plantations, yet we have neither lost our birth- 
 right there, nor are we strangers here; however gen- 
 erous and cordial has been our reception in the commu- 
 nity in which we live, yet we have come hither, and 
 here remain, neither by sufferance nor by any title of 
 courtesy or hospitality; we are here of right and at 
 home. As it is with us in this central metropolis, so 
 is it with our brethren, the descendants of our com- 
 mon ancestors, in the fair cities of the South, and in 
 the wide valley of the West ; 
 
 "And where the sun, with softer fires, 
 Looks on the vast Pacific's sleep; 
 The children of the Pilgrim sires, 
 This hallowed day, like us, do keep." 
 
240 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 New England has enlarged the dominion of her laws 
 over no wider territorial limits than at the first, yet for 
 her expanding population, for her institutions, her cus- 
 toms, her moral, social, political and religious influ- 
 ences, she has received a truly imperial extension. As 
 an integral portion of the great Federal Republic, pro- 
 duced by the double act of Independence and of Union, 
 in which she took so large and decisive a part, New 
 England — losing nothing of her local identity and her 
 express individuality — yet has her chief duties and re- 
 sponsibilities at present and in the future ; and in every 
 just estimate of what the vital forces of the Puritan 
 character have hitherto effected, or may yet be ex- 
 pected to accomplish, this relation of New England 
 must be largely considered. 
 
 While the influences of the occasion direct our view 
 mainly to the past, still our contemplations, as it seems 
 to me, would not wisely take the course either of anti- 
 quarian curiosity, or historical research, or controver- 
 sial attack or vindication. All consultation of the past 
 is vain, unless our questioning find out some key and 
 guide to the future. Man escapes from the unsatis- 
 fying present, and lengthens the brief span of his per- 
 sonal existence, by laying hold upon the past, and 
 reaching forward to the future; but of the past only is 
 he secure, and in it he must find the forest and the 
 quarry from which to hew out the shapely structures 
 of the future. It was an annual custom among the 
 Romans, in the more religious period of their history, 
 as the year approached its close, for the augurs and 
 other high priests to make a solemn observation of the 
 signs, by which they might predict the fortunes of the 
 republic for the coming year. This "augurium salii- 
 tis," this presage of the public welfare, may well attend 
 our pious homage to the memory of those who laid the 
 foundations of our commonwealth, for in these founda- 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 241 
 
 tions shall we find the surest indications of its future 
 fortunes, propitious or adverse. Nor to ourselves shall 
 a brief communion with the stern natures, the elevated 
 motives, the inspiring example of these remarkable 
 men, be without a personal benefit; our feebler spirits 
 and lapsing energies may catch some new vigor from 
 this contact with their embalmed virtue, as of old the 
 dead even was revived by touching the bones of the 
 prophet Elisha. 
 
 These reflections seem naturally to present as an ap- 
 propriate theme, for such consideration as the limits 
 of the occasion will permit. The Heritage of the 
 Pilgrims — as we have received it from them, as we 
 are to transmit it to our descendants. 
 
 In attempting some analysis of the character, the 
 principles, the conduct of the first settlers of New Eng- 
 land, and an estimate of the extent to which they have 
 affected our past, and are to shape our future, history, 
 I should feel greatly embarrassed, were I not assured 
 that the whole general outline of the subject is already 
 in your minds and memories, that the true spirit and 
 temper for its consideration are included in the dispo- 
 sition which unites you in this celebration. Much 
 more should I feel oppressed, did I for a moment sup- 
 pose that the interest of the occasion was at all depen- 
 dent upon any novelty of fact or of illustration, or de- 
 manded a brilliant rhetoric or elaborate oratory. I 
 know not what impressions the near examination of 
 the acts and motives of the Puritan emigrants may 
 produce upon others, but to myself their simple gran- 
 deur seems to need no aid from vivid coloring or artful 
 exaggeration, nor to incur much peril from imperfect 
 or inadequate conceptions. Resting upon the imper- 
 ishable basis of real greatness of soul, their fame no 
 praise can brighten and no censure dim. 
 
 The seeds of the movement which was to emancipate 
 
242 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 religion from prelatical control, and re-establish the 
 equality of men before their common Father, were sown 
 in the English mind by Wickliffe. Though their dis- 
 semination had not been sufficient greatly to disturb the 
 quiet of the Church or break the peace of the realm, 
 yet when, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, Lu- 
 ther and Zuingle proclaimed, as with a trumpet, the 
 great Reformation, and raised high the torch of reli- 
 gious liberty, the people of England, from this pre- 
 vious preparation, the more readily accepted the glad 
 tidings, and welcomed the new light. While the pure 
 flames of religious enthusiasm were burning in the 
 hearts of his people, their sovereign, Henry VIII, 
 threw off the Papal dominion upon a question, personal 
 to himself, in which the Pope had proved uncomplai- 
 sant to his wishes. He usurped — for, in great measure 
 at least, it was usurpation — the same supremacy in 
 matters of religion which he had wrested from the 
 Pope, and declared himself the head of the English 
 Church, subjected the whole control of its doctrine and 
 discipline to the temporal power, gave to the prelates 
 a new master, but in no degree satisfied the true de- 
 mand of the movement among his people, freedom of 
 conscience and independency in religion. Preserving 
 still an attachment to the religious tenets of the Church 
 of Rome, he looked with equal disfavor, among his 
 subjects, upon adhesion to the Roman pontiff, and de- 
 sertion of the Romish faith. The succeeding reigns 
 of his son Edward and his daughter Mary, gave aid 
 and succor, the one to the new religion, the other to the 
 ancient faith ; and when Elizabeth, near the middle of 
 the sixteenth century, assumed the crown, she found 
 a people distracted by religious contentions. The sin- 
 gular position taken by King Henry had tended to di- 
 vide the realm into three parties, — the Popish recusants, 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 243 
 
 who refused to acquiesce in the royal usurpation of the 
 Pope's spiritual dominion, — the Protestant malcon- 
 tents, unsatisfied with the rejection of the Pope's tem- 
 poral authority while so much of the corruption of 
 Popery remained in the ritual and worship, — and the 
 supporters of the Church of England. From the ac- 
 cession of Elizabeth, by education and profession a 
 Protestant, the more zealous reformers counted upon 
 an active cooperation on the part of the Crown in the 
 further emancipation and purification of religion. As 
 matter of personal conviction, the Queen was not so 
 fully weaned from the old faith, but that she retained 
 the crucifix in her own chapel, and attempted its resto- 
 ration in the churches; and through her whole reign 
 she refused a legal sanction to the marriage of the 
 clergy. But as matter of state policy and govern- 
 ment she early adopted, and steadily pursued, a sys- 
 tem still more fatal to the hopes of the party of prog- 
 ress in the Church. That great and politic compromise, 
 the Church Establishment, for reasons wise or unwise, 
 she and her statesmen adopted as the true and safe solu- 
 tion of the religious distractions of her people, and con- 
 formity to its dogmas and its ceremonies, was exacted 
 alike from the sullen Catholic and the ardent Protes- 
 tant. What till now had been a war of opinion, and 
 about matters in themselves of much indifferency, be- 
 tween the two divisions of Protestants, became a war 
 of persecution by the Government upon the offending 
 faction. For non-conformity, to every degree of dis- 
 favor and annoyance, were gradually added the graver 
 punishments of stripes, imprisonment, and death. 
 
 The party which contended for a more thorough and 
 complete reformation of religion, and against whom the 
 state-craft of Elizabeth conceived these machinations 
 and executed these oppressions, received from its op- 
 
244 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ponents the name of Puritans. They were neither 
 sectarian nor schismatical — nor, as yet, dissenters ; they 
 were the front of the Protestant host in the still pending 
 warfare with the Church of Rome; in their judgment 
 the main battle of Protestantism in England was not 
 completely won, much less its final triumph assured, 
 and they would hold no truce with the ancient super- 
 stition. They would tolerate no defence of the surplice 
 and the cap, of the cross in baptism, or the ring in mar- 
 riage, on the plea that their retention would conciliate 
 the Papists, and reduce that disaffection. With a large 
 part of the people of England still clinging to the old 
 faith, and much the greater portion of the benefices of 
 the Church filled by dissembling Protestants, ready to 
 "resume their mass-books with more alacrity than they 
 had laid them aside," the Puritan clergy and laity re- 
 fused their adhesion to the policy of the Crown, and 
 struggled against conformity. To the strenuousness of 
 their resistance to this specious compromise of the 
 rights of conscience for the peace of the realm, it may 
 well be thought, England owes her safety from relapse 
 into Popery. 
 
 The party of the Puritans too, was neither small in 
 numbers nor made up from any one class of society. 
 Strongest in London and other large towns, and among 
 the merchants and tradesmen, during the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, it also embraced, according to Hal lam, a ma- 
 jority of the Protestant gentry of England, and in- 
 cluded not a few eminent nobles. The clergy, below 
 the grade of high ecclesiastics, most famous for talents, 
 learning and eloquence, espoused the cause of progress, 
 and so nearly did they come to a majority of the Con- 
 vocation of 1562, that a proposition to abolish the of- 
 fensive usages failed by but a single vote; the records 
 of Parliament throughout the reign of Elizabeth show 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 245 
 
 that the control of the Commons was in the hands of 
 the Puritans. Indeed, things were not far from the 
 condition which they reached in a succeeding reign, 
 when, as Carlyle asserts, "either in conscious act, or in 
 clear tendency, the far greater part of the serious 
 thought and manhood of England had declared itself 
 Puritan." 
 
 The zeal of persecution did not long suffer the con- 
 troversy to be waged upon mere forms and ceremonies, 
 but transferred the conflict to a battle for the rights of 
 conscience. The inquiries into the just limitations of 
 might and right in spiritual matters, in turn, were di- 
 rected to civil affairs, and the train of causes was set 
 at work, which at length overthrew the English mon- 
 archy and built up this republic in the West. 
 
 I have thus far described the relations of the great 
 body of the Puritans to the Reformation and the Eng- 
 lish Church, but there was gradually developed among 
 them a sect or division which boldly pushed the ques- 
 tions at issue to their ultimate and legitimate solution ; 
 which threw off all connection with the Established 
 Church, rejected alike the surplice and the bishops, the 
 prayer-book and the ceremonies, and, resting upon the 
 Bible, sought no less than to restore the constitution 
 of the Christian Church to the primitive simplicity in 
 which it was first instituted. These Separatists, as they 
 were called, put in practice their theoretical opinions 
 by the formation of churches in which the members 
 were the source of all power and controlled its admin- 
 istration, and, in a word, applied to ecclesiastical or- 
 ganizations principles which, if introduced into civil 
 government, would produce a pure democracy. 
 
 In the "mean townlet of Scrooby," in Nottingham- 
 shire, recent investigations have accurately ascertained, 
 was collected the Puritan congregation of Separatists, 
 
246 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 from which proceeded the first settlement of New Eng- 
 land. They united themselves in the simple and sol- 
 emn compact of a church covenant about the year 1602, 
 and found a place of worship, strangely enough, in an 
 Episcopal manor-house belonging to the See of York, 
 but in the tenancy of William Brewster. John Rob- 
 inson soon became their minister, and for several years 
 they there sustained, as best they might, the persecu- 
 tions of the civil power, and maintained their worship. 
 This Christian Church, collected from a simple agricul- 
 tural population in a rude part of England, remote 
 from any great centre of influence, was the seed se- 
 lected, in the wisdom of Providence, for the plantation 
 of a new community in this Western world. With the 
 formation of this Congregational Church commences 
 the history of New England, for this compacted, organ- 
 ized body, this social unit, made up and fitly framed 
 together in England, and thus as an aggregate and per- 
 fect whole, transported to America, made the first set- 
 tlement at Plymouth. 
 
 We at once perceive that we have here before us the 
 ripened germ, ready to be severed from the parent 
 stock, whence was to proceed the future growth, under 
 the eternal law of development by which seeds produce, 
 each after its kind. As yet this little, this peculiar com- 
 munity, had formed no conscious plan or project look- 
 ing to the foundation of a new society, much less of 
 an independent state. Yet, whatever of preparatory 
 discipline it was to submit to in the interval, whatever 
 circumstances, as yet uncertain, were to determine 
 where and when it should germinate and be developed, 
 the elements of weakness or of strength, the qualities 
 decisive of the growth which should come from it, if 
 any growth it should have, were fixed and complete. 
 Here, then, is the true point at which to observe what 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 247 
 
 were the important elements and qualities both in the 
 individual characters of these men, and in the solemn 
 and intimate bond of connection that held them to- 
 gether, — in reference, always, to their fitness or unfit- 
 ness as a vehicle for the transfer of the religion and 
 civilization of the old to the new world, and in refer- 
 ence also to the nature of the institutions of which they 
 were suited to become the founders. 
 
 In the first place, these emigrants were drawn from 
 the bosom of the English people, in distinction from 
 the court, the nobility, the gentry, the learned profes- 
 sions; — their condition in life was ordinary, alike re- 
 moved from the enervation of wealth and the servility 
 of poverty, and having all the independence which be- 
 longs to intelligent and laborious industry ; — they were, 
 in the main, a rural and agricultural people, and of the 
 sober, reflective, self-dependent temper which such pur- 
 suits cherish ; their condition, as among themselves, was 
 equal; they stood together in their common manhood, 
 undistinguished, save only by those differences which 
 intellect, and character, and culture, make among men. 
 
 In the second place, they had all the instruction and 
 experience in personal rights and their enjoyment, 
 which even at that day distinguished the condition of 
 Englishmen, and, outside of any special pressure of the 
 Government in particular matters of state or church 
 policy, were a large and valuable possession to the peo- 
 ple of England. They might be oppressed by cruel, 
 unjust or impious laws, but had important and, in gen- 
 eral, efficient guaranties against oppression in violation 
 of law. A common law, being nothing else than the 
 adaptation of the immutable principles of general jus- 
 tice and common right to the ever-varying circum- 
 stances of human affairs, the public administration of 
 justice, a participation as jurors in such administration, 
 
248 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 security by the habeas corpus against illegal restraint, 
 an inviolable threshold, and a representation in the 
 Commons which controlled the supplies, — these were 
 some of the rights of Englishmen in which the Puritan 
 emigrants possessed a share. 
 
 But the traits which most command our attention, 
 both from intrinsic dignity and the absorbing influ- 
 ence on their conduct, are the depth of their religious 
 convictions, the purity of their religious sentiments, 
 and the fervor of their Christian faith. If our Puri- 
 tan forefathers in civil station and worldly estate 
 ranked among the common people of England, the dis- 
 dain of courtiers and the scorn of prelates, they seemed 
 to themselves children of a nobler lineage, and conse- 
 crated of an elder priesthood than those who despised 
 them. To them religion and 2/^ laws of worth and dig- 
 nity were not only realities, but the sole realities ; Chris- 
 tianity was not only true, but its spirit and its precepts 
 were the all-sufficient guide and rule of life; God they 
 not only revered, with a distant awe, as the Creator of 
 the world and the Ruler of events, but in the boldness 
 of a filial adoption confided in him as the Father of their 
 spirits, the watchful Protector of their daily walk; 
 wealth in earthly possessions, power in temporal sway, 
 they counted as nothing beside the riches and the glo- 
 ries of the spiritual kingdom ; the pride of life, the 
 pleasures of sense, all pomp and magnificence seemed 
 but dust and ashes to the substantial joys and effulgent 
 splendors of the spiritual life. Not less was the indif- 
 ference to the toils and hardships, the sufferings, pri- 
 vations and afflictions of the present time, begotten by 
 the high hopes and sure rewards of their vivid faith. 
 The enemies that they dreaded were the enemies of 
 their souls, the encounters to them most formidable w^ere 
 with the great adversary, the evils they feared were 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 249 
 
 the frailty and the wickedness of their own natures, 
 the victories they aimed at were over temptation and 
 sin, the conquest they strove for was over their own 
 spirits. 
 
 In an age when faith has grown colder, when reli- 
 gion is much less a matter of public and general thought, 
 when outward and ostensible enterprises for the moral 
 and spiritual advancement of man attract and absorb 
 whatever activity is spared from purely worldly pur- 
 suits, these elevations of spirit seem, to many, incon- 
 sistent with the calm and sober performance of duty 
 which marked the conduct of these men. Some stig- 
 matize them as the vagaries of a vulgar fanaticism, 
 others pardon them as the extravagancies of a gener- 
 ous enthusiasm, but zve acknowledge them as an essen- 
 tial element in the agencies which were to operate great 
 social and political revolutions at home, and found and 
 build up a great nation abroad. 
 
 Passing from this brief and imperfect examination 
 of the character of these emigrants themselves, mark 
 now the peculiar association in which they were united, 
 and in which they were to leave their native land and 
 ultimately to seek these shores. It was an independent, 
 isolated, Christian Church, part of no establishment, 
 subordinate to no hierarchy, and having no relations 
 outside of itself. I propose no observations, mystical 
 or ecclesiastical, concerning it as a church, but simply 
 a consideration of the principles on which its forma- 
 tion as a social unit rested, and in reference to its con- 
 vertibility, when need should be, into an independent 
 community and complete body politic. 
 
 And first we notice that this community was organ- 
 ized, as its fundamental discrimination from the system 
 of prelacy, upon the notion that the members were the 
 source and depository of all power, that by their elec- 
 
250 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 tion all offices were to be filled, and that the suffrage 
 was equal and universal. 
 
 We next observe that the tie which bound the mem- 
 bers together had no reference to selfish interests or 
 the pursuit of gain, but was that of brotherhood, and 
 for the culture of their higher nature and the promo- 
 tion of their supreme welfare. Mutual support and aid, 
 counsel, sympathy, a bearing of each other's burdens, 
 a participation in each other's joys and sorrows, con- 
 flicts and triumphs, were the right and the duty of each 
 in respect to all. 
 
 Add to this, that this union was permanent, that it 
 embraced the family as well as the individual; that it 
 presupposed concert and consent as to the objects and 
 ends of life; that it ever confirmed and constantly cher- 
 ished unity of purpose; that it involved a thorough ac- 
 quaintance with each by all in the most sincere and 
 intimate sense; and that around all was thrown the 
 solemn sanction of divine authority, and you have a 
 little community with more of the true social spirit to 
 hold it together, and less chance or scope for the opera- 
 tion of selfish discords to weaken or dissolve it, than 
 ever has been or ever can be, otherwise constituted. 
 
 To this Puritan congregation the cruel alternative 
 was soon presented, between expatriation and abandon- 
 ment of their religious worship; for to this pitch had 
 the civil power pushed its persecutions. They chose 
 to turn their backs upon their homes and their posses- 
 sions, and, to use their own language, "by joint con- 
 sent they resolved to go to the low countries, where 
 they heard was freedom of religion to all men." For 
 twelve years, in patient, though ungrateful toil, in oc- 
 cupations unfamiliar and uncongenial, amid a crowded 
 population, speaking a foreign tongue, and with cus- 
 toms strange to their English notions, they led an hon- 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 251 
 
 est life and maintained their religious worship. They 
 have left a record of the reasons and the influences 
 which induced them to leave Holland and seek the re- 
 mote, unpeopled wilderness within the nominal sover- 
 eignty of England. It is quite apparent from a perusal 
 of their own statements, that on leaving England they 
 had no other view than a peaceable life with the enjoy- 
 ment of religious liberty, looking no further; that as 
 they advanced in years and their children grew up 
 around them, the probable fortunes of their posterity 
 were forced upon their attention. They foresaw that 
 their individuality and nationality, their language, the 
 very religion which was dearer than life or country to 
 them, would be swallowed up in the general population 
 of Holland. For themselves, they would have cared 
 little whether their short sojourn before they were re- 
 moved to ''heaven, their dearest country," were in one 
 place or another; but for their children and later pos- 
 terity they desired the birthright of Englishmen, and 
 for the pure and primitive forms of Christianity which 
 they possessed, and at so costly sacrifice had preserved, 
 they sought a permanent establishment and a wider 
 diffusion. 
 
 Under these impulses, led by these motives, to enjoy 
 liberty of conscience and pure scriptural worship, to 
 enlarge his majesty's dominions and advance the king- 
 dom of Christ; or, in other words, to found a new so- 
 ciety where the Christian religion and English law 
 should prevail, religious liberty flourish and a pure 
 faith be preserved, our Pilgrim fathers projected and 
 accomplished the perilous passage of the wide ocean, 
 braved the unknown dangers of a wilderness, and on 
 this day, two hundred and thirty-four years ago, landed 
 on the Rock of Plymouth. Thus did they, with a true 
 filial devotion, cling to the skirts of the ungracious 
 
252 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 mother from whose bosom they had been so rudely re- 
 pelled, and thus did the stone, which the builders of 
 English liberty, and English law, and English power, 
 rejected, become the head of the corner of our consti- 
 tuted state. 
 
 Well might Milton, the brightest star in the firma- 
 ment of English, no less than of Puritan, literature, 
 mourn the great loss to England from this emigration, 
 led by the Pilgrims, and closely follower by so much 
 of the worth and strength of the nation, z A sadly fore- 
 bode for the fortunes of the parent state hus bereaved. 
 "What numbers of faithful and free-born Englishmen 
 and good Christians have been constrained to forsake 
 their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom 
 nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of 
 America could hide and shelter from the fury of the 
 bishops. Oh, if we could but see the shape of our dear 
 mother England, as poets are wont to give a personal 
 form to what they please, how would she appear, think 
 ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, 
 and tears abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold 
 so many of her children exposed at once, and thrust 
 from things of dearest necessity, because their con- 
 science could not assent to things w^hich the bishops 
 thought indifferent? Let the astrologers be dismayed 
 at the portentous blaze of comets and impressions in 
 the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to states; 
 I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to 
 a nation ( God turn the omen from us ! ) than when the 
 inhabitants, to avoid insufferable grievances at home, 
 are enforced by heaps to leave their native country." 
 
 It has been the custom of poets, of orators, and of 
 historians, as they looked upon this little fragment of 
 population, — torn from the bosom of a powerful state, 
 driven from the shelter of established law, outcast from 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 253 
 
 the civilization of the world, thrust, as it were, un- 
 armed and naked into a fierce struggle with rigorous, 
 inexorable nature, — to pity its weakness, deplore its 
 trials, and despair of its fate. If the view be confined 
 to the mere outward aspect of the scene and the actors, 
 if you omit their real history and overlook their actual 
 character and connection, if you would regard them as 
 a casual group thrown on the shore from the jaws 
 of shipwreck, or from some dire social convulsion, the 
 picture of feebleness, of misery, of hopelessness, can 
 scarcely be exaggerated. 
 
 But, unless my analysis of their character and de- 
 duction of their history has wholly failed of its pur- 
 pose, we cannot resist the conviction that, as the be- 
 ginning of a new community, as the foundation of an 
 original and separate civil society, as the germ and 
 nucleus of an independent political state, this band of 
 first settlers included as many elements and guaranties 
 of strength, of safety, and of growth, as lay within the 
 whole resources of human nature, or could be added 
 from the supports of a divine religion. 
 
 All the traits and qualities of personal manhood, and 
 in as large measure as, before or since, their country- 
 men or ours have attained to, they possessed; the at- 
 tendance of their wives and children carried into what- 
 ever strange wilderness a present home, and stamped 
 the settlement as permanent, not fugitive; they were 
 equipped with all the weaponry of substantial educa- 
 tion, furnished with sufficient stores of ordinary learn- 
 ing, trained in a discipline of practical experience, bet- 
 ter than proof armor in the warfare they were to wage. 
 
 Nor was the preparation of their spirits for the great 
 undertaking less fit and sufficient. As they did not 
 fear death, no terror could frighten them from their 
 purpose; as they did not love pleasure, no present pri- 
 
254 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 vations could appall them, no sensual attractions allure 
 them back; as they were but as wayfarers upon the 
 earth, with no abiding-place, pursuing only the path of 
 duty, wherever they pitched their moving tent, each 
 setting sun would find them "a day's march nearer 
 home." 
 
 As the love of gain, the wild spirit of adventure, the 
 lust of dominion, had no share in bringing them across 
 the seas, so no disappointments or discontents of a 
 selfish nature could enfeeble, distract, dissolve their 
 union ; as the bonds of their confederacy were spiritual 
 arid immortal, no natural afflictions or temporal disas- 
 ters could absolve the reciprocal duty, or break the 
 mutual faith, in which they were knit together as the 
 soul of one man. 
 
 Esteeming, as we must, that our Pilgrim ancestors 
 brought to these shores whatever of essential strength 
 there was in the civilization which they left, and what- 
 ever of power there is in a living Christian faith, — 
 that their coming was absolutely void of all guileful 
 purpose, and their association vital in every part with 
 true social energy, we may well consider the laments 
 at the feebleness, and distrusts of the issue, of their 
 enterprise, as more fanciful than philosophical. 
 
 What, then, though their numbers were few and 
 their persons ordinary ; what though the dark frown of 
 winter hung over the scene, and the sad cry of the sor- 
 rowing sea-birds, and the perpetual moan of the vexed 
 ocean, breathed around them; what though the deeper 
 shadow of death, the sadder wail of the dying and the 
 bereaved were in their midst; what though want had 
 possession of their camp, and starvation threatened at 
 their outposts? Strong in human patience, fortitude, 
 courage to bear or to remedy whatever it was in human 
 nature to endure, or in human power to cure, and for 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 255 
 
 the rest, mightier still in the supports of their sublime 
 faith, with the prophet's fervor, each one of them could 
 exclaim, "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, nei- 
 ther shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive 
 shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock 
 shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd 
 in the stalls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy 
 in the God of my salvation." 
 
 Equally propitious to the beneficent character of the 
 institutions they were to build up was it, that, while 
 they brought with them such amazing elements of vigor 
 and freedom, they left behind them almost all that had 
 deformed and burdened the development of the state, 
 and all the incrustations and corruptions that had over- 
 laid the Church and defiled religion. King, nobles, 
 gentry, all fixed ranks, all prerogatives, all condescen- 
 sions, all servilities, they were for ever, in a social sense, 
 delivered from; the whole hierarchy, bishops and 
 priests, canons and convocations, courts ecclesiastical 
 and high commissions, rites and ceremonies, were at 
 once thrown off and utterly ignored ; all that could as- 
 sist, confirm, enlarge and liberalize society, they brought 
 with them, unembarrassed with aught that could 
 thwart, trammel or impede its advancement. 
 
 That before the emigrants left Holland, they de- 
 signed to become a body politic, using among them- 
 selves civil government, and choosing their own magis- 
 trates; that in preparation for their landing they made 
 a formal compact or covenant to that end, and that, 
 without break or interval from that moment, they and 
 their descendants, to this hour, have maintained free 
 government (notwithstanding it was so long colonial 
 and dependent) ; that from the same stock their num- 
 bers were supplied and increased, and that from the 
 same stock and under the same lead and impulses, the 
 
256 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Massachusetts colony was founded; that the Connecti- 
 cut and New Haven colonies sprung from their loins, 
 while that of Rhode Island grew out of their intoler- 
 ance; and, in fine, that all New England, as it has been 
 and is, grew up, as naturally as the oak from the acorn, 
 from this seed planted at Plymouth, I need only to 
 suggest. 
 
 The institutions founded by the fathers of New Eng- 
 land were new in the affairs of men, and greatly in ad- 
 vance of whatever past experience had shown possible 
 in human condition; the civil prudence of their age 
 regarded them but as the experiments of the model and 
 the laboratory, successful only by exclusion of the fric- 
 tion and disturbance of great and various interests, and 
 by shelter from the stormy elements nursed in the 
 bosom of every large society; the cold eye of tyranny 
 yet watches for the hour when the heats of passion shall 
 dissolve, or the frosts of selfishness shall crumble their 
 whole fabric; still, their foundations stand sure, and 
 their dome ascends and widens in ampler and ampler 
 circles. 
 
 But the spii'it of liberty is no new impulse in human 
 conduct, no new agent in the history of states and 
 nations ; yet it is generally regarded as the main impulse 
 in the action of our forefathers, which is without a 
 parallel, — as the effective agent in their constructive 
 achievement, which is without a precedent. 
 
 The truth is, with our Pilgrim fathers liberty never 
 was valued as an end, though as a means to duty it was 
 worthier than all other possessions, and dearer than 
 life itself. Emancipation from existing authority they 
 sought only to subject themselves to a more thorough 
 discipline; loyalty to a ruler they replaced by obedience 
 to law; they threw off the yoke of their king only to 
 pursue the stricter service of their God. They cher- 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 257 
 
 ished, they cultivated, they sheltered, they defended, 
 they watered with their tears and with their blood, the 
 fair flower of liberty, but only that they might feed 
 upon its sober, sometimes its bitter, fruit, duty. 
 
 The mere passion for liberty has overthrown many 
 dynasties and torn in pieces many communities; it has 
 an immense energy to upset and destroy; but here its 
 work ends, unless it be attended by a sound conception 
 and faithful acceptance of the grand constructive ideas 
 of law and duty, to hold up the tottering, or to rebuild 
 the ruined, state. We pronounce, then, that the high- 
 est fidelity to law, and the sincerest devotion to duty, 
 were the controlling sentiments of our ancestors in their 
 walk and work. 
 
 Nor did our Puritan fathers teach, either by lesson 
 or example, that all men are capable of political self- 
 government. Their doctrine and their practice alike 
 reject such folly, and give this as the demonstration 
 and the truth, that men capable of governing themselves 
 as men, are able to maintain a free civil state as citi- 
 zens. While they knew that a strong people neither 
 need, nor will endure, a strong government, they no 
 less knew that strength must be somewhere, in people 
 or government, to hold any political society t jgether, 
 and their practical politics were directed by nis con- 
 viction. 
 
 Nor was equality of right in the citizens relied on 
 as an adequate social principle to preserve the peace, 
 and advance and develope the power of the common- 
 wealth. That, both from their actual temporal condi- 
 tion, and from their religious opinions, equality of right 
 would be, in its just sense, recognized and acted upon, 
 was inevitable. But equality of right, standing alone, 
 is a principle eminently dissocial, and paralyzing to all 
 high and worthy progress of the general welfare. It 
 
258 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 may answer for a band of robbers to divide their spoils 
 by, or victorious barons to apportion the conquered 
 land. But join with equality of right, as did the first 
 planters of New England, community of interest and 
 reciprocity of duty, as the controlling sentiments, and 
 you infuse a genuine public spirit, and evolve a strenu- 
 ous social activity, which will never weary and never 
 fail ; you produce, indeed, the efficient causes and influ- 
 ences which have animated and directed the immense 
 expansion of American society, the actual development 
 of American character. 
 
 It is worth our while to observe, from the very ear- 
 liest documents of the emigration and settlement, how 
 well the necessity and the grounds of a true public spirit 
 were understood, and how earnestly they were insisted 
 on. In their letter from Leyden to the Virginia Com- 
 pany, Robinson and Brewster thus recite one of the 
 grounds of just expectation for the success of the pro- 
 jected community. "We are knit together as a body in 
 a more strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, 
 of the violation whereof we make great conscience; 
 and by virtue whereof we do hold ourselves straitly 
 tied to all care of each other's good, and of the zvhole 
 by every, and so mutual." In his parting letter upon 
 the embarcation Robinson enjoins, "a. thing there is 
 carefully to be provided for, to wit, that with your 
 common employments you join common affections, 
 truly bent upon the general good ; avoiding, as a deadly 
 plague of your both common and special comfort, all 
 retiredncss of mind for proper advantage, and all sin- 
 gularly affected any manner of way. Let every man 
 repress in himself and the whole body in each person, 
 as so many rebels against the common good, all pri- 
 vate respects of men's selves, not sorting with the gen- 
 eral conveniency." And thus Cushman exhorts the 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 259 
 
 whole society, just a year after the landing: "Now, 
 brethren, I pray you remember yourselves, and know 
 that you are not in a retired monastical course, but have 
 given your names and promises one to another and 
 covenanted here to cleave together in the service of 
 God and the king. What then must you do ? May you 
 live as retired hermits and look after nobody? Nay, 
 you must seek still the wealth of one another, and in- 
 quire as David, How liveth such a man — How is he 
 clad — How is he fed ? He is my brother, my associate ; 
 we ventured our lives together here and had a hard 
 brunt of it; and we are in league together. Is his 
 labor harder than mine? Surely I will ease him. 
 Hath he no bed to lie on? Why, I have two; I'll lend 
 him one. Hath he no apparel? Why, I have two 
 suits; I will give him one of them. Eats he coarse 
 fare, bread and water, and I have better ? Why, surely 
 we will part stakes. He is as good a man as I, and 
 we are bound to each other ; so that his wants must be 
 my wants, his sorrows my sorrows, his sickness my 
 sickness, and his welfare my welfare; for I am as he is. 
 And such a sweet sympathy were excellent, comfort- 
 able, yea, heavenly, and is the only maker and conserver 
 of churches and commonwealths ; and where this is 
 wanting ruin comes on quickly." Such was their tem- 
 per, such their intelligence, such their wisdom. So 
 long as such sentiments pervade a community, it will 
 feel no lack of public spirit, suffer no decay of public 
 virtue. 
 
 Add to these principles, what is not so much a sepa- 
 rate principle as a comprehensive truth, lying at the 
 bottom of the whole enterprise, that the state and the 
 church were made for man, and not man for the gov- 
 ernment and the priest — that the culture and develop- 
 ment of the individual members of society, and not the 
 
26o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 grandeur or glory of the body politic, were the supe- 
 rior and controlling objects — and that such culture 
 and development should be religious and for the immor- 
 tal life, and you have all the constituent elements and 
 forces included in The Puritan Commonwealth. 
 
 And they were ample and adequate, and thus far 
 have been so proved; for the days of small things and 
 for the most magnificent expansion; for all the shocks 
 and dangers that have beset the feeble plantations, the 
 growing colonies, the heroic confederation, the united 
 people. Nor has as yet appeared any inherent defect, 
 or incongruous working in the system, which demands 
 or threatens change. Radicalism cannot dig below its 
 foundations, for it rests upon the deepest principles of 
 our nature; philanthropy can build out no wider, for 
 it recognizes the brotherhood of all men; enthusiasm 
 can mount no higher, for it rises to the very threshold 
 of heaven. No further strength or firmer stability can 
 be added to it, for faith among men, "which holds the 
 moral elements of the world together," and faith in 
 God, which binds that world to his throne, give it its 
 cohesion and its poise. 
 
 Some question has been made, where the Puritan 
 emigrants learned, and whence they derived, the great 
 thoughts of equality and freedom, so far in advance of 
 the English liberty of that day, or even the present, 
 so much deeper, and purer, and nobler, than any 
 then existing civilization could have supplied. One 
 of your own orators ^ has thought to trace the in- 
 spiration, through the religious exiles of Queen INIary's 
 reign, who found at Geneva "a state without a king 
 and a church without a bishop," "backwards from 
 Switzerland to its native land of Greece;" as if un- 
 willing that the bright flame of his country's freedom 
 ^Mr. Choate's Oration, 1843. 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 261 
 
 should be elsewhere lighted, than at those same undy- 
 ing Grecian fires which have kindled the splendors of 
 his own eloquence. I, rather, find the source of these 
 divine impulses in the Christian Scriptures, whence so 
 much else of the Puritan character drew its nourish- 
 ment, and which they consulted ever, as an oracle, with 
 wrestling and with prayer. I seem to see in the mature 
 designs of Him, to whom a thousand years are but as 
 one day, who moves in his own appointed times, and 
 selects and prepares his own instruments, the re-enact- 
 ment of the first scenes of the Christian dispensation, in 
 the establishment of the Christian faith upon this un- 
 peopled continent — with this new demonstration and 
 this new power of its vital energy, as well for the re- 
 construction of all human institutions as for the regen- 
 eration of the soul — and hail the Pilgrim fathers as 
 the bearers of a new commission, than which there has 
 been none greater since the time of the Apostles. 
 
 Time, and your patience, fail me to insist upon the 
 penetrating forecast and wide sagacity, the vast civil 
 prudence and exhaustless fidelity with wdiich our fore- 
 fathers sought, upon these foundations, to rear a fabric 
 of liberty and law, civilization and religion, for a habi- 
 tation to their posterity to the latest generation. Yet 
 I must observe that all their care was applied directly 
 to the people at large, to the preservation and perpetu- 
 ation of intelligence, virtue and piety among them; as- 
 sured that, from this support, good government and 
 free government were of as certain growth in the moral 
 constitution of things, as is the natural harvest from 
 seed well sown in a grateful soil. Accordingly, they 
 founded a system of common education, not expecting 
 to make the whole people learned, but to make them in- 
 telligent, and so protect them from that oppression 
 which knowledge can practise upon ignorance; they 
 
262 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 maintained the public administration of justice, and 
 confined it to the common law system and procedure, 
 not anticipating that each citizen would become as pro- 
 found, or as erudite in his special science, as my Lord 
 Coke, but intending that common right and practical 
 justice should be subserved, and not defrauded, by all 
 the profundity and erudition in the world; they em- 
 ployed the holy Sabbath, and gave it full measure in 
 the division of the week, in public preaching, exhorta- 
 tion and prayer; not as a ceremonial expiation or a 
 servile propitiation for the sins of the people, but for 
 instruction to their understandings and confirmation of 
 their faith; and above all, the Bible, the Bible in the 
 family, the Bible in the school, the Bible in the church, 
 was kept ever under the eyes and in the ears and in 
 the hearts of the people, in childhood, in manhood, and 
 in age ; for Pope, Prelate and Puritan alike agreed that 
 this book contained the oracles of their religion, and 
 our forefathers knew, by impressive experience, that 
 whichever. Pope, Prelate or People had the keeping 
 of these oracles, held the keys of religious, civil and 
 social liberty. 
 
 How, from these never-failing springs, for every oc- 
 casion of the advancing communities, both civic virtue 
 and martial spirit were supplied; how as early as 1643 
 the four New England colonies framed articles of con- 
 federation, which are the type of the general confeder- 
 ation of the Revolution and of the Federal Union ; how 
 in the Indian wars and the French campaigns, the 
 warlike vigor of the people was developed and dis- 
 ciplined; how in the heroic toils and sacrifices of the 
 war of Independence, and in the wise counsels and gen- 
 erous conciliations which made us a united people. New 
 England bore an unmeasured, an unstinted share; how 
 on the tide of her swelling population these traits of 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 263 
 
 her founders have been diffused and the seeds of their 
 institutions disseminated, why should I relate? They 
 are the study of yourselves and of your children. 
 
 Behold now in these, — in the great fame of the Puri- 
 tan exiles, in their sublime pilgrimage, in the society 
 they founded, in the States they built up, in the liberty 
 and the law, in the religion and the civilization they 
 established, — behold our Heritage from them. I have 
 made no mention of the immense territory which our 
 country's bounds include, but I have shown you the 
 price at which it was all purchased, the title by which 
 it is all held ; I have not counted the heaped up treasures 
 of your wealth, but I have pointed you to the mine 
 whence it was all digged, to the fires by which it has all 
 been refined ; I have not followed the frequent sails of 
 your commerce over the universal sea, but I have shown 
 you, in the little Mayflower, the forerunner of your in- 
 numerable fleet; I have not pictured the great temple, 
 which from generation to generation has been raised, 
 the home of justice, the habitation of freedom, the 
 shrine towards which the hopes of all nations tend, but 
 I have explored its foundations and laid bare its cor- 
 ner-stone. This vast material aggrandizement, this 
 imperial height of position, we may exult in, but they 
 do not distinguish us from earlier, and now ruined, 
 states; they form no part of our peculiar inheritance. 
 Green grass has grown beneath the tread of other na- 
 tions, and for them the vine has dropped its purple 
 vintage, and the fields turned up their golden harvest; 
 nature has crowned them with every gift of plenty, 
 and labor gained for them overflowing wealth; un- 
 counted population has filled their borders, victorious 
 arms pushed on their limits, and glorious art, and noble 
 literature, and a splendid worship spread over all, their 
 graces and their dignities; but justice among men, the 
 
264 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 main policy of all civil society, and faith in God, its 
 only guaranty of permanence, were wanting or died 
 out, and they were turned under by the ploughshare of 
 Time to feed a nobler growth. 
 
 As we value this heritage which we have thus re- 
 ceived, as we are penetrated with wonder and gratitude 
 at the costly sacrifices and heroic labors of our ances- 
 tors, by which it has been acquired for us; as in each 
 preceding generation we observe no unworthy defec- 
 tion from the original stock, no waste of the rich pos- 
 session, but ever its jealous protection, its generous 
 increase, so do we feel an immeasurable obligation to 
 transmit this heritage unimpaired, and yet ampler, to 
 our posterity, to maintain unbroken the worth and 
 honor which hitherto have marked their lineage. This 
 obligation can only be fulfilled by imitating the wisdom 
 of our fathers, by observing the maxims of their pol- 
 icy, studying the true spirit of their institutions, and 
 acting, in our day, and in our circumstances, with the 
 same devotion to principle, the same fidelity to duty. 
 If we neglect this, if we run wild in the enjoyment of 
 the great inheritance, if we grow arrogant in our pros- 
 perity, and cniel in our power, if we come to confound 
 freedom in religion with freedom fi'om religion, and 
 independence by law with independence of law, if we 
 substitute for a public spirit a respect to private advan- 
 tage, if we run from all civil duties, and desert all social 
 obligations, if we make our highest conservatism the 
 taking care of ourselves, our shame and our disaster 
 will alike be signal. 
 
 Nor, if we will rightly consider the aspect of our 
 times, and justly estimate the great conflicting social 
 forces at work in the nation, shall we lack for noble 
 incentives to follow in the bright pathway of duty in 
 
WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS 265 
 
 which our fathers led, nor for great objects to aim at 
 and accompHsh. While we rejoice that from no pecu- 
 liar institutions of New England does occasion of dis- 
 content or disquietude arise, to vex the public con- 
 science, or disturb the public serenity; that the evils and 
 dangers of ignorance and sloth are imbedded in no 
 masses of her population, local or derivative; that not 
 for her children are borne our heavy burdens of pauper- 
 ism and crime; let us no less rejoice that, clogged by 
 no impediment and exhausted by no feebleness of her 
 own, all the energies of New England may be devoted 
 to succor and sustain at every point of weakness, all 
 her power to uphold and confirm every element of 
 strength, in whatever region of our common country, in 
 whatever portion of her various population. 
 
 Guided by the same high motives, imbued with the 
 same deep wisdom, warmed with the same faithful 
 spirit as were our ancestors, what social evil is there so 
 great as shall withstand us, what public peril so dark as 
 shall dismay us? Men born in the lifetime of Mary 
 Allerton, the last survivor of the Mayflower's company, 
 lived through the Revolution; men born before the 
 Revolution still live. Of the hundred and one persons 
 who landed from the Mayflower, one half were buried 
 by early spring; yet now the blood of the New Eng- 
 land Puritans beats in the hearts of more than seven 
 millions of our countrymen. The slow and narrow 
 influences of personal example and of public speech, by 
 which alone, in the days of the early settlement, were 
 all social impressions made and diffused, are now re- 
 placed by a thousand rapid agencies by which public 
 opinion is formed and circulated. Population seems 
 no longer local and stationary, but ever more and more 
 migratory, intermingled and transfused; and, if the 
 
266 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 virtue and the power, to which to-day we pay our 
 homage, survive in the sons of the Pilgrims, doubt not 
 their influences will soon penetrate and pervade the 
 whole general mass of society throughout the nation; 
 fear not but that eqiialiiy of right, community of in- 
 terest, reciprocity of duty will bind this whole people 
 together in a perfect, a perpetual union. 
 
ORATION 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D. 
 THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 
 JOHN PIERPONT, D.D. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 
 (1807-1897.) 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT 
 (1785-1866.) 
 
 The orator of 1855, belonging to the present as fully as to the 
 past, needs no introduction. This year the society returned to l 
 
 its early custom, and a poem formed a part of the program. 3 
 
 Dr. John Pierpont, the poet of the occasion, was born in \ 
 
 Litchfield, Connecticut. He studied law, but later entered the i 
 
 ministry and united with the Unitarian denomination. His ■/ 
 
 poems were widely known, especially his occasional pieces. 
 
 The political element had naturally entered largely of late into 
 the literary exercises of the society. Almost any political creed 
 might have found satisfaction in this celebration at the Church 
 of the Puritans. The verses of Dr. Pierpont, though he was 
 then over seventy years of age, would have been quoted with 
 enthusiasm by the youngest and wildest Abolitionist, while 
 Dr. Holmes, his junior by thirty years, stood frankly for the 
 most conservative element of the North. One sentiment of the 
 orator in regard to slavery was met with a hiss, to which inci- 
 dent Dr. Pierpont referred at the dinner the following evening. 
 
 "I have prepared," he said, "some lines, should it ever occur 
 again, which would run somewhat in the following fashion : 
 
 "Our brother Holmes's gadfly was a thing 
 To lo known by its tormenting sting. 
 The noisome insect still is known by this. 
 But geese and serpents by their harmless hiss." 
 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 269 
 
 Dr. Holmes, rising, instantly replied : 
 
 "Well said, my trusty brother, bravely done. 
 Sit down, good neighbor, now I owe you one." 
 
 Dr. Holmes also recited at this dinner the following verses : 
 
 "New England, we love thee; no time can erase 
 From the hearts of thy children, the smile on thy face. 
 'T is the mother's fond look of affection and pride. 
 As she gives her fair son to the arms of his bride. 
 
 "His bride may be fresher in beauty's young flower ; 
 She may blaze in the jewels she brings with her dower. 
 But passion must chill in Time's pitiless blast ; 
 The one that first loved us will love to the last. 
 
 "You have left the dear land of the lake and the hill. 
 But its winds and its waters will talk with you still. 
 'Forget not,' they whisper, 'your love is our debt,' 
 And echo breathes softly, 'We never forget.' 
 
 "The banquet's gay splendors are gleaming around, 
 But your hearts have flown back o'er the waves of the Sound; 
 They have found the brown home where their pulses were born ; 
 They are throbbing their way through the trees and the corn. 
 
 "There are roofs you remember — their glory is fled ; 
 There are mounds in the churchyard — one sigh for the dead. 
 There are wrecks, there are ruins, all scattered around; 
 But Earth has no spot like that corner of ground. 
 
 "Come, let us be cheerful ; we scolded last night. 
 And they cheered us, and — never mind — meant it all right. 
 To-night, we harm nothing — we love in the lump ; 
 Here 's a bumper to Maine, in the juice of the pump! 
 
 "Here 's to all the good people, wherever they be. 
 That have grown in the shade of the liberty tree ; 
 We all love its leaves, and its blossoms, and fruit. 
 But pray have a care of the fence round its root. 
 
270 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 "We should like to talk big ; it 's a kind of a right, 
 When the tongue has got loose as the waistband grew tight; 
 But, as pretty Miss Prudence remarked to her beau. 
 On its own heap of compost no biddy should crow. 
 
 "Enough ! There are gentlemen waiting to talk, 
 Whose words are to mine as the flower to the stalk. 
 Stand by your old mother whatever befall ; 
 God bless all her children ! Good night to you all !" 
 
ORATION 
 
 WE have come together into the inner circle of a 
 triple cordon which surrounds us with its har- 
 monious parallels. As members of a great Republic, 
 gathered to speak with the freedom it gives to all, of 
 the dead and of the past ; if we choose, too, of the living 
 and of the present; we pass the outer circle, and the 
 folds of the national ensig^n overshadow us as Ameri- 
 cans. As citizens or guests of a great metropolis, we 
 cross the second line, feeling that the heart of the vast 
 city is large enough to hold us with all our old loves 
 and recollections, without jealousy — nay, rather with 
 pride — that it could win and keep so many of us away 
 from our birth-place. As children of a common de- 
 scent, we enter the innermost ring of all, and clasp each 
 other's hands, and exchange those looks and words that 
 flash out in a glance, or an accent, the welcome which 
 has in it a whole family-Bible full of cousinships and 
 brotherhoods. 
 
 We hold ourselves thrice happy that each of these 
 concentric circles helps to limit and define the vague 
 affections of our common humanity. Let us not lose 
 sight of the great ring that embraces all the others. 
 Poor and provincial indeed is every gathering within 
 the bounds of the wide Republic which does not re- 
 member that it is first of all a meeting of Americans. 
 It were ungrateful to forget the privileges and pleasures 
 
 271 
 
272 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 with which the stately city surrounds its permanent 
 and transient guests; none ever forget its hospitaHties 
 but those who administer them. But for the closer 
 and narrower area into which we have crowded to-day, 
 leaving the busy world outside of its charmed cir- 
 cumference, we may naturally wish to speak a word of 
 explanation. 
 
 We meet as a family meets, because blood will have 
 its own affinities, and draw men together out of the 
 mass with which they are mingled. There is iron in 
 it, the chemists tell us ; there is magnetism at any rate. 
 So feel the stout Englishmen when they come together 
 and make the roofs of your dining halls echo to "God 
 Save the Queen;" so feel the keen Scotchmen when 
 they meet to sing the songs of Burns over the pint 
 stoup that follows the haggis; so feel the sons of St. 
 David when they unite to give voice to their patriotism 
 in strings of solid consonants which only Cambrian 
 lips can utter; so feel the children of St. Patrick when 
 they do honor to their patron saint, with all the over- 
 flowing devotion of their warm and joyous nature. 
 It is good that they should all come together in their 
 several places and times. All of us in these busy days, 
 and this busy region, live little enough in the past and 
 the distant; it is well to keep alive all that is left of a 
 young heart in the bosoms of gray exiles. 
 
 We Americans, too, like these subjects of Britain, 
 have our distinct families under the general roof of the 
 common country which protects us all. Were it not 
 so, many of the sympathies of our nature would not be 
 called out. We must have something between the 
 vague grandeur of the mighty Republic, and the sharp 
 localism of the individual State, to fit a certain range 
 of our affections. Our limited affinities have already 
 formed groups at the South, and in the West, as well 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 273 
 
 as in the East ; they determine natural lines of cleavage, 
 like the invisible seams which run through the differ- 
 ent planes of a crystal. 
 
 When geographical unity, and similar modes of life, 
 and congenial beliefs, and long companionship in trial 
 and prosperity, and the recollections belonging to a 
 common descent, all coincide, then there will be a natu- 
 ral family, a sub-nationality, self-formed in the heart of 
 the larger community to which it belongs. And all 
 these circumstances unite in the case of New England. 
 
 Look at her geographically. Her domain is a cor- 
 ner cut off from the main piece; ample enough, were 
 not the whole so vast as to make it seem little. The 
 ocean opens the world of trade to her eastern border, 
 but shuts off all immediate relationships on that side. 
 An alien soil skirts her on the north; an irregular 
 mountain barrier slopes its glacis along her western 
 edge. To the south, Connecticut, sitting in her corner, 
 puts out a thumb, as it were, of the same great hand 
 which has Cope Cod as its crooked little finger, but 
 without reaching the prize which seems to tempt the 
 intruding member. All over this naturally isolated 
 region are seen the same general features. New Eng- 
 land is long and lean. The gaunt ranges of hills run 
 side by side from north to south, like ribs that hunger 
 has unclothed. Here and there are other huge promi- 
 nences that summer tries in vain to soften with her 
 graceful millinery. Katahdin, Monadnock, Ascutney, 
 Wachusett and Saddle-mountain would take a fatter 
 diluvium to smooth their staring protuberances than 
 ever yet swept over New England. In the grooves of 
 this uneven surface run a hundred rivers, broad or 
 narrow as may be, but for the most part shallow and 
 rapid. They were made for active toil, rather than to 
 be the passive highways of navigation ; few of them are 
 
274 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 penetrated many miles by commerce ; but they grind the 
 corn, they spin the wool and cotton, they forge the 
 iron, they cleave the great timbers which come from 
 the booms that gather up pines and hemlocks as the 
 farmer's rake gathers his rye or barley. A few narrow 
 meadows, mere strips between the hills, have something 
 of that spontaneous productiveness which makes the 
 broad western valleys the lap of the world's harvest; 
 but mainly, the soil says, as plainly as mullen and sorrel 
 can talk, "Work or starve." 
 
 Out of these conditions springs a life with its own 
 distinctive characters for good and evil ; the New Eng- 
 lander is a man by himself; a pattern, and not a cast- 
 ing. He knows his fellow wherever he meets him, by 
 his face, his speech, his habits, and his mental charac- 
 ter. Whatever differences there may be among New 
 Englanders, they agree for the most part in sturdy 
 love of liberty, in thrifty ways of life, in habits of 
 methodical industry, in reverence for religion and edu- 
 cation, and in respect for law. Each man acts always 
 with reference to a social organization which exists 
 ready formed in his head. There are heroes among the 
 settlers of the forest who have a more magnificent per- 
 sonal independence than he, but none that carries in 
 his mind and character so many of the elements that 
 go to the foundation of a State. In claiming these 
 qualities for him, it is not implied that he monopolizes 
 these or any other virtues, but that New England train- 
 ing does naturally include such qualifications as a part 
 of the outfit with which she furnishes her emigrant 
 children. To these grounds of fellowship and sym- 
 pathy must be added the immediate family ties which 
 bring so large a share of the inhabitants of the New 
 England States into more or less near relations of blood 
 and family connection, and the close bands that have 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 275 
 
 made them one people in the days of common trial and 
 united effort. Add to all this the one fact of which 
 this day will never cease to remind the New Englander, 
 wherever its sun may find him, that he claims his de- 
 scent from the Pilgrims of Plymouth, lineally it may 
 be, virtually at any rate, and no man need ask more 
 than once why we have entered that third circle of inti- 
 mate communion, which is narrower than the common 
 citizenship that belongs to most of us, and falls far 
 within the broad zone of republican Americanism which 
 includes us all. 
 
 The feeling which brings us together is one which 
 finds its full expression only at certain appointed sea- 
 sons. Two winter's evenings are its annual flowering 
 times; but its roots lie deep in the heart, where rever- 
 ence for truth, for courage, for faith and piety have 
 their eternal sources of life. It is well that from time 
 to time these primal elements in our moral being, these 
 high instincts and pure affections, which are overlaid 
 or forced into narrow channels by the relations of com- 
 mon life, should come forth and resume their true di- 
 mensions, and assert their slumbering supremacy. 
 
 But a few days will elapse before throughout all 
 Christendom will be heard the sound of bells and the 
 pealing of anthems; the congregations of the faithful 
 will utter their united voices in every land ; the village 
 churches will send their praise up to Heaven fragrant 
 with the breath of pines and spruces; the huge cathe- 
 drals will blow all their organ-pipes and shiver to 
 their crosses with melodious thunders; the sands of 
 the tropic and the snows of the frozen north will be 
 alike imprinted with the knees of barbarian worship- 
 pers ; the prisoner will clash rude music, as he lifts his 
 fettered hands to Heaven; the sentinel will lean upon 
 his musket and send a prayer upward from lips yet 
 
276 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 trembling with the oaths of battle. Roll off these win- 
 try clouds; set forward the index of the celestial horo- 
 loge until the yellow sun of July stares fierce upon its 
 dial. Throughout this broad land the sky shall be 
 filled with new echoes and flame with unwonted fires. 
 No hamlet too remote to be reached by the light of 
 flashing rockets and the crash of roaring artillery. In 
 a land of universal education, that day there shall be 
 no school ; in a land of industry, that day there shall 
 be no toil. Old men will creep out to look upon the 
 crowds and the banners ; children of the noisy sex will 
 swarm like bees, as loud and as dangerous with their 
 licensed weapons, and maidens will look on at the pa- 
 geant, unconscious that all they see is less than what 
 they add to its harmonious contrasts. 
 
 Thank God for these flowering seasons of the human 
 heart! Life is not meant to be all stem and leaves; 
 the colors of Heaven are never stamped upon these. 
 Strike out the festival of the church and the festival 
 of the nation, and it is as if the year should close the 
 two eyes with which it looks upon all that is best worth 
 seeing above and below. We exist by toil that we may 
 live by thought and feeling ; all labor that does not end 
 in nobler thought or better feeling is lost to its highest 
 end. To lift us out of our labors into a loftier sphere, 
 we ring the Christmas bells, so that all shall hear them, 
 and make the night vocal so that none shall slumber 
 while the sun is climbing up the east to shine upon our 
 national anniversary. 
 
 And now, with mingled feelings of religious awe, 
 and filial piety — and it may be with something more 
 of family pride than the humble Pilgrims would have 
 approved — we have come to our Feast of the Pass- 
 over — the kindly meeting which is to freshen our rec- 
 ollections of the history we have in common, and make 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 277 
 
 us stronger to meet the duties lying before us. At 
 such a time, how welcome is the eloquence which illu- 
 minates and emblazons the chronicles of the past with 
 its pencil dipped in fire! How welcome is the learn- 
 ing that expands and illustrates the story of past hero- 
 ism and clears away the doubts which jealous ages 
 leave upon the motives of all who shame them by their 
 actions ! It has often been your privilege to listen to 
 eloquence and learning, not rarely uttering themselves 
 through the same lips. But the dignity of the hour 
 does not depend on so poor a contingency as your choice 
 of a speaker; you need only ask of him sincerity of 
 purpose, a deep reverence for the past, so precious to 
 your memories, a free utterance on all that relates to 
 the present, without violating the courtesies becoming 
 such an occasion, and if it may be, a cheerful and en- 
 couraging word for the future, to which the past and 
 present are but the rude scaffolding. He has no claim 
 to hold you very long who has not had many long 
 nights to search, to compare, to meditate on subjects of 
 study and thought already worn and rounded as the 
 pebbles on the shore that received the wandering fa- 
 thers of New England. He has still less claim to let 
 the hour overlap its circle whose heavier task is to be 
 followed by the resonant cadences and graceful harmo- 
 nies of song, always a welcome change from the sober 
 homeliness of prose; and, most of all, when the lips 
 that are to speak are those that have blended their ac- 
 cents with the story of the Pilgrims, to live with it 
 
 "Till the waves of the bay where the Mayflower lay, 
 Shall foam and freeze no more !" 
 
 Let us divide our brief time between the recollec- 
 tions we owe to this occasion and the thoughts they 
 
278 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 suggest to us, as we stand here to-day in the midst of 
 a Hfe which must soon turn into recollections, to be 
 cherished with eternal gratitude, or blasted with the 
 condemnation of those who are to come after us. 
 
 The story of the Pilgrims may be told for a thou- 
 sand anniversaries, and the next year it will be fresh 
 again. There are sights and sounds that Nature, with 
 all her infinite variety, is never tired of repeating. You 
 will find the wind-flower blowing, and the wood-thrush 
 singing, in Plymouth woods still, as the Indians had 
 known them ever since the days of the Mastodon. We 
 need not always recount all the names on the sacred 
 list, nor tell the sad, brave story over, in all its deso- 
 late grandeur of ideal and starving misery of detail. 
 But the picture, sketched, or finished, shall always be 
 held up; if it is only for a moment, we will lift it as 
 the Host is lifted in Romanist processions, and rever- 
 ently uncover before it. The story it tells may be an 
 old one ; but Christmas will tell one still older ; and the 
 world has not tired of Christmas yet. 
 
 No scepticism questions the motives that drove the 
 Pilgrims to Holland. Men do not emigrate as they 
 did to a land of aliens, speaking a strange tongue, a 
 land full already, and offering them no temporal ad- 
 vantage, but rather endless losses and sacrifices, with- 
 out some dire necessity. The story of their attempted 
 departure and arrest, of their secret embarkation by 
 night, and of the sullen dismissal of their wives and 
 children at last, as creatures that had no home to go to, 
 is itself an eternal witness of the previous martyrdom 
 they had undergone for conscience sake. It is the 
 death-struggle, and it tells of the death-blows that had 
 gone before it. This pilgrimage was only another 
 stage in the weary exodus of the Reformers, however 
 called, that had begun in the days of Mary. Nor did 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 279 
 
 they always find rest where they had sought refuge. 
 In the middle of the preceding century, many of the 
 exiles of Frankfort had become twice exiles, you re- 
 member, rather than accept King Edward's service- 
 book at the hands of the future Bishop of Ely, Those 
 forms which are to us imposing, venerable, affecting, 
 even if they are not our own chosen modes of worship, 
 had become identified with the tyranny of spiritual 
 usurpers in the minds of the Puritans ; the advocates of 
 a pure and simple form of worship. Rather than sub- 
 mit to have these observances forced upon them, they 
 removed to Basle and to Geneva. 
 
 And so our own Pilgrims, after a residence in Hol- 
 land long enough to have naturalized them to some ex- 
 tent, found cause to remove once more from their 
 adopted home. Where should they go? In France, 
 in Flanders, in Germany, in Switzerland, there were 
 places where they might serve God according to their 
 own faith; but what else would they find there? An- 
 other alien people, another new language, a life to 
 begin over again, a loss of nationality, a hopeless sepa- 
 ration from the home of their affections, an eternal 
 exile, without even the sense of recognition and protec- 
 tion which keeps alive the national spirit of colonists. 
 They were poor men; they and their children were to 
 live by manual employments mostly. As they looked 
 upon their countrymen now established in foreign 
 lands, for more than two generations, they saw them 
 gradually melting into the people by whom they were 
 surrounded. The very names by which they were 
 called had become transformed, and the sturdy insular 
 blood was breeding out its features, to become merged 
 in that of the laboring masses of other races. 
 
 And what were those "manifold temptations of the 
 place" of which the Pilgrims complained? If History 
 
28o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 does not tell us, Art is not silent. In the brutalities 
 immortalized in all their shame by the pencils of Teniers 
 and Adrian Brauwer and Van Ostade; in the vulgari- 
 ties which stand revealed even amidst the flashes of 
 Rembrandt's startling splendors ; we can see what were 
 the temptations to which they shuddered to expose their 
 children, the sober English youth and the chaste Eng- 
 lish maidens. The boors that sat for their portraits to 
 the Dutch and Flemish painters were growing up by 
 the side of these very children. Had the Puritans not 
 again become the Pilgrims, the process of degradation 
 for many among them, must have been a natural and 
 fatal consequence. Some future Carver or Bradford 
 might possibly have figured on canvas as a ruffed and 
 shovel-hatted burgomaster; or the features of a second 
 Miles Standish have graced the walls of the Stadt- 
 house at Amsterdam, in that glorious train-band, the 
 breathing miracle of Vander-Helst. But how many of 
 them would have sunk into the subjects of those sordid 
 interiors where the pipe and the mug and the man are 
 equally excellent in art, and equally elevated objects of 
 study, we may guess, if we take the census of the 
 painted magistrates and the pictured clowns, and reckon 
 up the chances that an operative's son should become 
 the one or the other ! 
 
 Thus we need not seek for lower motives than those 
 which they themselves alleged as the cause of their 
 desire of removing from Holland. Nor need we won- 
 der that they preferred to found a new English State, 
 one in which their language and nationality might be 
 preserved, rather than blend themselves with the for- 
 eign people of any continental nation. If to these rea- 
 sons were added some impulses arising from the spirit 
 of adventure, the ambition of increasing the bounds of 
 the British Empire, and even the hope of profit, it only 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 281 
 
 shows that, in becoming martyrs they had not ceased 
 to be men; and that, while their whole course proves 
 that they were ready to sacrifice home, comforts, health 
 and life to principle, they had the sense and the spirit 
 which make other colonists the heroes of story, who 
 have no pretence to the higher aims which governed 
 all other considerations with the Pilgrims. 
 
 It was an old fable that lo, beloved of Jupiter, and 
 changed by him into a heifer, to hide her hated beauty 
 from the jealous queen of Heaven, was driven from her 
 still meadow by the persecutions of a gad-fly, sent by 
 her legitimate rival. Stung to madness, she rushed 
 forth, restless, far wandermg. She raged through 
 Scythia, and across the snowy Caucasus, and over the 
 Cimmerian Bosphorus, the same just ploughed by 
 the twin Armada of the Allies ; through the land of the 
 one-eyed Phorcides, the one-eyed Arimaspians, to the 
 cataracts of the mysterious Nile, and so on down to its 
 city-strown Delta. Here she resumed her form; she 
 became the mother of a line of kings, and was enthroned 
 among the divinities as the Egyptian Isis. 
 
 In this story, as in that of Europa, we see the gods 
 called in to account for the colonization of ancient races 
 in remote regions. Fantastic as sounds the conceit of 
 the goaded lo, it has the grandeur almost of the He- 
 brew prophets in the passionate declamation of ^schy- 
 lus, as through her lips he tells the story of wild adven- 
 ture by sea and land. Out of so little a cause — the bite 
 of a teasing insect — sprang a new dynasty of earth, 
 and a new throne in the courts of Heaven. 
 
 There are gad-flies with broader wings and longer 
 stings, that the gods — nay, let us drop our heathen 
 phrase — that God uses to drive abroad his servants 
 who are to scatter the seeds of empire. Out of the 
 smouldering passion of an unloved queen and a child- 
 
282 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 less wife came the first edict that stung the forefathers 
 of the Pilgrims into exile. Out of the imperious will 
 of an unmastered virgin came the mandates which 
 alienated the Puritans forever from the Church of Eng- 
 land. Out of the conceit and arbitrary insolence of the 
 learned fool that played the royal school-master for the 
 British people, came the impatient and petulant orders 
 that drove the alienated separatists across the channel 
 to find a home among strangers; a home, but not a 
 final resting place; for Providence stung them out of 
 this retreat that its larger ends might be fulfilled. Say 
 not that ancient fable is more trivial than modern his- 
 tory, when the passions of kings and queens, aggra- 
 vated by all the little personal causes that make men 
 swear and women scold, and both grow tyrannical, are 
 suffered to mingle in the destiny of nations. Very 
 thankful let us be that there are no such gad-flies 
 to help us colonize our Pacific empire; the species 
 ccstrus coronatus is not a product of the soil we tread 
 upon ! 
 
 Once more, then, these poor souls are to set forth; 
 men, women, children, with their small possessions, 
 huddled into the little crowded vessel named from the 
 tenderest of the flowers, and sent on the rudest of er- 
 rands. O, the dreadful Atlantic! When in the wild 
 autumnal tempests the black water piles itself like a 
 wall, and drops like a crashing roof upon the deck of 
 some vast liner that could literally have taken the May- 
 flower as her long-boat, how terrible is the groan from 
 her mighty hollows, and how the blow shivers through 
 all her knotted knees and springing timbers ! Wliat 
 can we say of that half-winter voyage in a little unsafe 
 vessel, choking with its load of life, that would be ex- 
 aggerated ? That death should have but once touched 
 them, is the most wonderful part of the story. The 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 283 
 
 death-angel was waiting for them on the sandy shore 
 of Patuxet. We send our exploring expeditions to the 
 remotest north; and we think it, and justly think it, a 
 sad proof of the hardships they have encountered if 
 they leave three or four graves behind them in the 
 frozen earth. When the first winter had passed, half 
 the Pilgrims were gone; but there were no mounds to 
 mark where their bodies lay. Such a record of loss 
 and evidence of weakness, would have been too dan- 
 gerous a confession. So the ploughman, with tingling 
 feet, drove his share over the place where the dead were 
 buried, and the tall grain was garnered from its hal- 
 lowed surface, with thoughts not of the harvest above, 
 but the wasting spoils of the Destroyer that lay below. 
 The story lived in tradition, that it was on a bank not 
 far from the place where the Pilgrims landed, that these 
 first victims, worn out by fatigues and wretched ex- 
 posures, were hidden away from all but the sad hearts 
 they left behind them. During the past year, this 
 sacred soil was disturbed in the course of making some 
 necessary excavations. Human bones were uncovered ; 
 and the question arose whether they were those of the 
 native races, or of the victims of that first dreadful 
 winter. I was asked to look upon these relics, and give 
 an opinion as to the race to which they belonged. A 
 look was enough; but a careful comparison was made 
 between these and the characteristic remains of the 
 Aborigines, that no shadow of doubt might remain. 
 Yes ! These were the bones that barred in and domed 
 over the souls of the first that perished from among the 
 heroic Pilgrims ! The mortal relics of these immortal 
 martyrs were before us. No vulgar curiosity, staring 
 with greedy eyes through the mask of science, keeps 
 them to be gazed at among its wonders. Restored to 
 the dust from which they were taken, not without honor 
 
284 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 and tearful remembrance, they rest by the side of those 
 from which they were briefly separated. 
 
 I have touched, as I promised, upon the familiar story 
 of the first days of the self-exiled colonists. It can 
 never tire in the memory of their descendants. Orators 
 whose lips are yet unformed to speech; poets whose 
 voices have as yet caught no melodious tones from the 
 angels they shall hear in dreams; artists whose concep- 
 tions slumber in unmingled colors and unquarried mar- 
 bles, will arise in successive generations to commemo- 
 rate them. Even now the gratitude of the children of 
 the Pilgrims is meditating some memorial of their lives, 
 to add glory, if it may be, to the place which they made 
 illustrious by their first landing and residence. Is it 
 not right, and more than right — is it not a duty, for 
 one who is addressing those most largely interested in 
 such a pious effort, to speak plainly his views, even if 
 they may happen to differ from those of some for whose 
 opinion he has great consideration? It is not by dis- 
 plays of art, I venture to think, that we can best honor 
 the soil of Plymouth, and the memory of its colonists. 
 The sea is their eternal monument so long as its blue 
 tablet shall glisten in the light of morning. The lonely 
 island where they passed their first "Christian Sab- 
 bath" will stand until winter has scaled off the storied 
 surface of the most enduring monolith. The bleak 
 sand will be there, and the stern rocks forever, and De- 
 cember will sheet them with the snows that make them 
 doubly desolate, until the heavens are shrivelled as a 
 scroll. That is not the place for Art to come, with her 
 elaborate conceptions, to lead away the hearts of living 
 pilgrims from the memory of those plain and rudely 
 clad men and women. God forbid that their precious 
 dust should be scattered in digging foundations for 
 some ambitious Valhalla that is to make Plymouth the 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 285 
 
 Mecca of dilettanti, and call in the sister arts to intrude 
 their academic graces between us and the one single, 
 sad, glorious memory that hallows the bay and the 
 hill, and every spot where the feet of the Pilgrims trod 
 or their eyes rested! If a memorial is called for, it 
 should, as it seems to me, have for its two leading 
 qualities simplicity and durability. If art is furnished 
 with a carte-blanche, and told to rival the moral gran- 
 deur of the scene with the ideal beauty of her concep- 
 tions, it can only end, we may fear, in a failure which 
 will be a disgrace, or a success which will be a misfor- 
 tune. If I could finish the Cologne cathedral with a 
 word, and transport it with a wish, the last spot in New 
 England I would choose for it would be the landing 
 place of the Plymouth Pilgrims. It is a rule that ar- 
 tists know well enough, not to let cross-lights shine on 
 what they wish to display to advantage. The serene 
 and heavenly smile of those devoted men and women 
 has for its natural background, if so trivial an expres- 
 sion may be used, the scowl of the bare landscape 
 around their place of refuge. Thus surrounded, one 
 impression dominates all others in the mind of him 
 who seeks the holy place to live over the days of the 
 struggling colonists. This is the impression that a 
 misplaced artistic display would do its best to confuse 
 with its cross-light. Overcome it, it never can ; point to 
 the levelled bank and say, "There lies the dust of John 
 Carver, and all the bold men and patient women that 
 perished around him," and our thoughts are nearer 
 Heaven already than the tallest structure of art can 
 climb with its aspiring cap-stone ! 
 
 Since these words were written, I have seen the pro- 
 posed plan, and learned something more of the inten- 
 tions of the public-spirited sons of New England who 
 have interested themselves in the great work proposed. 
 
286 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 I know the genius of the artist, and cannot withhold 
 my admiration of his design. The names of the friends 
 of the undertaking are enough to assure us that any 
 plan they offer to the New England pubHc will be con- 
 ceived in a noble spirit, and pressed to its fulfilment 
 with vigor and perseverance. They will listen to any 
 fellow-citizen, I doubt not, who asks them to reflect 
 once more before their final decision, whether that is 
 the best place for the magnificent monumental structure 
 they contemplate, and whether that is the best monu- 
 ment for the place. Pardon me for uttering my thought 
 plainly. On the very heart of the great city of the 
 Puritans, and nowhere else, should be worn this jewel 
 of Art, which the gratitude of their children will have 
 of such royal splendor. The plain village should con- 
 tent itself with the plainest and most durable of rec- 
 ords to mark all its chief places of interest; it is rich 
 enough with these without asking to wear the ambi- 
 tious ornaments that belong only to the great centres 
 of art and wealth, where the world can see them, and 
 where they are in keeping with the surrounding ob- 
 jects. These views may be wrong, but they are not 
 hasty. It were a pity to be precipitate where an error 
 will be beyond remedy; to spend half a million and 
 have the result called the "Plymouth Folly;" to give 
 some future poet of the Pacific shore a chance of say- 
 ing with Shelley — 
 
 "I met a traveller from an antique land 
 
 Who said : Two vast and trunklcss legs of stone 
 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand. 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, . . . 
 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 287 
 
 These slight and imperfect allusions to the story of 
 the past, leading to the question as to the fitting monu- 
 mental record to be reared in its remembrance, have 
 brought us, unintentionally it might seem, but not pre- 
 maturely, face to face with the present. A glimpse at 
 the outer and inner life of New England, as her chil- 
 dren remember it, or now look upon it, is not inappro- 
 priate, I trust, to this occasion and this assembly. You 
 had rather, I doubt not, that I should speak my own 
 feelings and opinions plainly, than reflect the popular 
 sentiment of the time for the sake of any momentary 
 impression that might win a little cheap applause. If 
 there is a trace of questionable conservatism in any of 
 my remarks, bear with me kindly; the antidote will 
 follow close upon the poison, and the burning words 
 of my ever-youthful associate will correct any mischief 
 that might be ascribed to a shade of premature senility 
 in my own sober utterances. 
 
 It is hard to draw a picture of New England coun- 
 try life without making a portrait which the fancy, at 
 least, of many will gift with a resemblance to their 
 early recollections. Is there not more than one here 
 who remembers such a place as this which is now set 
 before him? It is an ancient-looking brown house; 
 brown with that peculiar tint that belongs to weather- 
 stained pine, and is the natural complexion of unpainted 
 New England houses. It fronts with two fair stories 
 to the road ; but if you take it in flank, you see that the 
 roof runs backward with a great slope to within a few 
 feet of the ground. One huge square chimney rises 
 through the centre of the ridge-pole; a tall poplar, its 
 emulous companion, has overtopped it, and drops a 
 few leaves every autumn down into its black throat. 
 A broken millstone gives a certain dignity to the main 
 
288 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 entrance at whose threshold it lies. That is the barn, 
 of course, vast, brown, like the house, with a ring of 
 swallows' nests, like barnacles, all round the eaves; 
 there ought to be a swing inside, and plenty of hens' 
 nests, and secret deposits of ripening apples in holes of 
 the haymows ; we should find them all, no doubt, if we 
 went in and knew where to look. Ever graceful and 
 beautiful, the well-sweep, with the clanking iron-bound 
 bucket, and the heavy stone, its counterpoise, stands a 
 little back and at one side. The stone walls must have 
 been laid more than fifty years, to judge by their pres- 
 ent look ; all the stones seem to have grown into com- 
 panionship, and harmonize together as if they had al- 
 ways lain as they lie. The lichens on them are like 
 the seals on royal treasures ; they show with their broad 
 unbroken stamps that nothing has been disturbed for 
 many a long year. There is the orchard ; there are 
 trees in it famous for early apples, and limbs of trees 
 that the boys knew well for the fruit they bore; won- 
 derfully sagacious are boys at detecting a fast graft 
 on a slow tree ; there are fifty men that remember fifty 
 such boughs while I am speaking. Of course, we do 
 not forget the crooked footpath running across the lots 
 to our neighbor's farm ; that curious little solitary high- 
 way that turns and twists and starts aside for no con- 
 ceivable reason; all footpaths in the fields look as if 
 they were trodden out by lovers or madmen. Not far 
 off was the wood where the sweet fern breathed its fra- 
 grance and the bayberry repeated it ; where the checker- 
 berry spread its aromatic leaves and berries and the 
 black birch imitated its flavor with its bark ; so econom- 
 ical is New England nature in the matter of perfumes 
 and spicery. O, the remembrance of the early days 
 passed amidst these homely scenes! Of tumbling in 
 long grass, and sucking of honeyed clover, and bur- 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 289 
 
 rowing in mountainous haycocks and climbing of el- 
 bowed apple trees; of waking to the clamor of twitter- 
 ing swallows, and sleeping at the curfew of purring 
 crickets ; of Indian corn forests where, being little, you 
 walked unseen, while the brocaded leaves grated and 
 crackled as you rustled between the stalks; of wild 
 cherry trees, with bark as bright and brown as fresh 
 bronze, where the robins fought and scolded for the 
 small berries; of old elms where the fire-hang-bird 
 swung her long purse with the half-dozen eggs in it; 
 nature's liberal reckoning when she gives change for 
 an old couple, with or without feathers ; of the chestnut 
 tree that dropped its burs at the first frost, gaping like 
 dead shell-fish on the seashore; of the sweet music that 
 is in the open air from the days when you hear the soft 
 breathing of the cows as they crop the tender grass, to 
 the hot July noons when the mower passes through the 
 purpled red-top and the heavy nodding herdsgrass, the 
 measured respiration of his scythe sighing over each 
 rank as it falls with all its lances and pennons; and 
 later still, when the red leaves crackle under foot, and the 
 wild-goose wedges steer southward, heard high in the 
 frosty air; and at the last, when the wind whistles in the 
 bare trees and the ice snaps in the ponds like the strings 
 of an overstrained harpsichord, and so the frozen palms 
 of winter crash out the last chorus of the year's sym- 
 phony ! 
 
 If you were born and bred among such sights and 
 sounds as these, they will never die out of your remem- 
 brance. It is hard if a man who works in poisons shall 
 carry them about with him ever after, and nature's 
 kindly atmosphere breathed in so long shall not make a 
 part of our systems and run in our blood as long as 
 our systems hold together and our blood flows. This 
 is the privilege of the young man of New England 
 
290 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 birth; nature, not wholly rough and uncultivated, not 
 as in many newer sections of the country, still reeking 
 with undrained morasses that breed disease, and de- 
 formed with unsightly ruins of the forest that defy the 
 spirit of beauty to find a resting place among them; 
 but nature subdued and humanized, without being de- 
 prived of its greenness and fragrance, is his birthright ; 
 it gives him lessons of beauty no counting-room can 
 smother with its ledgers ; it gives his soul a horizon no 
 lines of warehouses can so wall in that he will not see 
 its blue heavens through them ; it gives him an inward 
 sanctuary of peace and repose that the streets can never 
 shake him out of; let him tread the grass for fifteen 
 summers, and then plod the pavement forty years, and 
 his dreams will still be of running barefoot among the 
 clover. 
 
 The recollections of the past on which we pride our- 
 selves, the pleasant remembrances that shed their light 
 over the New England home, which so many of us 
 recall with tender affection, all lead us to the question, 
 whether we are worthy of the past which we inherit and 
 the land which we love? It is too late to ask us to be 
 true to the faith of our fathers ; we desire to be false to 
 many of their superstitions, which we cannot deny, 
 and to their intolerance, which we need not attempt to 
 excuse. But if w^e are true to the spirit of their reli- 
 gion, which recognized a divinely illuminated con- 
 science as the Supreme guide; if we have carried out 
 those principles of individual development of which 
 they laid the foundations, and which find their expres- 
 sion in the greatest freedom of knowledge to all, and 
 the purest practicable self-government; if, with all our 
 imperfections, we have done something to lift Chris- 
 tianity out of its technical enclosures into the broad 
 fields of practical benevolence; if we have, however 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 291 
 
 blindly, struggled sincerely and strenuously with the 
 public sins of our time, then we are not wholly un- 
 worthy of our descent and our heritage. 
 
 Is the intellect of New England not thoroughly 
 awake? We are almost ashamed to think how large 
 a part of all the best thinking and writing that is done 
 in the country either comes from her soil directly, or 
 at least has passed through her intellectual alembic. 
 There is something unnatural in it; either she over- 
 stimulates her children, or some Boeotian materialism 
 is keeping minds down elsewhere. Let others repeat 
 the catalogue of her theologians, her philosophers, her 
 historians, her poets, her story-tellers ; it has been done, 
 oftener, we trust, in self-defence than in bravado, until 
 the list has become familiar and slightly tedious. But 
 I will ask you if it is not startling to take the map of 
 the Union and cover New England with your forefin- 
 ger, and then spread both open hands over the rest 
 without hiding it, and count in parallel columns the 
 names that the world knows from all that vast expanse 
 on one side, and those of equal note on the other, to 
 whom this little strip has given birth, or a home, or an 
 education? It is too serious a matter for boasting; it 
 is a phenomenon, a portent ; the mind of the country is 
 in poor training, or it would never happen that such a 
 shred and corner should be allowed to do so large a 
 share of its thinking. 
 
 Are there any that think the heart of New England 
 is asleep? We claim no pre-eminence for her; we 
 should blush for the rest of the country, if we did not 
 recognize in many sections of it a generous emulation 
 in works of public charity, that shames away every 
 invidious comparison. But it is not too much to say 
 that her proverbial ingenuity is as active in opening 
 new channels for benevolence as in the invention of 
 
292 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 labor-saving machinery. The intensity of Hfe among 
 her people, joined with a cHmate that tries, if it does 
 not impair the stamina of the imported races, gives 
 rise to many forms of infirmity. There is hardly one 
 of these unprovided for by her public charities. There 
 is no generous enterprise to which she is not ready to 
 contribute her money and her labor. But while we 
 make this claim, let us not forget that there is a self- 
 devotion, far higher than any to which New England- 
 ers have been called in the present generation, and of 
 which the high-souled Southern people, whom we so 
 often hear named only to be reproached, have given us, 
 during the past year, a lofty illustration. Need I men- 
 tion the pestilence-stricken cities, and the devoted army 
 of martyrs that laid down their lives as freely as the 
 "noble six hundred" gave themselves away to the can- 
 non mouths of Balaklava; but without a trumpet to 
 sound the charge, with no order from human lips to 
 urge them on, with no earthly honor in prospect as the 
 reward of victory? We dare not place the noblest 
 charities of New England by the side of this glorious 
 self-sacrifice in which she had no part. We cannot 
 doubt that if the hour of need should come, such souls 
 would shine out from among her people; all we claim 
 for her is that she discharges well the duties of an 
 easier benevolence; that her heart is not resting while 
 her brain is so busy. 
 
 We are proud of her present, then, as of her past; 
 proud that there is so much life in her intellect and her 
 sympathies. Soberly proud of her, and ready to see 
 if with all this that we love to contemplate, there is 
 not something to regret, and something to fear in her 
 character and destiny. 
 
 There is no need of troubling ourselves for the fool- 
 ish talk about her ultraisms and heresies. They are 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 293 
 
 only tlie necessary result, and they form the natural 
 index, of her intellectual activity. Some of her ultra- 
 isms are, no doubt, destined to be truisms in the 
 next generation. Some of her heresies will, probably 
 enough, be very orthodox in less than fifty years. But 
 take them for what scoffers call them, and they mark 
 that the scouts of knowledge are at the outposts of 
 the great camp, where the voice of the sentries from 
 the opposing hosts of truth and error are often min- 
 gled, and each is liable in the darkness to confound his 
 ally with his enemy. Trust the beneficent averages of 
 an all-wise Providence. The Creator has no fear of 
 extremes ; their presence marks the vigor of the life out 
 of which they spring ; from them flow strength and heat, 
 inward through the deep columns of mind of which 
 they are the opposite poles. Out of the same people 
 comes in one century the remorseless reasoner, who 
 drives his terrible logic to conclusions on which, as 
 many will tell you, the only rational comment is the 
 howl of despairing insanity ; and in another century the 
 mild philosopher who husks off all the technicalities of 
 Christianity and unmagnetizes all its soul-subduing 
 phraseology, turning it, as some will have it, into mere 
 heathenism ; but, although you or I may be frightened 
 at the doctrines of one or the other, do not think reli- 
 gion is in danger, because such souls are born into the 
 world from time to time. May you not see two of the 
 most robust brains of New England, at this very mo- 
 ment, one of them challenging universal allegiance to 
 the most absolute of spiritual despotisms, and the other 
 asserting a freedom which owns no law but its own 
 convictions? God makes an idol-worshipper with one 
 hand and an iconoclast with the other. Wo to the land 
 that has no enthusiasts, no fanatics, no madmen! It 
 is the lethargy of intellectual and moral death alone 
 
294 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 that can exempt the mind of man from such excep- 
 tional excesses and occasional disorganizations, as the 
 accidents of its mortal condition. 
 
 With these feelings, we might perhaps look without 
 apprehension on the attitude taken by a largely preva- 
 lent popular opinion, as to certain great questions that 
 come directly home to us all, as citizens and as lovers 
 of our common country. The extreme temperance 
 movement is of New England origin. The anti-sla- 
 very passion burns most fiercely in New England bo- 
 soms. But here the difficulty is, that while opinions 
 on all merely speculative subjects find their just mean 
 at last, in spite of the extremes of fanaticism; opinions 
 that pass into the shape of statutes ; opinions that, once 
 carried out, change the relations of states to each other, 
 prevent their own just balance from being reached, by 
 the weight of positive legislation which they rivet to the 
 scale they would have preponderate, or by corroding 
 and destroying the very pivot, the even play of which 
 can alone settle the true level of conflicting principles 
 and interests. 
 
 Is there any offence in saying that one may recognize 
 the crowding Judaism of the Puritan legislators in the 
 attempt to enforce a statute which no solitary despot 
 would be like to venture? New England is answer- 
 able for all the good and evil of the famous "Maine 
 Law;" for all the wretches it may save; for all the hypo- 
 crites, and rebels, and law-haters it makes. As a moral 
 tour dc force, it is certainly beyond anything in modern 
 legislation. It shows that the old Puritan conscience 
 is as much alive as ever. Does it not also show the 
 same spirit of provincial tyranny that peopled Rhode 
 Island with fugitives from Massachusetts and her sister 
 colonies two centuries ago? 
 
 In the meantime, Nature enters her silent protest. 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 295 
 
 The banks of the Ohio are glowing with their purple 
 vintage, and, — oh, shame ! — the hills of New Hampshire 
 have turned traitors to the stern New England ordi- 
 nance, and their grape juice has ripened into not un- 
 palatable wine. The law of Maine will hardly take 
 effect while the law of fermentation remains unrepealed 
 on the pages of Heaven's statute book. The strictest 
 Sabbath edict never could keep the Puritan ale from 
 working on Sundays. Whatever good may have been 
 produced directly in the forcible suppression of vice 
 and diminution of crime, a law made to be habitually 
 and openly violated is a frightful demoralizer of so- 
 ciety. A law notoriously despised by many that appear 
 as its public advocates; which takes many a vote from 
 the same hand that an hour later is lifted trembling to 
 the voter's lips with the draught that quiets at once his 
 nerves and his conscience; such a law deserves to be 
 studied with a larger view than that which merely em- 
 braces its action upon a single vice. Let those who 
 advocate it, at least remember that it involves the whole 
 truthfulness, the whole loyalty, of society, in addition 
 to the special object named upon its face. 
 
 It would be a mockery to speak of the present moral 
 aspect of New England, and not allude to her position 
 with reference to the great question in which the des- 
 tinies of the whole country are involved. 
 
 The same conscientiousness which alone could have 
 rendered possible the passage of that extraordinary law 
 just referred to, shows itself in the deep feeling with 
 which the whole subject of slavery is regarded. No 
 sin of our own, not even intemperance, is so perpetually 
 before the conscience of New England as this detested 
 social arrangement of our neighbors. There is hardly 
 need of saying that we all agree in saving every inch 
 of American soil we fairly can for freedom, and reduc- 
 
296 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ing our involuntary participation in slavery to the mini- 
 mum consistent with our existence as a united people. 
 The question is, whether New England, bound up with 
 a group of confederate sovereignties, cherishes the right 
 temper and uses the right language to her slaveholding 
 sister States. 
 
 There is no denying that there is a manly logic in the 
 extreme left of abolitionism. Tear the Constitution to 
 tatters, empty the language of its opprobrious epithets 
 on the men of the southern section of what has been 
 foolishly called our common country, and take the con- 
 sequences. The ultra melanophiles accept all the pos- 
 sibilities of such a course with a boldness that would be 
 heroism if it were only action instead of talk; that is 
 at any rate consistent and true to its premises. We 
 always have a respect for a principle carried out with- 
 out compromises or coalitions to round off its edges, 
 so that it may be rolled by politicians, instead of being 
 lifted and borne in the arms of true reformers. And 
 this respect we have for the men of the extreme party ; 
 we cannot change the definitions of traitor and treason 
 as the dictionaries insist on giving them ; but we must 
 concede to these confederates logical heads as well as 
 daring and often eloquent lips. We feel for Othello, 
 even in his murderous delusion; and these are our po- 
 litical Othellos, who proclaim that our boasted Liberty, 
 with her fair face and matronly air, is a courtezan, and 
 would treat her as Desdemona was treated, but for the 
 machinery of retribution which is close at hand. 
 
 But from those who do not profess to repudiate the 
 fundamental compact and the general laws of their 
 country, we may be pardoned if we ask an equal degree 
 of logical consistency. They must either annul the 
 contract made by their fathers, or keep it, not according 
 to any ingenious interpretations they may choose to 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 297 
 
 put upon it, but with the same punctihous honesty and 
 honor that high-minded men show in their private deal- 
 ings. If it involves a sin, they are accomplices, and 
 have no right to open their lips against it until they 
 have washed their own hands clean from its stains. 
 You may plead as a moralist with a Turk or a Mormon, 
 to give up nine of his ten wives. But if you enter into 
 a partnership with him, and agree to return the truant 
 ladies of his household against their will, for a certain 
 consideration, or if your fathers did, and you hold to 
 the agreement, you have forfeited the right to declaim 
 against polygamy. 
 
 It is, perhaps, owing to the violence of the extreme 
 party, and the want of moral power that springs from 
 the false position of many of the more moderate oppo- 
 nents of slavery, that so little impression has been made 
 upon the feelings and opinions of slaveholders. We 
 have labored for a whole generation, and they tell us 
 we have not made out our case against them. We have 
 convinced ourselves a hundred times over, and they 
 lay their hands on their hearts and say, "We have lis- 
 tened to your arguments, and grant you nothing — 
 nothing." Slavery, then, is amongst us exactly like 
 any physical fact. It has proved of no more avail to 
 reason against it than it would have been to launch a 
 syllogism against the embattled crests of the Alle- 
 ghanies. The question, therefore, comes plainly be- 
 fore us, shall we of New England, men of the front 
 rank, standard-bearers by our position and antecedents ; 
 shall we of the North feel and act to these Southern 
 men as equals and brothers ; shall we treat them always 
 in the spirit of Christian love; or shall we proscribe, 
 excommunicate, anathematize, vituperate and irritate 
 them until mutual hatred shall ripen into open warfare ? 
 
 The question of interfering races is a very terrible 
 
298 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 one; it never was, and perhaps never will be, settled 
 according to the abstract principles of justice. Look 
 at the aboriginal inhabitants of the land we occupy. 
 It pleased the Creator to call into existence this half- 
 filled outline of humanity; this sketch in red crayons 
 of a rudimental manhood; to keep the continent from 
 being a blank until the true lord of creation should 
 come to claim it. Civilization and Christianity have 
 tried to humanize him, and he proves a dead failure. 
 Theologians stand aghast at a whole race destined, ac- 
 cording to their old formulae, to destruction, temporal 
 and eternal. Philanthropists mourn over them, and 
 from time to time catch a red man and turn him into 
 their colleges as they would turn a partridge in among 
 the barn-door fowls. But instinct has its way sooner 
 or later ; the partridge makes but a troublesome chicken, 
 and the Indian but a sorry Master of Arts, if he does 
 not run for the woods, where all the fercB naturcc im- 
 pulses are urging him. These instincts lead to his ex- 
 termination; too often the sad solution of the problem 
 of his relation to the white race. As soon as any con- 
 flict arises between them, his savage nature begins to 
 show itself. He dashes the babes' heads against their 
 fathers' hearthstones — as at our Oxford — a heap of 
 stones still shows you where he did it; or flings them 
 out of windows, as at Haverhill ; he mutilates his pros- 
 trate enemy; he drives away the women like beasts of 
 burden. Then the white man hates him, and hunts him 
 down like the wild beasts of the forest, and so the red- 
 crayon sketch is rubbed out, and the canvas is ready 
 for a picture of manhood a little more like God's own 
 image. 
 
 And so of the other question between the white and 
 black races. We see no apparent solution of it except 
 in the indefinite, we may hope not the perpetual con- 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 299 
 
 tinuance of the present relation between them. Here, 
 as in the case of the Indians, or any other inferior 
 natural tribe of men, our sympathies will go with our 
 own color first. Far be it from us to palliate any act 
 of injustice that a man of one complexion may be 
 guilty of against a man of a different one. Whatever 
 wrongs we can win the masters away from committing ; 
 whatever woes we can alleviate in the weaker people; 
 we should remember and care for. But always in the 
 last appeal it will come to this; if we must choose be- 
 tween the two races, alliance with the superior one, 
 which we may hope to raise to our own level, if it is 
 below it, or with the lower one which we never can, 
 no abstract principle of benevolence can reverse the 
 great family instinct that settles the question for us. 
 The Creator has hung out the colors that form the two 
 rallying points, so that they shall be unmistakable, eter- 
 nal; nay, there is hardly a single sense that does not 
 bear witness to the ineffaceable distinction of blood, 
 only prevented from producing open opposition by the 
 unchallenged supremacy of the higher of the two races. 
 The white man must be the master in effect, whatever 
 he is in name ; and the only way to make him do right 
 by the Indian, the African, the Chinese, is to make him 
 better by example and loving counsel. 
 
 I say, then, with the freedom which every son of 
 our beloved soil claims at home, and which will not be 
 denied him here, let not New England feed upon her 
 various antagonisms until she is poisoned through and 
 through with the hatred that includes the sinner with 
 the sin. Let her not run off with all the negative vir- 
 tues into her corner, and live on this poor diet until her 
 blood becomes too thin and pale for a patriotism that 
 embraces all the land to which she belongs, a philan- 
 thropy to welcome the exiles from every other, a confi- 
 
300 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 dence in truth and reason rather than in statutes. Let 
 her not hold up the pilled wand of continual strife, so 
 that her yet unborn babes shall come into the world, 
 ring-streaked, speckled and spotted with the birth- 
 marks of local or national jealousies that will make 
 them unworthy of the name of American, 
 
 While one of her most eloquent orators openly pro- 
 fesses that he and those with him would get rid of the 
 Union; while another of her most powerful speakers 
 predicts its speedy downfall, unchallenged by one of 
 the multitude before him; while the great possible 
 catastrophe has come to be spoken of amongst us in 
 flippant and playful language without giving offence; 
 it is not strange that we should remember the solemn 
 words of warning left us by one whose wisdom and 
 virtue an incredulous generation still confesses. One 
 cannot help fancying, at times, that New England is 
 connected, as it were, by an isthmus to the great con- 
 federacy. Day and night sturdy hands are at work to 
 dig it away; if they succeed, she, and such other frag- 
 ments as may cling to her, will stand as an island in 
 the waste of waters. We must fill up the gaps they 
 make, and widen the strip by which we hold to the con- 
 tinent. Sacrificing no right, yielding nothing to men- 
 aces or flattery, making new battle-fields, if necessary, 
 wherever the sacred privileges of freemen are invaded, 
 we must yet cultivate that good-will, that spirit of char- 
 ity and forbearance, without which the name of Union 
 is as sad a jest as the ghastly mockery of Mezentius 
 that coupled the living and the dead together. 
 
 And now, children of our dear New England, we 
 whom she still holds in her charmed precincts, commit 
 her memory to your grateful keeping, trusting that 
 neither time nor distance, nor change of fortune, can 
 ever efface her image from your hearts, or render you 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 301 
 
 indifferent to her welfare. Fifty years have passed 
 since this Association, having in view the union of the 
 sons of New England, to perpetuate the recollections 
 of home, and to extend such kindly charities to its ex- 
 iled children as any among them might need, had its 
 humble beginnings. It has grown with the growth of 
 the noble city which within this same half century has 
 borrowed so much industry, strength and intelligence, 
 and repaid it with such large returns. New York is 
 ever welcome to the expansive enterprise and youthful 
 vigor of New England's fairest product; the student- 
 crop of her colleges, the thinking and working har- 
 vest of her schools and farms; happy if, during the 
 coming half century, she can keep a good share of her 
 spare human capital at interest in the great commercial 
 centre to which you, and those who have gone before 
 you, have owed so much during almost two entire gen- 
 erations. So shall these annual meetings, which send 
 a glow through the hearts of her distant children, and 
 call their names and images fresh and warm into the 
 memories of those whom they have left behind them, be 
 cherished and renewed until they count their returns in 
 centuries as now in years. 
 
 Why should we part without naming the password 
 of our New England Eleusinia — the pivot of our local 
 patriotism — the centre where our recollections of the 
 past must ever rally — the eternal "Monument to the 
 forefathers" — the rock hallowed by the feet of the Pil- 
 grims? God grant that it may prove always a true 
 symbol of the character of the men of New England! 
 As every flake that has been splintered from it as a 
 memento carries its elements and character, unchanged 
 wherever it is borne, so let the sons of her soil be true 
 to their origin wherever they may wander; as the rock 
 is not a loose fragment or a rounded boulder, but a 
 
302 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 part of the solid core of earth itself, to which it will 
 hold until the planet is rent asunder ; running under the 
 soil that hides it, under the mountains that are piled 
 upon it, under the rivers that flow over it, under the 
 craters that have spouted fire above it, and so is one 
 with the heart of the great sphere forever; thus let 
 New England forever hold with heart, and soul, and 
 strength, to the sacred confederacy which looks upon 
 the continent as its destined heritage. 
 
THE PILGRIMS OF PLYMOUTH 
 
 O'er the rough billows of the Western sea, 
 Careers the wind, forever fresh and free; 
 Fresh as when first "the spirit of the Lord 
 Moved the waters," and the Almighty word 
 The firm foundations of their barriers laid, 
 Saying, "Your proudest waves shall here be stayed," 
 And free as, at the moment of its birth. 
 When it breathed softly on the virgin earth. 
 And its Creator gave it leave to go 
 Where'er it chose, and, where it listed, blow, 
 Spreading its living wings, at will, abroad. 
 By king's decree, or bishop's ban unawed. 
 Chained by no Stuart, locked up by no Laud. 
 
 With souls, taught freedom by the winds, that swept 
 Landward, and rocked their cradles as they slept. 
 Souls, that no more can brook the bigot's chain. 
 Than can the surges of the mighty main ; 
 Souls, they are not afraid to call their own. 
 That brave, at once, the mitre and the throne. 
 But bow, while gathered on the ocean's brim. 
 To God, in worship, and to none but Him. 
 Behold the Pilgrim band ! Their native isle, 
 Ruled by a bigot, casts them out as vile; 
 The State forbids them, by its stern decrees. 
 To worship God when, where, and as they please ; 
 
 303 
 
304 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 While they, to conscience true, in virtue strong, 
 Stiff in the right, as others in the wrong. 
 Resolve, though earthly thrones and temples fall, 
 That they will worship thus, or not at all. 
 And though, not now, the Puritan expires 
 On Tyburn's gallows, or in Smithfield's fires; 
 Yet fines, pains, penalties there still remain — 
 The non-conformist's prison and his chain. 
 Fleeing, with horse and hound upon his track. 
 His very garments stripped from off his back, 
 Scoffed by fanatics, and held up to scorn, 
 By king, by courtier and the nobly born. 
 He bids adieu, to see their face no more, 
 And lay his bones upon a foreign shore; 
 And on the Mayflower's deck the Pilgrims stand. 
 One faith, one spirit binding all the band. 
 That soon shall quit, for aye, their native land. 
 
 Hark ! the same voices, that have swelled the song 
 Of praise to God, amid the assembled throng, 
 In solemn temples, or in humble domes. 
 Around the hearth-stones of their several homes, 
 Hymning, are heard upon the air to float — 
 Man's organ tone, and woman's silvery note, 
 Blending in one; and, as it sinks and swells. 
 The music mingles, like ''those evening bells," 
 When in the lines of Erin's bard they swing, 
 And here we have the parting hymn they sing. 
 
 HYMN 
 
 Before us. Lord, old Ocean spreads 
 His blue and boundless plain, 
 
 But, wheresoe'er Thy spirit leads, 
 We follow, o'er the main. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 305 
 
 From persecution's bolts and bars, 
 
 Sustained by Thee, we turn, 
 And, guided by the holy stars. 
 
 That nightly o'er us burn. 
 
 We go, through faith in Him who trod 
 
 The Galilean sea, 
 In a drear wilderness, O God, 
 
 In peace to worship Thee. 
 
 For us, no proud cathedral there 
 
 Its doors shall open throw, 
 Yet can we lift our souls in prayer. 
 
 While kneeling on the snow. 
 
 We'd rather meet stern Winter's frown. 
 
 Wild beast and savage man. 
 Than take the mercy of the crown, 
 
 Or bear the church's ban. 
 
 Rather than ask the grace of kings. 
 
 Or bow to their decrees, 
 We'll trust the most unstable things — 
 
 The billow and the breeze. 
 
 For, on the billow, in the breeze, 
 
 The Almighty Spirit rides ; 
 And aye controls by His decrees. 
 
 The tempests and the tides. 
 
 His hosts, — the winds, the lightning's glare, — 
 
 Encamp around the just ; 
 With us they move, — their guardian care 
 
 Is our defence and trust. 
 
 Our sail unfurling to the wings 
 
 Of all the winds that blow. 
 We leave the land of priests and kings. 
 
 With thee, O God, to go. 
 
3o6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 The land of priests and kings those Pilgrims leave. 
 See their frail bark the white-capped billows cleave ! 
 Her westering canvas, and her crowded deck, 
 With growing distance, dwindle to a speck, 
 
 Till, in the setting sun, she's lost to sight. 
 Pilgrim, sail, streamer, — all absorbed in light! 
 
 A thistle seed, some autumn afternoon, 
 Careering in its gossamer balloon. 
 You see roll o'er you, on the buoyant air. 
 To fall, you'll say, perhaps, "the Lord knows where." 
 That word, my friend, tho' not, I'm sure, what you 
 Think very reverent, is yet strictly true. 
 Though, in the blaze of the descending sun, 
 That seed's lost sight of, — the All-seeing One 
 Directs the current that buoys up the ball, 
 Knows whence it came, and sees where it will fall ; 
 Knows, for He's fixed, the place for it to rest. 
 What gust would lift, what breeze would bear it best; 
 Knows every drop of water, in the flood, 
 That wets its wings, and plants it in the mud, 
 And how much sunshine, and what depth of snow, 
 Must warm its bed, and make the thistle grow. 
 
 Think ye, that seed, careering through the air, 
 Is more an object of its Maker's care. 
 Than is that vanishing, that vanished speck. 
 That air-borne atom, that wave-wafted deck, 
 That bears within it, o'er an unknown sea. 
 The seed of States, of nations yet to be? 
 Tells he the thistle where to strike its root. 
 And not the Pilgrim where to plant his foot? 
 
 No flag of England flapping in the breeze, — 
 That flag that claims the empire of the seas, — 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 307 
 
 Floats at his stern; and, carved upon his bow, 
 
 No monarch rides and bathes in brine his brow, 
 
 With every sea that breaks upon the deck ; 
 
 No armed convoy waits upon his beck; 
 
 Along his lonely track, though pirates prowl, 
 
 No iron sea-dogs at his port-holes growl ; 
 
 Not even does "star-eyed science" point his way 
 
 To Hudson's mouth — the deep and broad armed 
 
 bay, 
 Whose ample bosom and whose sunny smile. 
 Give warmth, wealth, beauty, to Manhattan's isle, — 
 Isle, where his children, yet to be, shall throng. 
 To applaud his faith, in eloquence and song. 
 Yet, though he comes not "as the conqueror comes," 
 With braying trumpets and the roll of drums, 
 Comes not by science guided through the dark. 
 With guarding fleets around his helpless bark. 
 Still is there found, on bleak New England's shore, 
 A haven for him, never known before ; 
 And there the Mayflower, folding up her wings. 
 Like a tired sea-bird, round her anchor swings. 
 
 As the descending sun with glory floods 
 The eastern waters, and the western woods. 
 The Pilgrim band, secure from storm or wreck, 
 Man, woman, child, stand out upon the deck. 
 What golden sunshine ! how much brighter skies 
 Than they have seen before, now meet their eyes ! 
 None of the mists, that wrap their native isle. 
 Hang round these shores; — the woods, the waters, 
 
 smile. 
 Says Elder Brewster, with a reverent air, 
 "Come, let's bow in thanksgiving and prayer." 
 Was there e'er uttered by the lips of man, 
 A prayer more fervent, since the world began ? 
 
3o8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 It is not ours, with hearts and faith so faint, 
 To give the language of that Pilgrim Saint : 
 Our faith, his discipHne has never borne: — 
 Shall we thank God for that, or shall we mourn? 
 Mourn that we, nourished on the lap of ease, 
 Have let the spirit of devotion freeze 
 Upon our lips, even when they move in prayer? 
 May God forgive us, and yet make us bear 
 More of such crosses as the Pilgrims bore. 
 That they might raise an altar on our shore. 
 If that will fan the flame, that burns so dim 
 In our cold bosoms, when we worship Him ! 
 
 The prayer is closed. The Pilgrims all have prayed ; 
 And o'er them evening gently throws her shade. 
 Cold from the icy shore the night winds blow; 
 From their chill breath they all retire below, 
 Save the night watch; but ere they sink to sleep 
 On the scarce breathing bosom of the deep, 
 This evening hymn, with voices soft, but clear. 
 They pour into their heavenly Guardian's ear : — 
 
 HYMN 
 
 The winds, O God, thy voice obey, 
 
 The raging seas thy will : 
 For both are hushed, when Thou dost say, 
 
 "Ye tempests, Peace! Be still!" 
 
 Thy hand our feeble bark upheld. 
 
 When tossed upon the wave, 
 Else had we, when the billows swelled, 
 
 Found, in their depths, a grave. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 309 
 
 We've seen Thy smile on yonder woods, 
 
 And in this evening sky, 
 And 'mid these awful solitudes. 
 
 We're safe beneath Thine eye. 
 
 Night, o'er us, spreads her starry wings. 
 
 And shall her vigil keep, 
 While, after all our wanderings, 
 
 In peace Thy servants sleep. 
 
 All the long hours, while Darkness holds her throne. 
 The sturdy Standish walks the deck alone, 
 To guard that cradle of a Commonwealth, 
 From foes, advancing, or by force of stealth; 
 While thoughts like these, though not in words ex- 
 pressed, 
 Steal o'er his soul, and move his manly breast. 
 
 "Beneath my feet far richer treasures lie, 
 Than floated erst in Jason's argosy ; 
 Ay, to the waiting world, a greater boon. 
 Than e'er was borne by a three-decked galleon : 
 The golden fleece ! — the silver of Peru ! 
 What are they, weighed against pure souls and true? 
 Those might spread for me here a bed of down. 
 Or glitter in an earthly monarch's crown ; 
 But these shall be remembered, when the Lord 
 Makes up his jewels. — Is not that his word? 
 And by the Savior's hand shall each be set, 
 To shine forever in his coronet: 
 Nay, each bright spirit, like an orient gem, 
 Shall sparkle in his Father's diadem. 
 For, here, firm faith, unsullied honor rest. 
 Woman's true heart, and beauty's spotless breast; 
 In all, the spirit to endure and dare ; 
 All men of valor, and all men of prayer, — 
 
310 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Men, full of grace, faith, charity and hope. 
 Who want no bishop, and will have no pope ; 
 Who want, of course, no bishop's underlings; 
 Who're their own priest, — ay, their own priests and 
 
 kings ; 
 Men, who're resolved, whatever else they be, 
 That they, in soul and body, will be free : — 
 Who ne'er have learned, and ne'er will learn, to cower, 
 Either to royal or to priestly power; 
 Men, whom the Lord, and not the king, made great. 
 And who, themselves, are both a church and state. 
 While o'er such spirits I keep watch and ward, 
 I seem to see an angel of the Lord, 
 In radiant garments, standing at the bow. 
 With a soft glory beaming from his brow. 
 And hear him say, in solemn tones and sweet, — 
 An embryo empire sleeps beneath thy feet." 
 
 Standish, it was a spirit from on high, 
 That, to thy spirit, spake that prophecy. 
 While watch and ward thy valiant spirit kept. 
 Beneath thy feet an embryo empire slept. 
 
 'Tis morning; a dull, cold December day, 
 From cheerless skies, comes down upon the bay, 
 Revealing, in its leaden-colored light. 
 Bare rocks and leafless forests to the sight. 
 No craggy barriers, beetling o'er the strand. 
 Frowning them off, before the Pilgrims stand ; 
 But sandy slopes, with granite boulders strown, 
 Some open fields where Indian corn had grown. 
 Hill-sides that wait the culture of the vine. 
 Should summer ever on those hill-sides shine, 
 But wooded now, with walnut, oak and pine, 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 311 
 
 And a bold height, that overlooks the plain, 
 And seaward guards the harbor and the main, 
 Compose the panorama of the ground, 
 Chosen by God, and by the Pilgrims found. 
 Where, amid rocks and sand and ice and snow, 
 The seeds of faith and liberty shall grow ; 
 Seeds, that have floated on the winds and waves, 
 From the Old World, from the dead martyrs' graves. 
 Now to be planted, by an exiled few, 
 On this cold, barren border of the New. 
 
 Ask me not, friends, to hold up, in my rhyme. 
 To your admiring gaze, that most sublime. 
 That most affecting picture, ever painted 
 By merely human hands, however sainted. 
 Of a high purpose, ne'er to bend the knee 
 To man or God, but in full liberty. 
 Which the stern Pilgrim fathers of our land. 
 And Pilgrim mothers, working hand in hand, 
 Spread on the canvas, on that wintery day, 
 When, from the Mayflower, anchored in the bay. 
 The Elder, Brewster, issuing with his flock. 
 Knelt down, and worshipped God on Plymouth Rock. 
 
 The subject, and man's power, for once regard : — 
 Historian, artist, orator and bard. 
 Each by the theme inspired, with lofty aim. 
 Spurred on by genius and the hope of fame, 
 With pen, brush, burin, all the charms of style. 
 And with full knowledge of the facts, the while, 
 And with a courage that has never quailed. 
 Have tried to do that landing ; — all have failed. 
 
 Ask ye the zvhy? One word explains the whole, 
 The greatness of the theme was in the soul — 
 
312 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 The soul of those who brought the deed about — 
 
 And, but in action, can not be brought out. 
 
 Brace but our souls up to the pitch of theirs, 
 
 Their faith in God, the fervor of their prayers, 
 
 The feeling, nay, the knowledge, that in prayer 
 
 There is a power, that is no other where ; 
 
 Their trust in Truth, that, in the Almighty's sight, 
 
 He is almighty, who is in the right; 
 
 The feeling that we're bound by God's command. 
 
 That none can take us out of His strong hand ; 
 
 That we are His, whether we will or no ; 
 
 That we can never true allegiance owe 
 
 To any earthly power, whate'er it is, 
 
 Whose statutes or commands conflict with His; — 
 
 Their fixed resolve that, to an earthly throne. 
 
 They would submit, but on these terms alone, 
 
 That it should ne'er require them to withdraw 
 
 Their faith and fealty from the higher law. 
 
 Given them by God ; — since none of this world's great, 
 
 No legislator, prince, or potentate, 
 
 No dignitary, in the Church or State, 
 
 Let me obey his mandates e'er so well, 
 
 Will e'er consent to take my place in hell. 
 
 Or bear the least of all my penalties. 
 
 For breaking God's commands, in keeping his; — 
 
 String but our souls, as did the Pilgrims theirs, 
 
 To this high pitch, and, in the world's affairs, 
 
 IVe may act such a part that, they who claim 
 
 A kindred with us, and who bear our name. 
 
 May glory in the name that they inherit. 
 
 And pride themselves in their forefathers' spirit ; 
 
 May say, "Those men of eighteen fifty-five. 
 
 Had souls within them, that were all alive;" 
 
 Stamp, on their children's memories, the date 
 
 Of some great deed that made their fathers great; 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 313 
 
 Call on their orators and bards to give 
 Our names a place, with names ordained to live; 
 Talk of those fathers, — say, "Those were the men, 
 That the world stood in need of, there and then ;" 
 Say, "Though they knew no bishop, and no throne, 
 They knew the right, and though they went alone, 
 They went where went the right, through fire and 
 
 frost 
 Made no concessions, counted not the cost 
 Of noble enterprise, and great endeavor : — 
 Self-sacrifice for truth — they shunned it never: 
 In short, those men were worthy of the stock 
 They sprung from — that great hearted Pilgrim flock, 
 That landed long ago, on Plymouth Rock." 
 
 But, can the deeds of those old men be painted? 
 No ! By his own deeds, every saint is sainted. 
 Once done, the deed escapes from the control 
 Of pen or paint, and lives within the soul ; — 
 The soul of one who feels a kindred flame. 
 And asks of Time none but a lasting fame ; 
 Of one who, standing where the Pilgrims stood, 
 And knowing that his veins hold Pilgrim blood. 
 Knows he can feel, too, as the Pilgrims felt. 
 Kneel in the spirit that old Brewster knelt; 
 For freedom dare, somewhat as Standish dared; 
 Care, for the Commonwealth, as Carver cared ; 
 Bear with a patient spirit, as they bore. 
 Perils at sea, and perils on the shore ; 
 Aspire to serve the Lord as they aspired ; 
 With all the Pilgrims' fiery zeal be fired ; 
 Meet on a wild and barren shore, the gaunt 
 And hungry wolf, — inexorable Want — 
 To find the ark of God a resting place, 
 Look Indians, frost, and famine in the face; 
 
314 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Resign the loved ones nearest to his side, 
 Give to the grave, as Standish gave, his bride, 
 And die, as fifty of their hundred died. 
 
 Such be our souls, and v^e may well discard 
 The labors of the artist and the bard: 
 It is, indeed, an enviable thing 
 In deathless strains of deathless deeds to sing. 
 But far more so, according to my creed. 
 To have a soul like his, who did the deed. 
 A painted hero! — it is well to see one; 
 A real hero ! — better, far, to be one. 
 
 We said — "Resign the loved ones at his side, 
 Give to the grave, as Standish gave, his bride," 
 And, we have said — "While Darkness held her throne. 
 The sturdy Standish walked the deck alone" ; — 
 Here let us add — while others found repose, 
 Under his watchful eye, his lovely Rose, 
 Bound to his heart by cords that ne'er decay. 
 Beneath that deck, sleepless and fading lay; 
 One little month, — and on that icy shore. 
 Death's cold hand touched her, and she bloomed no 
 more! 
 
 Late had she bowed over her father's grave ; 
 Still later, with her husband, crossed the wave; 
 Given herself to him, in her beauty's pride. 
 Bloomed on his bosom, — faded there, — and died. 
 
 Her grave is ready, — In the bitter air 
 All things are frozen, — but the funeral prayer. 
 While all, without, is bound in icy chains. 
 Her famished sisters, round her cold remains, 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 315 
 
 With stricken hearts, their only offering, 
 
 Come, and in sorrow's tones, this requiem sing : — 
 
 REQUIEM 
 
 Dear sister, thou hast paid the debt, that all of us must pay ; 
 The beauty of thy blooming cheek, soon hath it passed 
 
 away ; 
 Thy sun, that rose so beautiful, is early clouded in. 
 And thou hast left us, in a world of sorrow and of sin. 
 
 Dear sister, thou hast meekly borne the sufferings of thy 
 
 lot; 
 If thou hast ever breathed a murmur, we have heard it 
 
 not; 
 But we have heard thy prayer, that God would make thy 
 
 husband strong. 
 To bear the burden, that his heart would have to bear ere 
 
 long. 
 
 Dear sister, we shall mourn our loss ; but this shall soothe 
 
 our pain, 
 That, though thy death's a loss to us, to thee it is a gain ; 
 For, now this desert thou hast left, and passed the Jordan 
 
 o'er, 
 "Sweet fields" await thy weary feet, on Canaan's blissful 
 
 shore. 
 
 Thy spirit, dear, was borne away by Pestilence and Dearth ; 
 And now thy body must be laid beneath the frozen earth ; 
 Thy brethren to its rest must bear it, through the biting 
 
 blast ; 
 And well we know, of all they bear, thine will not be the 
 
 last. 
 
^3 1 6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 But oh, how great a thing it is, like thee, to pass away ! 
 Like thee to be prepared for death and for the judgment 
 
 day! 
 Through "the dark valley" when we pass, though each 
 
 must go alone, 
 It is our faith, that we shall meet, before the Judge's 
 
 throne. 
 
 Look at those women, on that dreary shore ! 
 
 You know what they could bear, by what they bore. 
 
 O, with what faith and love they met their lot ! 
 
 What should a woman be, that they were not ? 
 
 Rendering, in every sphere, the tribute due. 
 
 All true to God, all to their husbands true. 
 
 For these had they resigned home, country, ease. 
 
 Encountered all the perils of the seas; 
 
 The rocks and breakers on a leeward shore. 
 
 Had braved, — the tempest's and the surge's roar. 
 
 And the wild beasts, that through the forest prowl. 
 
 The bear's marauding, and the gaunt wolf's howl, 
 
 The stealthy savage, aiming at their life 
 
 The arrow, tomahawk or scalping knife ; — 
 
 Add to all this — what never has been told — 
 
 The driving snow storms, and the bitter cold 
 
 Of a New England winter ! Think how, then. 
 
 These Pilgrim women met all this, like men ! 
 
 Nay, when their cheeks were wan for want of bread. 
 
 How these same women made the sick man's bed, 
 
 Spoke to him words of Hope, when blank Despair 
 
 Was shutting out what little light was there, — 
 
 Cheered up the sinking spirits of the man. 
 
 And soothed his pains as none but woman can ; 
 
 And tell me, — shall those Pilgrim women not 
 
 Be aye remembered? — Can they be forgot? 
 
 Were they not helps meet for those Pilgrim men? 
 
 Oh, yes ! "When shall we look upon their like again ?" 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 317 
 
 Their like again ? Whene'er occasion calls ! 
 
 In Labor's cottage, or in Pleasure's halls, 
 
 Whether she's dancing in the gay saloon, 
 
 Or walking with you by the silver moon. 
 
 Or leading forth the steps of tottering age, 
 
 Or standing, thoughtful, by the maniac's cage. 
 
 Watching a sister on her dying bed. 
 
 Or dressing her for burial when she's dead. 
 
 Has she not met the occasion? Has she quailed 
 
 At any toil or peril that assailed? 
 
 When has a daughter of those mothers failed? 
 
 Let not Oblivion, then, those women shroud ; 
 Or, round them, draw her curtain or her cloud. 
 'Tis well our Pilgrim fathers to revere; 
 But let us hold our Pilgrim mothers dear ; 
 For, but for them, which, of us, had been here ? 
 
 The vision of those stars, that, in the dawn 
 Of Freedom's day arose, is now withdrawn. 
 Those morning stars, those heralds of the day. 
 That o'er our land now pours its golden ray. 
 Are seen no more. — But what a glory burns. 
 And shall forever, round their holy urns ! 
 How dim the strongest light, that ever shone 
 Round men who "wade through slaughter to a throne," 
 Compared with what shall glorify their graves, 
 So long as Ocean towards them rolls his waves ! 
 So long as, looking o'er the stormy bay. 
 Their narrow house is sprinkled with its spray! 
 
 "Their narrow house !" What monumental pile 
 Towers o'er their dust, and marks, for many a mile, 
 Their resting place? What simple head-stone shows 
 The stranger, where their mouldering bones repose? 
 
3i8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 "None," must we say? Is not their place of rest 
 
 Worth being noted, — consecrated — blest? 
 
 O'er their neglected graves sea breezes pass ; — 
 
 We hear them sighing through the tall, dead grass; — 
 
 Say — in that sighing, does the thoughtful ear 
 
 No tone reproachful from those sleepers hear? 
 
 When one has led of Freedom's host the van,^ 
 Or fallen, a martyr in the cause of man, 
 The heart hath never willingly forgot 
 The holy day, the consecrated spot, 
 Marked by an act of valor or of faith, 
 Or by a noble deed, or noble death. 
 
 Thus Joshua, standing on the Desert's edge, 
 When of his people he had taken a pledge, 
 That from Jehovah they would never swerve, 
 But that Hhn only they would love and serve. 
 Set up a stone, and said, "Consider, now. 
 This stone hath heard the covenant and vow 
 That ye have made to God ; and it shall bear 
 Witness against you, should it ever hear, 
 Amid these solemn groves, these arches dim, 
 Your vows go up to any God but Him." 
 
 By those who sail, as I have done, with joy, 
 Along the shore where once stood ancient Troy, 
 Two grassy mounds upon the right are seen : — 
 Once, the Scamander may have flowed between. 
 Those mounds, by Homer seen, still standing there. 
 The names of Ajax and Patroclus bear. 
 
 ^ Some forty or fifty of the secrating the monument, erected 
 
 following lines are taken, with there over the remains of those 
 
 some alterations, from the who fell at Concord, in the first 
 
 poem that I delivered at Acton, battle in the war of American 
 
 Mass., on the occasion of con- Independence. — J. P. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 319 
 
 Thousands of years o'er those green mounds have 
 
 rolled ; 
 A million mornings touched their tops with gold ; 
 A million nights their dewy tears shall shed 
 On those memorials of the honored dead. 
 
 On a low shelving rock, that breaks the waves, 
 That roll in from the East, when Eurus raves, 
 And gives smooth water, on the windward side. 
 To ships, that in the port of Athens ride. 
 There stands a marble structure. Seen from this, 
 The island and the gulf of Salamis 
 Lie just before you. Off, upon your left, 
 The Persian keels, the blue ^gean cleft : 
 And there the Persian's fleet was swept away : 
 And, in remembrance of that glorious day. 
 There stands, and looks out on the Grecian seas, 
 And there shall stand, thy tomb, Themistocles ! 
 
 On many a spot of our own native land. 
 Sacred to valor and to freedom, stand 
 The granite obelisk, the marble pile, 
 Hailed by the patriot heart, for many a mile. 
 As upright witnesses, who lift their head. 
 To tell the world where sleep the honored dead. 
 
 Prophetic whispers steal upon my ear, 
 And seem to say, that not another year. 
 Shall the calm moon and ever watchful stars 
 Drive, o'er the Pilgrims' graves, their viewless cars. 
 And see those graves neglected. They have seen, 
 Too many years, the tall, thin grass wave green, 
 And the dew sparkle, like a brilliant gem. 
 And hoar-frost lay its white sheet over them, 
 
320 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 And heard the night winds, and chill autumn's gale 
 O'er them pour forth their melancholy wail, 
 And Winter, with his mantle o'er them spread. 
 Howl his long, stormy requiem o'er the dead. 
 
 No longer be it thus ! But o'er the grave, 
 Where sleep the true, the holy and the brave, 
 Let monumental stones their vigils keep. 
 To tell the world the names of those who sleep 
 Within their shadow, and to hold in trust 
 The sacred treasure of their garnered dust. 
 
 And who may ask their children that the spot. 
 Where they repose, be marked, if they may not? 
 Who build the strongest bulwarks of the State? 
 Who is the greatest one amongst the great? 
 Not he who o'er the field triumphant treads, 
 Or builds up pyramids of human heads ; — 
 Your Caesar, pointing his praetorian swords, 
 Your Tamerlane, heading his Tartar hordes, 
 But he who dares, in kings' and bigots' spite. 
 Stand, and do bloodless battle for the right; 
 By blessing, binds his people to his throne. 
 And chains their wills, by having chained his own. 
 To the high will of Him, who curbs the spheres. 
 And makes them mark his own eternal years: — 
 And, as His greatest glory ever springs, 
 Not from the fact that He is King of kings. 
 But that the greatest good, from all his plans. 
 Results for aye, — so does the greatest man's. 
 
 See the results, then, of those Pilgrims' cares, 
 Toils, perils, sufferings, sacrifices, prayers. 
 And offerings, laid where, first, in fear they trod, 
 Upon the altar of their faith in God. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT ' 321 
 
 And, that herein we may not judge amiss, 
 Compare the Pilgrims' landing day with this. 
 Dense forests, with their axes, cleared away, 
 Their dark recesses opened to the day, 
 And, in their stead, is Amalthea's horn 
 Filled and o'errunning with the golden corn. 
 Then, in a single port, a single sail 
 Stood, stiff with ice; now, not a seaward gale 
 Blows from our harbors, for a thousand miles, 
 But bears our bounty to the distant isles ; 
 Nor one blows landward, but, behold it brings 
 The wealth of nations on its burdened wings ; 
 Nations, whose sons are bleeding, or have bled, 
 In battle, and now look to us for bread. 
 For lo ! our harvests, and our thousand mills. 
 Our sheep, our cattle, from our thousand hills, 
 Feed now the hosts that Western Europe pours. 
 In clouds and thunder, on the Euxine's shores. 
 
 In one square house, twenty by twenty feet, 
 With a thatched roof, to shield from snow and sleet,- 
 A roof, that, one cold January day, 
 While Carver, Bradford, sick beneath it lay. 
 Fired by a spark, entirely burnt away, — 
 In that square house, their bed-room, chapel, hall. 
 The which their "great new rendezvous'' they call. 
 The Pilgrim Fathers their first Sabbath kept ; 
 There they all worshipped God, there ate, there slept. 
 
 Now, from a myriad mansions, large and fair, 
 With the first smoke that curls into the air. 
 Rises the incense of domestic prayer. 
 Where'er the hill-sides slope, the rivers run, 
 From the Penobscot to the Oregon : 
 
322 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 While Gothic temples, with their marble spires, 
 
 Reared by the children of those Pilgrim sires. 
 
 In splendid cities, see the serious throng. 
 
 Like a deep river calmly flow along, 
 
 And pour into their gates, with prayer and choral song. 
 
 Where the poor Pilgrim heard the Indian's yell, 
 The school-house stands, and children learn to spell; 
 Or the steam-whistle tells of coming cars. 
 Or science sits and counts and weighs the stars. 
 Where, then, adorned with feathers and tattoo. 
 The Indian paddled his birch-bark canoe ; 
 Now, without sails, a gorgeous palace rides. 
 By no winds wafted, turning with no tides. 
 But bearing bravely on its precious freight — 
 The brave, the wise, the beautiful, the great — 
 The strongest streams, the broadest oceans o'er. 
 Landing them safe, upon the farthest shore. 
 Where, in a wigwam then, the Pilgrim saw 
 A lazy Indian and his laboring squaw. 
 Living 'mid smoke and smut, and steam and stench. 
 Without a chair, a bedstead or a bench. 
 There, now (in silence passing princely domes,) 
 Are seen ten thousand hospitable homes. 
 Where pure domestic love and peace are found, 
 Leaning on Labor's arm, while, all around. 
 Health, strength and beauty, and true faith abound : 
 While, over all, — no vain, no useless thing — 
 Spreads pure Religion her protecting wing. 
 And bids the dweller of those happy homes, 
 Whene'er he rests there, or whene'er he roams, 
 Not to forget, that from his native stock, 
 All this has come; — even from the little flock. 
 That stood up, stark and stern, and prayed on Ply- 
 mouth Rock. 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 323 
 
 But the same spirit — the same moral nerve — 
 That earned this greatness, can alone preserve. 
 
 Sons of the Pilgrims ! need ye to be told, 
 It takes "perpetual shoulders" to uphold 
 "The exceeding weight of glory," that is theirs, 
 And prove your title, as your fathers' heirs? 
 
 Will ye, while bending reverent o'er their graves, 
 Become the vassals of slave-hunting knaves ? 
 Grow slaves yourselves, by making others slaves? 
 Rivet the broken chain, and ply the rod. 
 That galls and cuts the children of the God, 
 Your Pilgrim fathers worshipped and obeyed, 
 Because so bidden by laws that men have made ? 
 
 Children of the Pilgrim flock. 
 Offshoots of the Pilgrim stock. 
 Planted, erst, on Plymouth Rock, 
 
 By the surging main ; 
 When upon that shore they dwelt. 
 When upon that rock they knelt, 
 Would those men have lived, and felt 
 
 Slavery's galling chain? 
 
 When they all were kneeling there. 
 And the incense of their prayer 
 Rose upon the frosty air — 
 
 From a wigwam's shade. 
 Had they heard the savage call, 
 "Hunt ye down that fleeing thrall ! 
 Seize, and hold him, one and all !" 
 
 Would they have obeyed? 
 
324 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Had they done it, would they dare 
 Kneel again, and breathe a prayer 
 To the God they worshipped there? — 
 
 Had they prayed, would He, 
 Who their steps had thither led, 
 Who his guardian wing had spread 
 Over their defenceless head, 
 
 On the wintery sea. 
 
 His all-gracious ear have bowed ? 
 Had they called on Him aloud. 
 Would the column and the cloud, 
 
 Once to Israel given, 
 Have descended, as their guide. 
 Through those forests, dark and wide. 
 When to Thee, O God, they cried. 
 
 And were heard of Heaven? 
 
 Hark ! that savage call we hear ! 
 Nozu, 'tis ringing in our ear ! 
 See, the panting thrall is near! 
 
 Shall zve play the hound? 
 Shall zve join the unleashed pack. 
 Yelping on a brother's track? 
 Shall we seize and drag him back 
 
 Fainting, bleeding, bound? 
 
 Ay! — when we're in love with chains; 
 Ay! — when in our bastard veins. 
 No drop of the blood remains 
 
 Of those Pilgrim men ! 
 Ay, — when our own backs we strip, 
 That what blood we have may drip, 
 For the lordlings of the whip, — 
 
 Then, — and not till then ! 
 
JOHN PIERPONT 325 
 
 O, Thou Holy One and Just, 
 Thou, who wast the Pilgrims' trust. 
 Thou, who watchest o'er their dust 
 
 By the moaning sea; 
 By their conflicts, toils and cares, 
 By their perils and their prayers, 
 By their ashes, — make their heirs 
 
 True to them and Thee. 
 
THE PURITAN SCHEME OF NATIONAL 
 GROWTH 
 
 RICHARD SALTER STORRS 
 1857 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 
 (1821-1900.) 
 
 The last of these literary celebrations was held in 1857, when 
 Dr. R. S. Storrs, then a young pastor in Brooklyn, made the 
 address. Dr. Storrs was a native of Braintree, Massachusetts. 
 He was graduated at Amherst, and entered the office of the 
 Hon. Rufus Choate. He soon decided, however, to follow the 
 profession of his father and grandfather, preparing for the min- 
 istry at Andover. 
 
 Dr. Storrs's volume "The Constitution of the Human Soul" had 
 been published in 1857. He was already prominent, but his 
 presence was yet to make the Church of the Pilgrims noted 
 throughout the land. There he served, with increasing honor, 
 through a devoted pastorate, the fiftieth anniversary of which 
 raised the entire city to a stupendous burst of enthusiasm. As 
 successor of Dr. Mark Hopkins in the presidency of the Ameri- 
 can Board of Foreign Missions, he made some of his greatest 
 occasional addresses. He was famous far beyond the limits of 
 his region and his denomination, as a master of English, a 
 deep student, a man of strong and broad thought, and a fearless 
 leader. 
 
ORATION 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen of the New Eng- 
 land Society: 
 
 WE have met to-night for an office of commemora- 
 tion, and of fihal piety. We have met as repre- 
 sentatives of that portion of our country from whose 
 loins we have sprung, whose influences we venerate, to 
 whose traditions we confess our allegiance, and to 
 whose freshly remembered homes our hearts untrav- 
 elled still return, from the midst of all newer attractions 
 and delights. Without even the cold that comes out of 
 the north to remind us of the emigrants who faced it 
 first on the coasts of Plymouth, and with all things else 
 that meet or surround us set in singular contrast with 
 the scenes they confronted, — these long and echoing 
 streets of trade, these wharves which are fringed with 
 the shipping of a continent, these avenues lined with 
 luxurious homes, the halls of justice, the many churches, 
 the great institutes of learning, of charity, and of plea- 
 sure, this audience itself, and the room we are gathered 
 in, all conspiring to show the advance we have realized, 
 and reminding us only by the law of antithesis of the 
 sheeted and desolate hills which they saw as they drew 
 to the end of their perilous voyage, — so we come, to 
 lay our fresh garland on the graves of the Departed, 
 and with praising hearts, to recount the indebtedness 
 we acknowledge to them ! 
 
 329 
 
330 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 It is an office which many may covet, but which none 
 should condemn ; which the intimate instincts of nature 
 seem to prompt; and which every descendant from an 
 ancestry deemed by him noble and pure should emulate 
 and applaud. Surely, if even the ancient world has 
 honored the memory of the great ones departed with 
 festival and procession ; if its finest poetry has celebrated 
 them, in lyric grace, in elegiac pathos, and in the long- 
 resounding measures of epic verse ; if its noblest art has 
 been dedicated to them, in pictorial portraiture, in stat- 
 ues, and in tombs; if its very legislation has been full 
 of their influence, as its history of their deeds ; and if, 
 in all the great crises of its progress, in the forum, on 
 the battle-field, on decks that reeled swimming in blood, 
 as the very palpable scales of Destiny, — if here the in- 
 fluence of the earlier heroes, that had brooded invisibly 
 over all peaceful years, has seemed to rush forth con- 
 spicuous and embodied, till inaudible battalions were 
 felt sweeping the field, and a dusky legion hovered 
 everywhere on the air, — surely, it may be pardoned to 
 us, in these ages and lands which Christ hath taught, 
 that we recall the great character of our Ancestors, 
 and offer to them our humbler praise! 
 
 And yet we are here not only as vividly mindful of a 
 Past, but as conscious of a Present, and hopeful for a 
 Future. We are here as not divorced in any degree 
 from the nation we are part of, although the province 
 which gave us birth claims our prime love. And I 
 trust, and doubt not, that we all of us are here, as aware 
 that the grandest, the only really worthy and perma- 
 nent tribute we can offer to our ancestors, is the life we 
 accomplish, the work we do, to promote the ends which 
 were sacred to them. "Man celebrates," says Richter, 
 "to his beloved ones a more beautiful festival when he 
 dries the tears of others than when he onlv sheds his 
 
 1 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 33 1 
 
 own; and the most beautiful flower and cypress-gar- 
 land which we can hang upon loved monuments is a 
 fruit-garland of good deeds." And what is thus true 
 of the personal representative of a parent deceased 
 must much more be true of a succeeding generation; 
 whose force has been derived to them, their culture 
 accomplished, and their character shaped, for great 
 public purposes, and to whom these appeal with a su- 
 preme voice. 
 
 That people which is smit with such idolatry of the 
 Past that it pauses before this in passive admiration, 
 and renders it the cheap tribute of verbal adulation, 
 while hindered from attempting fresh works for itself, 
 only brings upon itself a keener contempt for the con- 
 trast it offers with its own Heroic Age. Inspiration is 
 not chartered to names or blood. It flies, air-pinioned, 
 over the earth ; and seeks its home, and its place of en- 
 thronement, in every congenial human soul. And so 
 they are the real representatives of our Fathers — we 
 are such only if accomplishing this — who interfuse their 
 fire and force, their dignity, patience, and forecast of 
 faith, into modern endeavors, and who execute a work, 
 on the present arena, completive of that which they 
 wrought nobly two centuries ago! Where they con- 
 tributed to found a nation, and to organize its elements, 
 we are called to contribute to advance and upbuild it. 
 The seeds were theirs, to implant and protect. The al- 
 ready rooted trunk is ours, to cherish and defend. 
 Within narrow boundaries lay the area for their work. 
 To the shores of the Pacific, to the wealthy slopes of the 
 far South-West, extend our realms. But our work 
 shall only represent theirs, and be its meet and great 
 memorial, when we do it with the same self-denial and 
 energy, the same wisdom, fidelity, and inflexible cour- 
 age, which they showed first; when we show ourselves 
 
ZZ2 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 their successors by a spiritual lineage, better than the 
 physical, through hearts baptized with the qualities of 
 their character, and minds informed with the wisdom 
 of their plans. 
 
 And we are here to take note of this fact, and to gird 
 ourselves afresh for the effort which it claims. Not 
 merely to honor the Past by our praises, but to quicken 
 ourselves to emulate that Past, by a kindred heroism in 
 a similar work — that is our errand ; the only one which 
 could justify our assemblage; the only one we can any 
 of us accept ! 
 
 I propose then to ask you to consider for a little the 
 Puritan Scheme of National Growth ; that which 
 they whom we honor were accustomed to recognize, 
 and which they strove to realize and incorporate in their 
 own institutions. By considering this, we may ani- 
 mate ourselves, perhaps, in attempting our own great 
 office in the world, and may at the same time, from a 
 higher point of view, examine and estimate the work 
 of our Fathers. The theme opens widely and brightly 
 before us. It runs not only back in its relations, but 
 forward also, over that Future beneath whose lifting 
 shadows we are met. It is the theme, I cannot but 
 think, which they whom we celebrate would themselves 
 have suggested. With perfect fitness to the place and 
 the occasion, it challenges our thoughts. 
 
 It was one of the cardinal principles of our Fathers 
 concerning National Growth, that this should proceed 
 from, and be animated by, a definite and positive 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE, diffused through the State; inter- 
 penetrating all parts of it; and manifesting its influ- 
 ence more or less distinctly in all public and pri- 
 vate activities. — Whether consciously or not, this idea 
 always wrought in them. It is seen not only in ser- 
 mons and in journals, but in parts of their statutes. 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 333 
 
 It moulded and quickened their whole frame of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 With all their scrupulous deference to the forms 
 which they had established, and to which they required 
 strict submission in others, such forms were only im- 
 portant to them as incorporating and manifesting this 
 spirit of life which they sought to make paramount, 
 and as tending to distribute and to quicken this in 
 others. The undeniable fact, too, of their judicial in- 
 tolerance — which was often combined, in singular viv- 
 idness, with their personal kindness toward those who 
 dissented from the religion of the State and its domi- 
 nant ideas, toward Romanists, Prelatists, Baptists, and 
 Friends — this intolerance sprang directly from the fact 
 that they conceived the spirit of the State to be more 
 important than numbers or wealth, or the friendship of 
 neighbors ; and they would not allow this, if legislation 
 could prevent it, to be impaired by hostile influence. 
 
 Undoubtedly, they committed an error, and a grave 
 one, in applying their principle. They exercised an au- 
 thority which in others they had denounced; and as a 
 mere matter of prudence they erred. For a doctrine, 
 whether correct or erroneous, is always too elastic, and 
 too self-diffusive, to be trodden down by power. It 
 springs back, with only a mightier rebound, from be- 
 neath every blow, and appeals to wider sympathies the 
 more it is oppressed. So all the doctrines which the 
 Puritans opposed only gained wider prevalence through 
 the force which they used in resisting their spread; 
 while, by their public using of this, they brought a dark 
 shadow over their fame. 
 
 But while we recognize without flinching the fact 
 that they erred, let us recognize also as clearly the fact 
 that it was not from pride, from passion, or from malice. 
 It was in the excess of a high and pure impulse. It 
 
334 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 was through pushing to a doubtful, and at last an 
 injurious conclusion, a principle that was right, philo- 
 sophical, noble, and when held in due limits, most fruit- 
 ful of good. A State compacted, from its infancy on- 
 ward, by a pure and permeating spiritual life; into 
 which should enter a deep love of Freedom, combining 
 with reverence and conscientious regard for the public 
 order, with both these impregnated by religious con- 
 victions, and culminating naturally in the fervors of 
 piety; a State which should be coextensive with the 
 Church, and should carry that out, in its natural ex- 
 pansion, whithersoever it went; — this was the State at 
 which the Puritans aimed. In enthusiasm for this, they 
 had crossed the sea, and attempted the establishment 
 of a nation dissevered from all traditions; a nation 
 as recent on the face of the earth as the hemlock- 
 tents that sheltered its founders ; — an enterprise of sin- 
 gular height and reach, and which looked as hazardous 
 to the men of that day as the project of Columbus to 
 the sailors who followed him, when they thought them- 
 selves in danger of sailing westward over the actual rim 
 of the world. They were not afraid of the bleakest 
 coasts. They were not affrighted by the icy wastes 
 which met them at Plymouth, or the desolate shores 
 which opened at Salem. They accepted, without hesi- 
 tation or diffidence, the rugged hills of New England 
 for their home, instead of the more inviting latitudes 
 for which they had sailed ; and through every discour- 
 agement they were inwardly expectant and assured of 
 success, if only they might ensure the prevalence, from 
 the outset onward, of this high and inspiring spiritual 
 force, of Religious conviction and a conscientious Pro- 
 bity, throughout their communities. 
 
 Their sumptuary laws, regulating dress, furniture, 
 and food ; their rules requiring the support of one min- 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 335 
 
 istry by the people of a town ; their absolute refusal to 
 establish hereditary prerogatives in the State, or to 
 found authority upon any thing but character, even 
 when they were tempted most strongly to do this ; their 
 vigilant supervision and censorship of literature, which 
 doomed an immoral book to the flames, no matter how 
 costly, or to whom it belonged, as certainly as if its 
 pages had been thick with the virus of plague; their 
 great, heroic, wise endeavors to found a Christian Uni- 
 versity at Cambridge, and afterward at New Haven — 
 ALL had in this supreme idea their point of final resolu- 
 tion and union. They are to be interpreted and mea- 
 sured by this. And in this the Puritans were in evi- 
 dent harmony with the great laws of History, and with 
 the essential and organific principles which govern the 
 constitution of Society on earth. They showed them- 
 selves philosophers, and spiritual thinkers, and not 
 mere men of motion and of action; worthy to have 
 sprung from the age of Elizabeth ; worthy to have been 
 trained by Providence for its work! 
 
 Life, everywhere, is the element of Growth; and a 
 vigorous and governing spiritual life, diffused through 
 the State, is better to it, a thousand times over, than 
 any material helps and resources. How brightly his- 
 tory instructs us in this ; while also it is so early reached, 
 and so clearly established, by the logic of analysis! 
 The principles of Truth, of Justice, and of Liberty, they 
 receive recognition from God's supreme mind. They 
 are essentially and forever involved in the very concep- 
 tion of a co-operative system of intelligent beings. The 
 soul of man, if it does not delight to express them it- 
 self, yet recognizes their glory and affirms their author- 
 ity, and demands that they be expressed toward it by 
 others. It never will rest, in inward tranquillity, until 
 they are; and whensoever they really enter a man or a 
 
336 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 community, and are accepted, loved and realized, their 
 force is always renewing and inspiring. They train, 
 and develop, and invigorate to new action, our noblest 
 powers. Heroisms are born of them; self-sacrifice; en- 
 durance; and even the triumphs of genius itself. Lit- 
 eratures spring from them ; humanities ; chivalries ; and 
 that best Art, which is not a fabricated ornament for 
 the State, but a product of its force, consubstantial with 
 its strength. They erect each soul to a nobler stature, 
 and give it new dignity, manliness, might. And they 
 make a People centrally fearless, spiritually effective; 
 enduing them with intellectual strength and resources, 
 uniting them in the compact of a living agreement, and 
 shooting into them a force of enterprise and of patience, 
 not from any aggregation of numbers and wealth, but 
 from their own interior assurance of what is Right, of 
 what must conquer! 
 
 Often, and signally, has the influence of these been 
 illustrated in History, by individuals and by peoples. 
 The Spartan strength, which sprang from simplicity 
 and sobriety of tastes, from a sense of the value and 
 beauty of Liberty, and from a devotion to the rugged 
 Peloponnesus as its natural home; the Roman might, 
 which, more than by any other fact or force, was built 
 up and consolidated by the prime and clear recognition 
 on the Tiber of the twin ideas of Liberty and Justice, 
 as the right of the citizen, and which, with all the 
 treasures it had gathered, and the conquests it had 
 made, went down irretrievably into crashing destruc- 
 tion, when these were sacrificed; in times more recent, 
 the long-continued independence of Switzerland, that . 
 high-nested Eagle, watching Europe from her eyrie; 
 the growth, and greatness, and power in the world, of 
 England and its government; — how all illustrate the 
 same fixed law, which is according to God's nature 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 337 
 
 and to ours, and which constitutes the essential philos- 
 ophy of History, that the vigorous spiritual force of a 
 people is the prime condition, the organizing power, the 
 architectonic law and life, of its enduring and grand 
 prosperity! Whatever shuts off a people from the 
 world, so that this may remain in them ; as the isthmus 
 that shut off Sparta from Europe, or the mountains 
 that circle Switzerland with their bulwarks, and make 
 it peculiar and separate among kingdoms, or the seas 
 that intervene between England and the Continent, and 
 secure to that island its special development; this be- 
 comes to such a people the most constant and helpful 
 auxiliary to their strength. And whatever expands an 
 empire so fast, as exploration and conquest expanded 
 the Roman, that this individualized spirit of life loses 
 activity or loses supremacy, and comes to be either 
 overwhelmed or exhaled amid physical successes — that 
 is certainly fatal to the real prosperity and permanence 
 of the State. It buries it, like Tarpeia, beneath the 
 golden trophies piled on it. It leaves it, like the relics 
 of Charles Borromeo, simply a crowned and robed 
 cadaver, for dissolution to destroy, or any onset of 
 force to tear apart. 
 
 The Puritans were right then, certainly, manifestly 
 right and wise, in seeking to make an inward life the 
 centre of their State, the element and energizing prin- 
 ciple of its growth ; which should wind itself into, and 
 show itself amid, all subsequent development, and work 
 unseen to mould and build the ultimate Power. If that 
 life was not the rarest and noblest that we can conceive, 
 it was certainly better than any that had preceded it. 
 It had more of majesty, purity, truth, in it; more of 
 God's inspirations, and of God's present influence. The 
 devotion they chei'ished to personal liberty, to public 
 justice, and to the great principles and laws of Religion, 
 
338 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 expressed in a rude, but still a real way, the grandest 
 power our nature can hold ; the power that must invig- 
 orate and protect more than arts or diplomacies, or any 
 memories of the past. They were right in not fearing 
 or caring what opposed them : the coldest climate, the 
 most rough and rocky and inhospitable coast, a country 
 with neither spontaneous crops nor wealthy mines, a 
 wooded wilderness, haunted by savages : if only they 
 might eternize this life which they brought hither, and 
 make it supreme from the outset to the end. For this 
 principle of their power, although imponderable, was 
 also immortal; though invisible as the fruitful energy 
 of the Spring, it was like that subtle, penetrant, irre- 
 versible, and sure to show itself in a subsequent fruitage 
 of beauty and of wealth ! 
 
 And this marked them preeminent among the men of 
 their age; the real builders of States; the real architects 
 of Empire! Unconsciously, perhaps, they had struck 
 here the vein whose quarried gold was to build and 
 adorn the great fabrics of State throughout the future. 
 With the quick intuition which experience had taught, 
 they had seized the true secret of imperial development. 
 And they were alone in this. When Spain sent out her 
 colonies to the South, it was with great fleets and dis- 
 ciplined captains; but with no other governing aim or 
 plan than to gather wealth as rapidly as possible; to 
 pluck the rubies, the sapphires, and the gold which 
 flashed on that narrow and splendid zone, and then to 
 sweep back with these unreckoned argosies, and set 
 them shining on the robes of the Peninsula. When 
 Raleigh and his contemporaries essayed to found a new 
 empire in Virginia, it was their scheme to transport 
 thither the society, the industry, the chivalry of the 
 Old World, and by these to organize the new common- 
 wealths. The plan contemplated no peculiar develop- 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 339 
 
 ment ; no growth of the State from invisible principles ; 
 no dominance of supreme and subordinating Ideas 
 throughout its extent; and it failed, accordingly. The 
 distance was too great, and the country too novel, to 
 sustain such an enterprise. But when the Pilgrims 
 landed at Plymouth, — when afterward the freemen of 
 the Massachusetts Colony were established at Boston, 
 and its hilly vicinity, — they threw themselves back, 
 behind all human helps and strength, on that invisible 
 spiritual power which had wrought in themselves, and 
 which they meant should work and reign in those who 
 came after. They designed the State which they set 
 up, to be firmly established in the souls of its mem- 
 bers, and then to be realized in outward form wher- 
 ever these carried it. They meant the material to be 
 builded and shaped by the law of the spirit; a moral 
 force, incompressible, though invisible, to be the germ 
 of the whole commonwealth. 
 
 And herein, as I said, they contrasted the others, and 
 showed themselves nobler; of higher stature, larger 
 reach, a finer intuition into man's mystic nature, a more 
 grand and inspiring confidence in God. We can par- 
 don much to them ; their severity of manners, their hos- 
 tility to the fine arts which they thought enervating, 
 their disposition to reenact on the shores of the New 
 World the Mosaic legislation, in many of its forms, as 
 in all of its principles ; we can understand what it was 
 that sustained them, amid every privation, and made 
 them expectant of a glorious Future, while near and 
 dark still lowered their horizon ; we feel the same sym- 
 pathies grappling us to them which knit the hearts of 
 Bradford and Winslow, of Winthrop and Saltonstall, 
 and their educated contemporaries, so closely to their 
 work ; we interpret, in a word, their whole great enter- 
 prise, and see its relations, and are already prophetic of 
 
340 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 its issue ; the moment we bring the fact before us, that 
 they sought to organize a nation by a spirit, and to 
 govern it by principles, and not merely to pile it by 
 physical aggregation, and compact it by the rules of a 
 reciprocal interest. It made no difference whence they 
 sailed, whether from Plymouth or Delft Haven; it 
 made no difference how they came, whether in poverty 
 or in wealth ; since they were the heralds of these pow- 
 ers invisible. These sent them out to traverse the seas, 
 and these were to be to them arms and law. And they 
 could not relinquish the work once commenced. The 
 great maxim of Hampden, ''nulla vestigia retrorsum," 
 became their maxim also, by a law of necessity ; for they 
 could not go back, so long as this inspiring purpose, 
 which had drawn their barks across the ocean, which 
 wore on its front illustrious promises, which was in 
 itself to them as an evangel, commanded them for- 
 ward ! 
 
 It was rather a natural result of this, and a neces- 
 sary corollary, than an element added to it, their Sec- 
 ond principle: that a State should be closely and 
 THOROUGHLY ORGANIZED, in its physical frame; and 
 that it should grow with steady, shapely, and grad- 
 ual INCREASE, instead of being loosely accumulated 
 at first, and then rapidly expanded; that it should de- 
 velop ITSELF FROM WITHIN, rather than be swiftly, 
 but externally augmented. — This, which sometimes is 
 charged on the Puritans as a rigorous narrowness, was 
 really an inseparable part of their scheme, and essential, 
 as they thought, to the proper and wise development 
 of the rest. It harmonized with, was the complement 
 to, the preceding principle; and furnished the mecha- 
 nism through which their invisible spirit was to work. 
 In this view, although it is not unfamiliar, it claims 
 and deserves to be carefully examined. 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 341 
 
 The early colonies differed, as we know, materially, 
 and even widely, in some of the details of their civil 
 organization. The colonists at Plymouth, few in num- 
 ber and unconspicuous, a mere fragment thrown off 
 from the great world of England, and drifting through 
 space in their own hired ship to a shore which pestilence 
 had prepared for their coming, were secure, at least, 
 of the kindly and sheltering neglect of the monarchy; 
 its beneficent forgetfulness. And so they established 
 their own form of government in the cabin of the May- 
 flower, and made themselves "a civil body politic," 
 with equality of rights for their prime provision, and a 
 perfect democracy for their fundamental law. 
 
 The colony of Massachusetts Bay, on the other hand, 
 which was larger, wealthier, and more prominent than 
 this, being organized at the start on a patent from the 
 Crown which contemplated a constant supervision of its 
 affairs by the company in England, and having become 
 an independent colony only by the unforeseen transfer 
 of that patent, and the bodily emigration of the com- 
 pany itself, from the Old World to the New, — this col- 
 ony had less of the purely democratic, had naturally 
 more of a centralizing tendency, in its constitution and 
 practice, from the first. The ultimate authority vested, 
 indeed, in the body of the Freemen. But the Governor 
 and the Assistants had also fixed and large preroga- 
 tives. The very number of the Freemen, indeed, was 
 limited to those who had become such under the Patent, 
 with those who should afterwards be admitted by them. 
 And it was only through resolute and unwearying 
 effort, extending over years, involving wide agitation 
 and discussion, seizing every occasion for its fresh ex- 
 hibition, and cresting almost annually to a positive ag- 
 gression, that the body of the people pressed up their 
 way, through all the restrictions and encumbrances of 
 
342 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 the charter, to the recognized right of mailing their 
 laws, and electing their officers. 
 
 In Connecticut, again, the Constitution at first was 
 of singular liberality; the elective franchise belonging 
 to all the members of the towns, who had taken the 
 oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth, and the mag- 
 istrates and legislators being chosen by them, in annual 
 ballot; while still later, in New Haven, this rule was 
 modified by limiting the francliise to the members of 
 the church, and making the Bible, by popular enact- 
 ment, the book of statutes. 
 
 But still, amid these formal diversities, certain gen- 
 eral principles are everywhere manifest in the Puritan 
 plan for constituting the State; and in each of the sev- 
 eral districts I have named these principles were recog- 
 nized, and carefully embodied. They tend, as we ob- 
 serve them, not to form the State to the ungirt propor- 
 tions of a casual democracy, promiscuous and undis- 
 ciplined, thrown together by fortune, united only by 
 the accident of neighborhood, and swaying and oscil- 
 lating in transitory impulse; but, rather, to the close 
 and well-knit structure of an organized, compacted, and 
 permanent Government, with due subordinations and 
 supremacies of parts, and with powers restricted to 
 those competent to wield them. The State was a body, 
 not a mass, on their theory; a vital organism, far-ex- 
 tending, many-membered, yet uni-centric, and every- 
 where pervaded by one living spirit; not a mere me- 
 chanical aggregation of persons. And they would 
 scarcely have thought it possible to carry on perma- 
 nently, to successful issues, the experiment of self-gov- 
 ernment, without such a careful internal organization. 
 "Government by the best," was always their aim; 
 with established deposits, as well as with definite limits 
 and checks, of authority and power. And out of this 
 due increase was to come. 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 343 
 
 The Family was primitive, central, germinal, in the 
 Puritan Commonwealth; at once a State and a Church 
 in itself, with the father for magistrate and minister of 
 God, the children and servants for subjects and dis- 
 ciples. And to the maintaining and upbuilding of the 
 Family, and the furtherance of it in fulfilment of these 
 functions, many sections of the early legislation of New 
 England, as well as the force of public opinion, and the 
 offices of the Church, were carefully directed. Both 
 the scope and the limits of parental authority were pa- 
 tiently defined ; and while an intelligent precaution was 
 taken to withhold from a Father who might prove tyr- 
 annous, an undue authority over his dependents — such 
 as might be found prejudicial to their life, or the free 
 and various development of their powers, — on the other 
 hand his rightful prerogatives were outlined, with as 
 shrewd a precision, and he was distinctly protected by 
 the law in the exercise of these. Being made respon- 
 sible for the training of his household, he was gifted 
 with powers to meet the responsibility; and within his 
 own house his supremacy was fixed. 
 
 Thus the earliest aim of the Puritan legislation was 
 to make the Family the real seminary and seed-field, 
 out of which should arise the enlarging Common- 
 wealth; in which the relative subordinations and lead- 
 erships, the obligations and the offices of the State, 
 should be imaged, and from which should proceed the 
 practised minds, and the disciplined wills, to direct and 
 administer public affairs. It made each household an 
 independent community; an actual, central, self-deter- 
 mined Commonwealth; where the proper authority of 
 law should be recognized; where men should learn to 
 command in after life, by having been taught to obey 
 in their youth ; and where, in a real though a miniature 
 development, all the functions of the State should be 
 prophesied and fulfilled. The family-affection here in- 
 
344 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ciilcated, was to be the germ of patriotism afterward; 
 the fealty to a Father, to expand and ascend into loy- 
 alty to the State; and the habit of command, in the 
 Parent himself, to prepare him to fill, and worthily to 
 discharge, high public trusts. And no other part of the 
 Puritan plan was really so essential to the integrity 
 and well-working of their whole scheme of government 
 as this, their assiduous protection of the Family. 
 
 The moment we pass the boundaries of this insti- 
 tute, complete in itself, and in place primordial, we 
 come to that principle of alliance and federation which 
 was equally familiar to the Puritan communities, and 
 which gave them coherence, with capacity for expan- 
 sion. All the households residing within certain fixed 
 limits composed the Town; and the heads of these 
 households, with those who had been trained to a suit- 
 able age under their own supervision and government, 
 or who had resided long enough among them to become 
 imbued with their principles and spirit, were the recog- 
 nized electors and governors of that Town; by whose 
 free choice its operations were directed, and from whose 
 intelligent and uncontrolled suffrages each election pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 If the Family approximated therefore a limited mon- 
 archy in its constitution — the authority of the parent, 
 while presumed to be limited by wisdom and by love, 
 and while positively limited by encompassing statutes, 
 being still asserted as judicial and supreme — the Town, 
 on the other hand, approximated in its constitution and 
 government a perfect democracy; the right of voting 
 being limited, indeed, to those who were presumed to 
 be qualified for it — in some instances, as I said, to 
 those who were church-members, in others to those 
 elected Freemen — but being entire and permanent 
 among these, inalienable save by removal or crime, and 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 345 
 
 the vote of each man being equal in the count to that 
 of his older or wealthier neighbor. Yet the same ideas 
 of the rightful authority and preeminence of the gover- 
 nors, which were implanted and carefully nourished 
 in the Family institute, were extended in spirit to the 
 officers of the Town; and when these had once been 
 fairly elected, they claimed and received a kind of re- 
 spect which, now, in these days of official delinquency 
 and of popular suspiciousness, would seem grotesque. 
 They exercised, indeed, a positive power, as guardians 
 of the peace and the weal of the public, which we 
 should scarcely intrust to any. 
 
 The many Towns, confederated again, and all repre- 
 sented in the general councils, made up the State. 
 They legitimated its government, appointed its officers, 
 and framed its legislation; and they were competent 
 to revise and change the very organic law that shaped 
 it. The State did not ordain the Towns, and intrust 
 to them their powers and prerogatives ; but the Towns, 
 with these inherent and primitive, sprang up themselves 
 around each church, and made the general Government 
 for their minister. In Plymouth, therefore, for nearly 
 twenty years, the whole body of male inhabitants, of 
 lawful age, composed the Legislature. They decided 
 executive and judicial questions, also, as convened for 
 that purpose. They were, in fact and in law, the Gov- 
 ernment; with nothing above them, nearer than the 
 stars! And when afterward, through their increase, 
 this came to be impossible, representatives of the Towns 
 succeeded to their power. 
 
 Again the principle of alliance and federation, — 
 which naturally extended in its further development 
 from one Colony to another, which made in 1643 the 
 "United Colonies of New England" to be in some re- 
 spects as one, and which thus became the germ of our 
 
346 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 whole existing confederate system, — again this prin- 
 ciple was vigorously applied, linking Towns with one 
 another in a great body composite, protecting each, 
 and renewing its force, by allying it with the rest, and 
 making of the separated arrows one sheaf. And again 
 the principle of the just subordination and subjection 
 of the governed, and of the rightful authority of the 
 governors, which had been recognized and incorporate 
 in the Family, and thence in the Town, was established 
 and maintained in application to the State; and that 
 federation of co-operating communities, while annually 
 revising and reconstituting its government, and insist- 
 ing, against all sermons and treatises, on rotation in 
 office, attributed to its officers, and readily secured for 
 them, a degree of intelligent and honorable respect 
 which it now would seem absurd to attempt; which 
 looks, indeed, almost inexplicable as we trace it in 
 history. 
 
 While essentially Republican, then, as well as free 
 and autonomic, the plan of the earlier Puritan common- 
 wealths was not, in the popular sense. Democratic. It 
 had its root always, and substantially its prototype, in 
 the Family constitution. It contemplated, throughout, 
 an internal organization thorough and close-wrought, 
 involving a fixed subordination of parts. It did not 
 design to make all men voters, irrespective of character, 
 but only those who were qualified to vote; and though 
 it fixedly vested in these the ultimate supremacy, it 
 still encouraged in no degree their hasty, unorganized, 
 or irregular action. Its governors were real Gover- 
 nors, and not merely representatives of a popular ca- 
 price. Its legislators and magistrates, though deriving 
 their authority in each case from the people, were yet 
 accepted as in a high sense the Fathers of the State, 
 and were honored accordingly. And never, I think, in 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 347 
 
 any Monarchy, or any Republic, has the internal struc- 
 ture of the government been closer, more carefully 
 compacted, more firmly and finely knit together, than 
 in those new States, where the people ruled all, where 
 the judges themselves were elected every year, and 
 where it was held to be a species of treason to appeal 
 from the Commonwealth unto the Crown. 
 
 And all this was for a definite purpose. There was 
 nothing accidental or fortuitous in it. It had its foun- 
 dation, not in tradition. They were severed from that ! 
 Those ears that had heard the persecuting shears snap- 
 ping around them, were closed thenceforth to the voices 
 of tradition ! The sea, too, had set its billowy thunder 
 between them and the Past. Their frame of the gov- 
 ernment had its spring in their own intelligent judg- 
 ment. The Past did not impose it; but the Future 
 inspired it. It was carefully planned, and firmly or- 
 dained, to secure the prevalence throughout their com- 
 munities of that high and positive spiritual life of which 
 I have spoken, as the power to which the Puritans 
 looked for all their success and all their advance. To 
 work this into the minds of the members, first of the 
 Family, then of the Town, and finally of the State, to 
 make it everywhere efifective and paramount, and se- 
 cure its propagation through subsequent years, — to this 
 their whole apparatus of government was anxiously 
 adjusted. 
 
 They did not desire to expand the Commonwealth 
 over very large territory. They preferred to have it 
 confined to small boundaries, and to have each separate 
 shoot that went out from it strike down its own root, 
 and grow up for itself. They did not encourage, but 
 distinctly discouraged, a promiscuous immigration, 
 even of Englishmen, to the shores they were peopling. 
 They were even somewhat fearful of the influences of 
 
348 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 commerce. And while their hardy sailors went out, 
 from a very early period, to engage in the fisheries, and 
 to prosecute a traffic both coastwise and transmarine, 
 and while that manly art of ship-building, which now 
 makes all the seaboard ring, was early introduced, they 
 preferred, as far as possible, to retain both their men 
 and their products at home, and to build up whatever 
 of mechanisms they needed for the comfort of life, 
 from their own resources, rather than to import these 
 from abroad. Linen, woollen, iron implements, gun- 
 powder, they tried to make them all at home, and to 
 have no occasion to go over sea for them. And they 
 would not allow to the Parliament of their friends any 
 more authority over their affairs, than they had allowed 
 to Charles First, and to Laud. 
 
 It was all because they sought in these methods to 
 make the peculiar spiritual force in which they trusted, 
 of individual conscientiousness, religious conviction, 
 and a voluntary deference to public justice, paramount 
 and prevalent throughout the State ; and to realize that 
 slow but shapely growth which should follow this, and 
 spring from its life. Any rapid enlargement of re- 
 sources, or of territory, which should be attended by 
 the hazard of this, they dreaded as a curse, and persis- 
 tently warded off. They wanted their small, but well 
 organized States to be strong in the inward agreement 
 of their members, their common intelligence, their mu- 
 tual fealty, their ethical fidelity, and their religious con- 
 secration; and then to grow from poverty to wealth, 
 from fewness of numbers to a large population, from 
 their early deficiency in the means of enjoyment, and 
 of social cultivation, to affluence in all these — not by 
 gathering them from abroad, so much as by creating 
 them on their own soil, from their own energetic and 
 fruitful life. They defined their Towns, and made 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 349 
 
 them compact, forbidding- the erection of any dwelUng- 
 house in them at a distance of more than half a mile 
 from the meeting-house. They granted their lands to 
 companies, generally, not to persons, that a number of 
 families might settle together, and that public opinion 
 might at once be formed and influential among them. 
 
 A population interiorly compacted and harmonized 
 by the moral agreement and concord of its members, 
 and the prevalence among all of those governing prin- 
 ciples which the Bible had revealed, and the Fathers 
 had accepted ; a population spreading out by degrees to 
 new districts, but subduing, cultivating, transforming, 
 as it went, carrying schools with it, churches, colleges, 
 and all the structures of social life ; breaking off at the 
 frontier, the moment it touched that, to a separate life, 
 and starting up there into new communities, with simi- 
 lar institutions, and the same public sentiment ; — a pop- 
 ulation which, to its furthest limits, up among the 
 mountains where the bridle-path followed the trail of 
 the Indian, down upon the sea-coast where the sail was 
 just glancing above the canoe, should still in all parts 
 be pervaded and governed, and vitally integrated, by 
 the spirit first brought here in the casket of the May- 
 flower, and afterward re-enforced from the Jewel, the 
 Ambrose, and the Lady Arbella; — this was what the 
 Puritans aimed at ! They made no plan, and they had 
 no wish, for a mere aggregation of numbers and of 
 treasures, aside from this ; and they built all their hopes 
 of realizing the Ideal which they had brought hither, 
 on their probable success in accomplishing this. 
 
 From such a real and vital formation, closely organ- 
 ized around the Family centre, a slow, but certain and 
 normal growth was sure to come ; and that they sought. 
 It was GROWTH they were after, and not mere increase ; 
 growth from a root, in obedience to an inward organ- 
 
350 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 izing law, and not mere outward adventitious addi- 
 tions. The State was a body, not a building, in their 
 plan; and they wished it compacted by a permeating 
 life, not simply set together, mortised and clamped. 
 
 And however we may dissent from their methods, 
 and think we discern an unwisdom in them which we 
 have outgrown, we cannot but perceive the real unity 
 of their plan, and render the tribute of our respect to 
 what was at once so novel and complete. They made 
 an aristocracy; but it was one of character, never of 
 property, in which the servant, if a freeman of the 
 Church, might be a legislator, while the wealthiest 
 master, if irreligious, was a subject. They held their 
 town-meetings in the church, of set purpose; because 
 the affairs to be there transacted should properly be 
 governed by the spirit of religion. They opened their 
 legislative sessions with a sermon, on the same vital 
 plan; and enjoined it on the magistrates to recognize 
 and enforce the discipline of the Church. They strove 
 systematically to incorporate into law? that vision of 
 Milton — the State as one great Christian Man, with 
 sinews strung, and mighty members, but with religious 
 convictions for the breath of its frame! And what 
 they did is approved by the issue. They said them- 
 selves, when Cromwell invited them to emigrate to 
 Ireland, "Our government is the wisest and the hap- 
 piest this day, on the face of the earth!" And the 
 country has felt the pressure of their influence, and 
 must feel it more, even unto the end, in great part be- 
 cause they organized so carefully, while believing so 
 firmly; and though trusting in the spirit of personal 
 faith as their ultimate life, they gave this a mechanism, 
 through which to work, most close and compact. Here 
 they showed themselves men of administrative skill, 
 and not visionary theorists. And if human nature was 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 351 
 
 too stiff for them at last, and the Millennium too dis- 
 tant to allow their success, they yet with rarest force 
 and zeal made their effort to open to the province which 
 they peopled the nobler Era ! 
 
 But still a Third principle in the Puritan scheme con- 
 cerning National Growth, was this : that while proceed- 
 ing from a central and positive spiritual life, and work- 
 ing out through a compact organization, into a gradual 
 shapely increase, it should be attended with noble 
 Fruits ; it should be, indeed, in order to such Fruits, 
 of high and pure character, and beneficent action ; and, 
 unless the State gained these as its result, it had failed 
 to vindicate its right to be, it had failed to fulfil its 
 office in the world. 
 
 No man can read the earlier records of the history of 
 New England, without seeing this aim shining brightly 
 above them, or without being impressed by its purity 
 and its dignity. 
 
 Even in Holland the Pilgrims had been moved by 
 "an inward zeal of advancing the Gospel in the remote 
 parts of the New World;" "y^a," they added, with a 
 lofty humility which challenges our reverence, "though 
 we should be but as stepping-stones unto others, for 
 performing so great a work." And in the compact 
 signed in the Mayflower, it was declared that they 
 had undertaken the voyage "for the glory of God, and 
 the advancement of the Christian faith," as well as "for 
 the honor of king and country." — The same was true 
 of the immigrants to the Bay. "For that the propagat- 
 ing of the Gospel," said the company in their first letter 
 of instructions to Endicott and his council, "for that 
 the propagating of the Gospel is the thing we do pro- 
 fess above all to be our aim in settling this plantation, 
 we have been careful to make plentiful provision of 
 godly ministers, by whose faithful preaching, godly 
 
352 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 conversation, and exemplary life, we trust not only 
 those of our own nation will be built up in the know- 
 ledge of God, but also the Indians may, in God's ap- 
 pointed time, be reduced to the obedience of the Gospel 
 of Christ." And in the Charter itself it is averred, that 
 "to win and invite the natives of the country to the 
 knowledge and obedience of the only true God and 
 Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith, in our 
 royal intention, and the adventurers' free profession, is 
 the principal end of this plantation." 
 
 In the oath of the Governor it was therefore sol- 
 emnly incorporated : "and, likewise, you shall do your 
 best endeavors to draw on the natives of this country, 
 called New England, to the knowledge of the true God ; 
 and to conserve the planters, and others coming hither, 
 in the same knowledge and fear of God." On the ear- 
 liest seal of the Massachusetts Colony, over the figure 
 of the Indian that still stands there, instead of the pres- 
 ent Latin legend quoted fitly from Algernon Sidney, 
 was blazoned that stirring Macedonian cry which Paul 
 had heard amid the ruins of Troy, on the night that 
 followed that memorable day when his eye first caught 
 the summits of Europe, "Come over and help us !" In 
 1646, immediately on the close of the Pequot war, the 
 General Court of Massachusetts passed their formal act 
 to encourage the carrying of the Gospel to the Indians, 
 and recommended it earnestly to the elders of the 
 churches to consider how this might best be done. And 
 in 1663, within little more than twenty years after the 
 first printing press, given from Holland, had been set 
 up at Cambridge, the Bible was printed there, in the Al- 
 gonquin tongue, the current dialect of the New Eng- 
 land tribes. 
 
 To establish the Gospel, and spread it broadcast, in 
 the new and untracked wildernesses before them, to con- 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 353 
 
 vert the savages to the knowledge of the truth, and to 
 open above their darkened souls the gates of grace, was 
 thus the cardinal aim of the Colony, They sought in 
 this way, so difficult and obscure, yet morally so grand, 
 to add to man's good, and to advance God's honor. 
 
 Yet, not only this, but also to establish great Chris- 
 tian Commonwealths, full, to the end, of a purifying 
 influence, was comprised in their plan. Winthrop had 
 intimated this, in those "General Conclusions" attrib- 
 uted to him, wherein he said that "to raise a bulwark 
 against the kingdom of anti-Christ," and "to accom- 
 plish an enterprise whose main end should be not car- 
 nal, but religious," was the purpose of the colonists. 
 Higginson, when he was leaving England, after that 
 fervent and majestic Farewell which can never be for- 
 gotten, "to the Church of God in England, and all 
 dear Christian friends there," said, as the shores faded 
 out from his sight, "we go to practise the positive part 
 of Church reformation, and to propagate the Gospel in 
 America." When afterward he preached his last mem- 
 orable sermon, on the arrival of many gentlemen 
 from England, as he was himself just preparing to de- 
 part from those then recent settlements to the City 
 above, his text was, "What went ye out into the wilder- 
 ness to see?" And his answer was, in substance, to 
 establish a pure and religious Commonwealth, within 
 which the Gospel should reign supreme, and from 
 which it should be widely dispersed. "In the very hour 
 of death," says Bancroft, "the future prosperity of 
 New England, and the coming glories of its many 
 churches, floated in cheering visions before his eyes." 
 
 For this end Harvard College was planned and 
 founded, within the first struggling decennary of the 
 colony, and out of the midst of its uttermost poverty; 
 the very ferry being taxed to enable its teachers to 
 
354 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 guide young minds on their search through the Past, 
 or their perilous flights beyond Sirius and Aldebaran. 
 For this it was enjoined that each town of fifty fami- 
 lies must support a free school; and each town of a 
 hundred families a grammar school, in which youth 
 might be trained for the University. And for this, 
 everywhere, the Church was made prominent as the 
 real centre, the organizing power, in each community ; 
 and the ministers were consulted in all plans of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 John Cotton had said, before leaving England, in 
 that noble Church of St. Botolph in Boston where he 
 ministered, whose size and beauty rival those of cathe- 
 drals, and whose tower is seen forty miles out at sea, 
 that his aim in his ministry there had been "to pro- 
 mote a threefold concord among his people; between 
 God and their consciences, between true-hearted loy- 
 alty and Christian liberty, between the fear of God and 
 the love of their neighbors." This was the aim which 
 he brought with him, in that long voyage where "three 
 sermons a day beguiled the weariness of the passen- 
 gers," when he came to the newer and less promising 
 Boston, which, as Mather says, "upon some accounts 
 of growth soon came to exceed Old Boston in every 
 thing that makes a town considerable." This was the 
 aim of those with whom, and upon whom, he acted; 
 and this at once defines and exalts their purpose in 
 coming. "Colonies are the foundations of Great 
 Commonwealths," said the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts in their answer to Parliament, in 1646. And 
 to make those coming Commonwealths pure and Chris- 
 tian, prosperous and powerful for a noble beneficence, 
 was the constant hope of those who were planting them. 
 They felt themselves, as Winthrop the younger said 
 in England, "indented to God's glory, in so special a 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 355 
 
 service." And when the confederacy of the Five coop- 
 erating Colonies was formed, its object still was, not 
 the mere political protection of its members, but the 
 "sustentation of the truth, and the liberties of the 
 Gospel." 
 
 The Pilgrims would have held that State most im- 
 perfect which contented itself, and complacently rested, 
 in its own advancement and special prosperities, with- 
 out seeking to benefit others around it. They esteemed 
 that progress to be radically wanting in greatness and 
 value, which was a mere progress in power and wealth, 
 and in physical success ; which gained no results of 
 great character and culture, and blossomed out to no 
 wealthy fruits of enlarged Christian knowledge. The 
 moral, to them, was superior to the physical; the at- 
 tainments of Christian wisdom and piety, above accu- 
 mulations of worldly resources ; the alliance of the soul 
 with God, through faith, above the conquest and mas- 
 tery of Nature. And to these they held the State to be 
 tributary, as they held all things else that existed on 
 the earth; the very earth itself, and its laws. 
 
 They themselves were ordained to this, by a personal 
 baptism of the Spirit of God. Their communities 
 were ordained to it, by that Providence of God which 
 had marshalled them hither, and had opened before 
 them the paths of the wilderness. They anticipated, 
 therefore, and carefully arranged for this from the 
 outset: that the noble character, which at first was 
 brought hither by Endicott, Winthrop, Saltonstall, 
 Johnson, or earlier still, by Carver, Bradford, Brew- 
 ster, and their fellows, should be preserved, exalted, re- 
 enforced, and more widely distributed, in generations 
 to come; that the lights of learning, rekindled here, 
 should burn with only a brighter flame than they ever 
 had shown on the shores of the Old World; that the 
 
356 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 institutes of religion should have a solid and enduring 
 foundation in the States they erected; and that great, 
 and wise, and wide-reaching efforts, for man's good 
 and God's glory, should be the ultimate, the ever-re- 
 peated product and fruit, of all their large and arduous 
 enterprise! Not a mere police establishment was the 
 State on their theory; accomplishing its office in pro- 
 tecting its subjects, and punishing criminals. It was 
 to them a place and a power of the noblest education; 
 a teeming nursery of all good influence and heavenly 
 growths, from which Letters, Charities, and Salvation 
 should proceed, and in which they should perpetually 
 be nourished. Philanthropic endeavors, and mission- 
 ary enterprises, were to be its results ; the proofs of its 
 prosperity; the real and imperishable rewards of its 
 founders. It existed, in order that characters might be 
 formed, commanding, large, and full of light, whose 
 record should make all history brighter, whose influ- 
 ence should link the earth with the skies. And they 
 expected Millennium itself, with its long eras of peace 
 and of purity, of tranquil delight and illuminated wis- 
 dom, to spring, as the last and crowning fruitage, from 
 the States they were founding, and from others like 
 them. 
 
 It was this which inspired them to come hither as 
 they did, and not the mere pressure of strictness at 
 home which drove most of them hither. They came as 
 drawn, not driven out ; attracted by a purpose, not ex- 
 iled by an edict; to make the world better, through the 
 States they were to found, and not merely to , es- 
 cape the supervision of constables. They sacrificed 
 much, and they knew all they sacrificed. But they 
 poured it all as precious ointment on the feet of this 
 enterprise, which to them was Divine! They left the 
 fairest parts of England — old homes to which their 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 357 
 
 hearts were rooted; old ways in which their infancy 
 had tottered ; the streams on whose banks they had won 
 their brides; the ancient churches, whose walls were 
 still brightened with the scutcheons of their ancestors, 
 and at whose altars they had worshipped themselves, 
 or had joyfully ministered; they left the shadows of 
 Universities that had trained them, and all the storied 
 and venerated scenes which grappled their hearts with 
 hooks of steel; as Hubbard said of the Lady Arbella, 
 the daughter of the noble house of Lincoln, they "came 
 from a paradise of plenty and peace, to a wilderness of 
 wants," where often, as with her, their very life was 
 shattered in the transfer — ^because they sought and ex- 
 pected to rear here not only States pervaded by one 
 life, compacted thoroughly, and steadily increasing, but 
 States whose fruit should reward all their effort; 
 whose results, of enlightenment, and of human salva- 
 tion, running on through the centuries, should culmi- 
 nate at last in the glories of that Day when the Hea- 
 vens and the Earth shall be one in their life! And 
 except for this we had no New England, and no re- 
 curring "Forefathers' Day" to rain on us its great 
 inspirations ! 
 
 And in this, assuredly, the Puritans were wise, large- 
 minded, large-hearted, philosophic, philanthropic, we 
 might say poetic ! And History, however she dissents 
 from their methods, must reverence their aim ! A 
 State is for Fruit, and not for its own mere mainte- 
 nance and growth. Whensoever, and so far as, any 
 State upon earth has contributed to this, has advanced 
 and upbuilded the moral life of mankind, its influence 
 and renown become thereby imperishable. We value 
 the Roman Empire to-day, not for the palaces that 
 shone on the Palatine, or the arches that spanned the 
 great current of the triumph as it swept along the Sa- 
 
358 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 cred Way; not because its helmets flashed over the 
 earth, and fronted on one hand the auroral dawn of 
 Indian plains, while gleaming on the other through the 
 night of the Hebrides; but because it has given us 
 something of poetry, much of eloquence, because it 
 created the Civil Law for us, that growth of centuries, 
 which still has a recognized power in our courts, and 
 because a glorious patriotism was born in it which yet 
 lifts its standards over the centuries. We value the 
 brilliant States of Greece, because of their splendid 
 contributions to letters, to the art of the world, and its 
 ideas of government; because Liberty, thence flying 
 like a shining Apollo, has borne its light to Western 
 climes; and because the great fathers and exemplars 
 of Greece still instruct and inspire us by their primitive 
 heroism. We value the English growth and history, 
 because our world has inherited from it not Shakspeare 
 only. Bacon, Milton, but the Common Law, Constitu- 
 tional Liberty, Protestant Christianity, and the English 
 Bible; because there streams on us an influence from 
 cloister and college, from pulpit and parliament, from 
 the scaffolds that have risen there, and the parish 
 churches that trained men for them ; from all the great 
 centuries that have marched over England, with their 
 industries and struggles, their glorious resistances, 
 their sacraments of martyrdom, and their triumphs of 
 Right! Till the globe is dissolved, the energy thence 
 diffused shall never die out of the history of mankind ; 
 and, therefore, until the globe is dissolved, the name 
 of England shall be one of its watchwords ! 
 
 And we must agree that the Puritans were right, 
 wise, noble, in seeking to make the States they formed 
 only means of results, which, though invisible, should 
 be immortal ; which, while as spiritual as light and air, 
 should be like these renewing powers in the history of 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 359 
 
 the World ! It would not have been according to their 
 nature, or according to God's great training of them, 
 that they should have aimed at less than this ; and the 
 fact that they sought this, commands our respect, and 
 justifies our reverence! It shows them, again, not me- 
 chanics, but architects, in the building of States; not 
 mere fanatical adventurers and religionists, frightened 
 fugitives flying from despotism, or ascetic devotees of 
 a rigorous doctrine, but men of purpose, faith, and 
 forecast; the height of whose minds is proved and 
 measured by the height of their aims; the width, and 
 length, and unity of whose plans demonstrate their 
 greatness. 
 
 Not artisans only, but artists they were ; of a certain 
 colossal Cyclopean order, yet with the rarest dreams of 
 beauty ! They thought little of the colors that blushed 
 upon the canvas ; but the mountains and the sea were the 
 frame of that picture which they designed to brighten 
 with towns, and to fill with all forms of beneficent 
 industry. They sang in their churches without aid 
 of instruments, in stanzas not smooth, and tones not 
 tuneful ; but they meant so to mingle the elements 
 which they brought here, and those they invited, that 
 from them should flow, in harmonious procession, the 
 cadence of a History chiming on through the centuries, 
 full of faith and of praise ! They had little regard for 
 the products of the chisel, that makes the marble start 
 to action, and almost throb with the quivers of life. 
 But they meant to carve those rugged heights which 
 gloomed around them, to the pedestal of a Form such 
 as John had seen, in his older Patmos, when the Hea- 
 vens unfurled their splendors to him! And they who 
 deride them, or they who neglect them, may be chal- 
 lenged to show a more majestic ideal ! God's own in- 
 spirations are revealed in its grandeur! 
 
36o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 My Friends, it is an honor to have sprung from 
 these men! It is a great office to do what we may to 
 accomphsh their design! We assemble amid scenes, 
 as I said at the outset, which widely contrast those they 
 confronted in establishing their States. Those narrow 
 and crooked paths through Boston, which certainly 
 nothing but a marvellous enthusiasm could have 
 prompted Johnson to call "comely streets," as matched 
 against this resounding Broadway, with the splendors 
 that deck it, the hurry and the brightness of traffic and 
 of fashion that constantly throng it; that shadow of 
 the tree under which they assembled, to hear the words 
 of Preacher or Governor, as set against this elaborate 
 edifice,^ with its gateways and galleries, its granite 
 walls and springing windows, its fair proportions 
 crusted with ornament; these tell the story, without 
 other help, of our physical advance ! These show what 
 equipments of wealth we have gathered, in two cen- 
 turies and a quarter; and these may properly so far 
 impress us as to make us grateful to God for His kind- 
 ness, and hopeful for that Future of which such are 
 the means ! 
 
 But let not our wealth, as contrasting their poverty, 
 ever hide from us the real eminence in character of our 
 Fathers, or diminish our sense of the value and the 
 grandeur of the plans they brought hither. Let us rec- 
 ognize the fact, for it certainly is one, that the nature 
 of those plans is not comprehended, or if comprehended 
 is departed from constantly, in our social life and our 
 civil history ; and that, while the principles which were 
 sacred to them have been the secret of our prosperity, 
 the invisible workmen that have builded it all, those 
 others, which now obtain among us, if left unchecked, 
 will work opposite effects for those who come after. 
 
 ^ The oration was delivered in the Church of the Messiah. 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 361 
 
 I certainly am no devotee of the Past. I am not 
 afraid of the Present and its tendencies, nor timid for 
 the Future. I believe that the soil which was conse- 
 crated to God by that first stormy Sabbath, kept by the 
 Pilgrims on a desolate island while not far off the May- 
 flower hovered, shall remain an asylum for His truth 
 and for Freedom, till the sun has ceased to greet the 
 pines, and the surge has failed to heave at Plymouth. 
 Those settlements which so manifestly were ordered of 
 God, and ordered for some great ultimate purpose, did 
 not come out to their final fruitage at Lexington and at 
 Concord, or when the sheeted storm of fire swept down 
 its rain and iron hail along the sides of Bunker's Hill. 
 Our national independence was not their whole prod- 
 uct; nor the subsequent swift and vast expansion of 
 population and industry over the even then unex- 
 plored West, making the valleys beauteous with homes, 
 making the mountains laugh with harvests. The 
 influence of that early religious colonization is still 
 undoubtedly to travel on, over the mountains and into 
 the Future; and to bring forth its fruits in a coming 
 civilization, when we, and all these homes of ours, are 
 quite forgot. The spirit and the power of the Fathers 
 shall not fail from the future development and advance 
 of our country, till their vision is fulfilled, and the East 
 and the West, clasping hands over a continent, stand 
 up at last, mighty and pure, to regenerate the World ! 
 On the pillars of this hope it is ours to take hold, to 
 draw from it strength. In the light of this magnificent 
 Future it is ours to walk, with joyful steps, and an 
 ever-ascending and triumphing faith ! 
 
 But yet, while I feel this, I cannot but see that at 
 every point which I have defined as primitive and car- 
 dinal in the plan of our Fathers, we have departed from 
 the model they proposed ; and not in the way of devel- 
 
362 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 opment and enlargement, but of definite deviation, if 
 not of positive contradiction and reversal. 
 
 Where they put all reliance on ideas, and were not 
 careful of numbers or of means so long as the spiritual 
 force and life which had built up the State continued 
 unbroken, we base our confidence for the strength, the 
 prosperity and the progress of our country, on the vast 
 and increasing masses of population ; on the wealth that 
 flows in on us in a constant abundance ; on the mecha- 
 nisms that make all commodities cheap, and all luxuries 
 familiar; on the commerce that connects us with every 
 nation whose realm is productive, and the hem of 
 whose borders sweeps outward to the sea. Religion 
 with us, especially in the cities, instead of being su- 
 preme as with them, the law of our growth, and the 
 life of our success, is rather an ornament of civiliza- 
 tion ; a perquisite of the rich ; a social accomplishment ; 
 almost one of the fine arts ; a pleasant accompaniment 
 to eloquence and to music, but utterly out of place when 
 attempting to inspire, to restrain or direct men. Its 
 great Institutions turn pale, and are dumb, before the 
 mandates of Power ! Like the sculptures on an archi- 
 trave, they are prominent in place, not an element of 
 strength. Public justice now wants the sacredness it 
 had in the Puritan commonwealths ; is a service of in- 
 terest, whose legitimacy is doubted, not an austere 
 and solemn sacrament of Right. And that so high and 
 glorious doctrine of Personal Liberty which they 
 brought hither, and which, if they did not apply it to 
 all men, they applied to themselves with a constancy 
 and a vividness that made fire-balls but its exponents, — 
 how far it has dropped out from the practice of our 
 government, and almost from the plan of its adminis- 
 tration, is indicated on our coins, is recorded in the 
 current histories of the day, is disastrously proclaimed 
 in the novel and partisan decisions of courts. 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 363 
 
 Instead of sternly curbing luxury, we, by every 
 means possible, invite and assist it. Instead of dis- 
 couraging a promiscuous immigration, we make the 
 land echo with a polyglot of tongues, and drain every 
 monarchy to replenish our West. Instead of small 
 States, and those thoroughly organized, we seek to 
 make each successive one larger; to spread it to ten 
 times, twenty times, forty times, the size of those first 
 formed ; and then we measure its importance and great- 
 ness by its square leagues of soil, its navigable rivers, 
 the mines that are in it, and the frontier wildernesses 
 that fringe its circumference, not by the might of MEN 
 in its homes. We disregard families, we override 
 towns, even, in constituting these States ; accepting no 
 divisions more definite than of counties, and basing the 
 right of suffrage solely on the two conditions of age 
 and color, without reference to character or to previous 
 training. We seek to expand artificially, swiftly, to a 
 visible greatness, where the Puritans planned to or- 
 ganize, and to educate, and to grow up by small and 
 gradual increments. We aggregate men from all 
 climes and tongues, and call that a nation which is 
 only a casual human sand-bar, accidentally heaped to- 
 gether, from different soils, by meeting currents, while 
 they sought to make a nation grow up, homogeneous 
 and compact, of shapely development, rooted in the soil, 
 springing like the oak, integrating solidly each part 
 with the rest before seeking others, and swelling each 
 year with an annulus of development. 
 
 Instead of proposing to ourselves, as a people, any 
 great, enduring and noble fruit, of beneficent action, 
 of illustrious character, of moral impression on the 
 world we are part of, as the product of our national 
 expansion and power, we desire and consult for the 
 mere material increase of the State, and only mean to 
 lead the nations in civic prosperity and in physical en- 
 
364 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 terprise; to make them wonder at our affluence, not 
 our charity; to out-race and out-sail them, not to lead 
 them on our march to a difficult philanthropy. That 
 our mines are the richest, our cataracts the largest, our 
 prairies the widest, our lakes the longest, our clippers 
 the fleetest, our steamers the most sumptuous, our gov- 
 ernment the most free, flexible, and wealthy, our peo- 
 ple the most enterprising, shrewd, and successful, — 
 this is the natural boast of Americans, with which to- 
 day they perambulate Europe, and astonish the Turk! 
 And the spiritual development and formation of char- 
 acter, like Washington's or John Jay's, we hardly have 
 seen any tendencies to this since the epoch of the Revo- 
 lution. The drift has been strong the other way; turn- 
 ing statesmen into demagogues, rather than educating 
 sciolists to be statesmen. The undertaking or the fos- 
 tering of great missionary enterprises, to enlighten and 
 elevate a barbarous people, no dreamer would venture 
 to suggest that to Congress. The founding and the 
 nurturing of large institutions, for the blessing and 
 helping of those who come after, has almost passed 
 from the plans of our States. It is left, nearly every- 
 where, to mere private munificence; and the only Na- 
 tional Institute we have, for preserving, advancing, 
 and distributing knowledge, was the gift to us of a 
 foreigner, who never, I think, stepped foot on our 
 shores. 
 
 In a word, the spiritual is not supreme with us ; the 
 material is. Engineering is to us what interpreting 
 the Scriptures was to the Fathers. Where they sent 
 missionaries, we send the agents of secular trade, or 
 stealthily let loose piratical filibusters. Where they in- 
 trenched the culture of the people behind their highest 
 and firmest muniments, we dedicate government to the 
 guardianship of property, and leave all else to take 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 365 
 
 care of itself. And in place of that all-pervading life, 
 of religious conviction and personal consecration, 
 which the Fathers sought to secure and perpetuate 
 through a careful organization, with the Family at its 
 centre, we trust in chariots that roll over the land at 
 thirty miles to the hour, and in horses that make the 
 very deep but a roadway ! 
 
 Now it is not for us with prostrate souls to bewail 
 these tendencies, as if there were nothing but unmin- 
 gled harm in them; as if we could do nothing but look 
 backward with praises, and glorify the Past, while 
 lamenting the Present ! The office of garnishing sepul- 
 chres is not ours, nor that of framing commemorative 
 odes. It is ours rather to accept the present stage as 
 one preordained stage in our national development; to 
 be glad of and to welcome all the agencies which it 
 offers us — of a printing-press everywhere, and a com- 
 merce every whither; of steam beating through the 
 fastnesses of the hills, and crossing the craggiest 
 chasms at a leap; of lightning flying on through the 
 interweaved wires, and flashing at once over every city 
 a common intelligence, — it is ours to accept these, and 
 to use them for good, by bringing in more of the Puri- 
 tan life, and trying to realize with new fidelity the 
 Puritan scheme in the Nation around us. We may do 
 this without any thing of narrowness in our sympa- 
 thies ; without any thing of inordinate deference to our 
 ancestry. 
 
 Each national stock that came hither at first, brought 
 something real, and something important, to the whole 
 great product. We claim in this assembly no solitary 
 indebtedness to the Fathers of New England. The 
 Hollanders who settled at this mouth of the Hudson, 
 the Cavaliers of Virginia, the Catholics of Maryland, 
 the Huguenots of the Carolinas, the Friends of Penn- 
 
366 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 sylvania, each had their special wealth to add to that 
 unparalleled christening-gift, of genius, will, and emi- 
 nent character, with which the new-born Empire here 
 first started from the ocean that was to it as a font! 
 We honor them all for their worth and their service. 
 But the Puritans added theirs, as well as the others; 
 and we, as by nature representatives of them, are to 
 take heed that what to them was peculiar does not die 
 out of the history of the land. 
 
 They were not, certainly, infallible men. In some 
 gifts of nature, they were doubtless defective; and the 
 circumstances they met here did not all favor them. 
 They had drifted out, over recent seas, to a country 
 estranged from all their associations, which w^as to 
 them as another planet, and which lay before them 
 shrouded in glooms, of forests uncut, of unrelieved 
 winters, and of strange, idolatrous, dusky inhabitants. 
 Something mystical and shadowy, thus entered their 
 character. They seemed to have come near to diabolic 
 activities. Witchcraft was not incredible to them ; and 
 strange, abnormal growths of thought were certainly 
 realized in their new environment. Their spiritual life 
 took a tone from the woods. The wild wrestling of the 
 elements w^oke in some of them a dark sympathy. 
 They thought Wilson a Prophet; Davenport a Moses; 
 Anne Hutchinson to have a devil in her. When a 
 snake came into the seat of the elders, assembled at 
 Cambridge to construct their platform of doctrine and 
 of polity, and Thompson of Braintree, "a man of much 
 faith," put his heel on its head, even Winthrop be- 
 lieved that the Devil had come there, in his primitive 
 form, to vex the Church. And Endicott, the undaunted 
 and indomitable Governor, the very type of the Puri- 
 tan, austere, conscientious, yet cheerful and sociable, 
 who befriended Roger Williams, and cut out the red 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORKS 367 
 
 cross from the banners of England, had yet his pri- 
 vate inconstancies and frailties, and did not live up to 
 his own ideal. 
 
 But still these men had a plan, and developed it. 
 They worked for that plan with a sinewy skill, and a 
 self-consecration, as well as with a positive power of 
 mind, which we never should forget. Behind its pillar 
 of light they trode, through a history rougher than any 
 old wilderness, and more severe than sterile plains. 
 And we anew should pledge ourselves to its substance. 
 New England was dedicated to this office at the out- 
 set, by Him who gave it its place on the Continent — 
 the place of the Pulpit — as well as by those whom He 
 gathered to people it, and to fill it full of a common 
 life : to be a centre and seminary of Ideas ; a place from 
 which invisible forces, to organize and to educate, 
 should go widely forth; and we must be true to this 
 hereditary office. Not holding ourselves limited to 
 the definite forms and symbols of the Fathers — accept- 
 ing them, if we do it, as freely as they did — we yet 
 must make Religion, as they did, supreme and all-pene- 
 trating. Not in all things, perhaps, allowing to the 
 Father such authority as they gave him over his house- 
 hold, we must not forget that the Christian Family is 
 central, primordial, in the Christian Commonwealth; 
 and that when this is dissevered and lost, submerged by 
 hotels, or dissolved into boarding-schools, the end is 
 not far. 
 
 Not altogether reproducing their ancient statutes 
 against luxury in dress and immodest amusements, 
 we yet must train ourselves and others to a Doric 
 simplicity, and not a Corinthian sumptuousness of 
 manners. Not trying to repeat merely their special 
 humanities, we must not shrink from those harder phi- 
 lanthropies which now challenge us. And without re- 
 
368 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 peating in stated terms that noble formula of the Oath 
 of the Freeman in the Massachusetts Colony : "More- 
 over, I do solemnly bind myself, in the sight of God, 
 that when I shall be called to give my voice, touching 
 any such matter of the State wherein Freemen are to 
 deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I shall 
 
 JUDGE IN MINE OWN CONSCIENCE MAY BEST CONDUCE 
 AND TEND TO THE PUBLIC WEAL OF THE BODY, witllOUt 
 
 respect of persons, or favor of any man; so help me 
 God, in the Lord Jesus Christ !" without repeating this 
 in terms, we must incorporate its spirit in our life, and 
 determine that no assault or pressure, of person or of 
 government, of power or of Law, shall ever induce us 
 to violate Conscience 1 
 
 We cannot avoid these duties which are on us. The 
 Past impels ; the Future summons. God makes us me- 
 diators betw^een ages of planting, and ages of fruitage. 
 Deep calleth for us unto deep; those early Colonies, 
 these coming States ! We are heirs to a great and 
 costly legacy, of valor and of virtue. The blood in 
 our veins has flowed to us from men of unusual cour- 
 age, foresight, faith. For us was the wise and heroic 
 life of those from whom the Pilgrims came, watched 
 over by their love, and followed by their prayers. For 
 us was the large moderation of Winthrop, and his 
 sterling sagacity; for us, the rugged energy of Dudley; 
 the piety of Carver, Bradford, Wilson; for us, the beau- 
 tiful grace of Lady Johnson; for us, the spirit that 
 looked Death in the face from the clear, bright brow of 
 Henry Vane ! A cloud of witnesses gathers around us, 
 as we stand here. Those thousand graves, among dis- 
 tant hills, should be each one the spring of an influ- 
 ence shooting up in our hearts with irrepressible en- 
 ergy. And they commit us, each one who has sprung 
 from the breast of New England, to the vital appro- 
 
RICHARD SALTER STORRS 369 
 
 priation, and the wide propagation, of those principles 
 and that spirit which belonged to the Fathers. 
 
 Let us not be unmindful of this ever-present and 
 sublime obligation! Let us brace ourselves to this 
 office, and pledge ourselves here anew to its fulfilment ; 
 to incorporate in our history the pattern which they 
 whose names we bear "saw in the mount!" So shall 
 our work interlock itself with theirs, and carry it for- 
 ward. So shall the fruits which they expected still 
 spring from their labors, in only a greater profusion 
 and extent than they dared anticipate. And so shall 
 their continual prayer be answered in the issue, and 
 God shall save that great Confederacy of interweaved 
 and harmonized States, which shall be then One Com- 
 monwealth ! 
 
 It is now proposed to erect at Plymouth, on the spot 
 of their landing, an obelisk to their fame; of noble 
 height; of just proportions; wrought of the granite; 
 circled and crowned by appropriate figures. In that 
 fit work let us all take part! and out of the midst of 
 our abundance, raise a trophy to them who, with a sac- 
 rifice that we cannot reckon, opened for us the gates of 
 our prosperity. But let us, while doing this, deter- 
 mine also, with the utmost of our force, so far as in 
 us lies by nature, so far as God may give us grace, to 
 make the Land which we inherit, and along whose 
 parallels emigration still flows from their frontier seats, 
 their noblest monument ! A people free, in every part, 
 the aspiring shaft; universities, churches, the sym- 
 bolical statues; enactments of righteousness, the bolts 
 that gird it; the principles of philanthropy, the lines 
 that mould its rising strength ; and a Protestant Chris- 
 tianity, that lifts one hand to praise the Lord, and 
 stretches the other to bless the nations, for its supreme 
 and culminating figure! 
 
ORATION AND RESPONSE 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 1870 
 
 Published by permission of and special arrangement with 
 Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the sole authorized publishers 
 of Emerson's Complete Works. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 (1803-1882.) 
 
 No fitter choice could have been made for the speaker at the two 
 hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims 
 than that of Mr. Emerson, the personification in its greatest 
 strength of the philosophic strain in that composite termed 
 the New England character. 
 
 The address as printed in the newspapers was altogether faulty, 
 and it is owing to the kindness of Dr. Edward W. Emerson 
 that it is here given in close likeness to its original self. There 
 are, however, many places where no comparison with an origi- 
 nal was possible, and especially in the last two pages the errors 
 of the reporter have doubtless done injustice to the writer. 
 
 It was near the close of Mr. Emerson's career as a speaker, this 
 being his last public address in New York. Extracts from his 
 reply to a toast at the dinner of this year were published in the 
 society reports and are here included. 
 
ORATION^ 
 
 I GREET this assembly, met to honor, in these days 
 of the solstice, the remembrance of this day; to 
 compare the past and the present. Under the thoughts 
 of this day we meet as friends, though we were all 
 strangers to each other. The impressive virtue of the 
 founders of the American Republic, and a fortune 
 equal ! — what a destiny ! That little patch of territory 
 by the sea, the sands of Plymouth, proved to be no cas- 
 tle in Spain, but the immense mistake of their charter. 
 The territory conferred on the patentees, — in absolute 
 property with unlimited jurisdiction, the sole powers of 
 legislation, the appointment of all officers, etc., — ex- 
 tended from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of 
 north latitude and in longitude from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific. This immense mistake, incredible had they 
 guessed its meaning, is literally correct to-day; but it 
 has taken two hundred and fifty years to make it so. 
 The pines of Plymouth woods to-day greet the 
 mammoth sequoias of the California Coast Mountains 
 as the mutual wealth and ornament of one vast State. 
 
 ^ This oration was not printed a great part of this matter, but 
 
 at the time, and the report of in a different arrangement, is 
 
 it then published by the Trib- found in the paper entitled 
 
 une was very imperfect. "Boston," in vol. xii (Natural 
 
 Only a part of the original History of the Intellect) of 
 
 manuscript remains ; from this Emerson's Complete Works : 
 
 corrections have been made, but Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Bos- 
 
 the latter two thirds could not ton. 
 be thus corrected. Fortunately, 
 
 373 
 
374 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 One law binds this expansive domain. The growth 
 of nations is not for the most part continuous, but in- 
 termittent by successive leaps; but this nation is ex- 
 ceptional. It has moved as the sea does; here are 
 calms, and there are storms; but the great tidal wave 
 never stopped till to-day it reaches the bounds of the 
 Continent. We have in two centuries and a half out- 
 lived the rise and fall of many dynasties. Great des- 
 tinies grow by their impediments, as well or better; 
 correct their faults, and draw new might out of them. 
 
 It is a great work this people has accomplished, if 
 it has taken two hundred and fifty years. These men, 
 these citizens, these planters at the little sandy Ply- 
 mouth tried the crucial experiment. After many fail- 
 ures of great nations, — of France, of Spain, of Hol- 
 land, and of England, — some of them under renowned 
 leaders and backed by kings, to get a footing near- 
 est to Europe on this continent, these poor English 
 outcasts, without the aid of their government, — nay, in 
 spite of its jealousy and enmity, — by the might of their 
 virtue and by the diligence of their hands and the 
 blessing of God, have to-day carried their plantation 
 to a perfect success, and showed mankind how the work 
 could be done. It was on a small scale; the men were 
 few in number ; the land on which they wrought was a 
 sandy desert ; it has never grown to a large population 
 or to a fruitful country. But all the more praise to 
 them that, against these disadvantages, they did by 
 their good sense and their sublime virtue teach man- 
 kind how to overcome every evil that flesh is heir to, 
 and build a free, honest and happy republic on a desert 
 shore. 
 
 Their example was fruitful exceedingly. Year after 
 year, as the news of their settlement, their stability and 
 success reached Europe, new colonists arrived. They 
 
 i 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 375 
 
 built Salem, Boston; they peopled Connecticut; they 
 peopled New Hampshire and Maine and Rhode Island ; 
 and, in the sequel, sent out their numbers and posterity 
 from the farthest East to the farthest West. 
 
 Gentlemen and ladies, you know that lately a careful 
 study of English history has shown a distinction among 
 those early settlers which adds to the honor of Ply- 
 mouth. The English reformers in Queen Elizabeth's 
 time were of two classes, called the Puritans and the 
 Brownists or Separatists. After the death of Henry 
 VHI, the Brownists or Separatists resisted the Estab- 
 lished Church and held that the Church was the spir- 
 itual association, Christ being its sole head. The Puri- 
 tans, returning from exile after Elizabeth had settled 
 the Establishment, were disappointed that the princi- 
 ples of the Reformation were not carried farther, but 
 most of them accepted the change, — Royal Supremacy, 
 Uniformity of Articles of Religion, — these men re- 
 maining within the Church. The early Puritans were 
 zvithin the Establishment, the Separatists or Brownists 
 outside of the Establishment. In 1582, Act 23d, Eliza- 
 beth made it treason to worship except in accordance 
 with the form prescribed by law, and the Separatists 
 were brought to the scaffold. John Scopping and Elias 
 Thatcher, in 1576, were executed at Bury-St.-Ed- 
 munds, and William Dennis in Norfolk. Great was the 
 behavior of John Penry, a Welshman, put to death at 
 Thomas-a-Watering near London by Archbishop Whit- 
 gift in May, 1593. These Separatists are the origi- 
 nators and settlers of Plymouth Colony. There was 
 nothing left for them but flight — their death was sure 
 if they remained in England. John Robinson, pastor 
 of Scrooby, then of Leyden, William Brewster, at 
 whose house in Scrooby the Church met, and William 
 Bradford, Governor afterward of Plymouth, — these 
 
376 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 were Separatists. Later, under Archbishop Bancroft, 
 the Puritans also within the Church came under per- 
 secution, and then they formed the compact to go to 
 America in 1628. These say in their Letter, "We do 
 not go to New England as Separatists from the Church 
 of England, though we cannot but separate from the 
 corruptions in it." The fathers of Plymouth were not 
 Puritans, but Brownists and Separatists, and com- 
 monly called by distinction Pilgrims because there was 
 nothing but Pilgrimage or flight before them; while 
 those who settled later, as, for instance, the settlers of 
 Boston ten years later. Governor Winthrop and Dudley 
 and others, were Puritans. 
 
 At daybreak on the 9th of November, 1620, the May- 
 flower came in sight, not of the banks of the Hudson, 
 which was their destination, but of the white sands of 
 Cape Cod, the bare and bended arm of Massachusetts. 
 They steered to the South, but falling on dangerous 
 shoals, returned and came within the Cape, and, two 
 days later, anchored in the harbor of Provincetown. 
 Their arrival was only the first step. The repairing of 
 their boat, the searching, the weary searching of the 
 shores in the snow and the frost — many of these neces- 
 sities detained them long. Their survey to find a suit- 
 able country occupied thirty days, and not until the 
 nth of December, which in our calendar is the 21st 
 of December, two hundred and fifty years ago to-day, 
 the exploring party of Carver, Bradford, Winslow and 
 eight others of the principal men, in the shallop, with 
 eight seamen, decided to plant themselves on the Ply- 
 mouth shore, "and returned to the ship with this news 
 to the rest of their people, — which did much comfort 
 their hearts." It took several days to bring the ship 
 and its company to the harbor. After new surveys, 
 when with prayer and praise they had fixed on the spot 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON m 
 
 whereon to build, they were delayed by storm and the 
 sacred Sunday, then laid out their little town, and 
 began their work on Monday the 25 th, which was 
 Christmas. "We went on shore, some to fell timber, 
 some to saw, some to rive, some to carry, and no man 
 rested on that day." 
 
 It took long to gather materials of every kind, to lay 
 out the lots for the public, and for the individual fami- 
 lies. You know the endless afflictions that followed. 
 Out of the one hundred and one which the company 
 counted, half perished in the first year. When new re- 
 cruits came they were scant of bread for themselves. 
 "They are forced to send vessels to Monhegan to buy 
 bread of the ships that came there a-fishing; forced to 
 live on ground nuts, clams, and mussels. The men, in 
 companies of six or seven, take their turns in the boat, 
 go out with the net and fish, and return not till they 
 get some, though they be five or six days out. The 
 rest go a-digging shell-fish, and thus we live the sum- 
 mer, only sending one or two men to range the forest 
 for deer. They now and then get one, and in winter 
 are helped with fowl and ground nuts." 
 
 John Smith writes (1624) of this country: "Of all 
 the four parts of the world that I have yet seen, not in- 
 habited, could I but have means to transport a colony, 
 I would rather live here [in Massachusetts] than any- 
 where, and if it did not maintain itself, were we but 
 once indifferently well fitted, let us starve." Massa- 
 chusetts he calls "the Paradise of these parts," notices 
 its high mountains — perhaps in Massachusetts, then, he 
 saw the peaks of the White Mountains. Like Morton, 
 the more he looked, the more he liked the country. In 
 1620 the ground was covered with snow. Snow and 
 moonlight make all places alike, and the weariness of 
 the sea, the shrinking from the cold weather and the 
 
378 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 pangs of hunger must justify them. But the next 
 colony planted itself at Salem, and the next at Wey- 
 mouth, and another at Medford. These men, using 
 their eyes instead of jumping at the first sight of land, 
 wisely judged that the best point for a city was at the 
 bottom of a deep and islanded bay with a considerable 
 river penetrating the inland. 
 
 In all ages the superstitious have believed that to 
 certain spots on the surface of the planet certain pow- 
 ers attach, and an exalted influence on the genius of 
 man. There is great testimony of discriminating per- 
 sons to the effect that Rome is endowed with the en- 
 chanting property of inspiring a longing in men to 
 live and die there. The Emperor Charles V thought 
 of Florence in the same manner, and London has laid 
 its claim to the same character for the last thousand 
 years. Physiologists have said, "There is in the air 
 a hidden food of life," and they believed the air of 
 mountains and the seashore a potent predisposer to 
 rebellion. It was remarked that insulary people are 
 versatile and addicted to change, both in religious and 
 secular affairs, and it is remarked that such was the 
 force of New England's climate. Of the East Indian 
 climate. Sir Erskine Perry says, "The usage and opin- 
 ion of the Hindoos so invades men of all castes and 
 colors who deal with them that all take a Hindoo tint. 
 Parsee, Mongol, Afghan, Israelite, Christian, have 
 passed under this influence and have exchanged a good 
 part of their patrimony, of their ideas, for the motions, 
 manner of seeing, and habitual tone of Indian society. 
 He compares it to a geological phenomenon which the 
 black soil of the Dekkhan offers — the property, namely, 
 of assimilating to itself every foreign substance intro- 
 duced into its bosom. 
 
 Plow can we not believe, then, in influences of climate 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 379 
 
 and air, when, as true philosophers, we must beheve 
 that chemical atoms also have their spiritual cause why 
 they are thus and not other ; that carbon, oxygen, alum, 
 iron, each has its origin in spiritual nature ? Who lives 
 one year in New England, ranges through all the cli- 
 mates of the globe. And if the character of the people 
 has a larger range and a greater versatility, perhaps 
 they may thank their climate of extremes, which at one 
 season gives them the splendor of the equator and a 
 touch of Syria, and then runs down to a cold which ap- 
 proaches the temperature of the celestial spaces. 
 
 It is not a country of luxury or of pictures ; of snows 
 rather, of east winds and changing skies, visited by ice- 
 bergs, which, floating by, nip with their breath our 
 blossoms; but wisdom is not found with those who 
 dwell at their ease. Rather Nature when she adds 
 brain adds difficulty. 
 
 I do not speak with any fondness, but the language 
 of coldest history, when I say that Boston, the capital 
 of the Fathers, which took its place on the cold, sandy 
 shore on which they landed, commands attention as 
 the town which was appointed in the destiny of nations 
 to lead the civilization of North America. I have con- 
 sidered that city of New England an exceptional com- 
 munity, that there the extraordinary, abundant means 
 provided by private bounty and public care, have en- 
 abled every poor man to secure to any talent in his child 
 a good culture, and to the great multitudes of the mid- 
 dle classes a finished education, in its libraries and 
 schools, scholarships and schools of design, and in the 
 great sympathy of the community with any spiritual 
 talent. What Vasari says three hundred years ago of 
 the republican city of Florence might be said of Bos- 
 ton: "That the desire for glory and honor is power- 
 fully generated by the air of that place in the men of 
 
38o NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 every profession, whereby all who possess talent are 
 impelled to struggle that they may not remain in the 
 same grade with those whom they perceive to be only 
 men like themselves, and even though they may ac- 
 knowledge such, indeed, to be masters ; but all labor by 
 every means to be foremost," 
 
 We find no less stimulus in our native air; not less 
 ambition in our blood, which Puritanism has not suffi- 
 ciently chastised; and at least an equal freedom in our 
 laws and customs, with as many and as tempting re- 
 wards to toil ; with so many philanthropies, humanities, 
 charities soliciting us to be great and good. 
 
 A capital fact distinguishing this colony from all 
 other colonies was that the persons composing it — the 
 colony of Massachusetts into which the Plymouth col- 
 ony was resolved — consented to come on the one con- 
 dition that the charter should be transferred from the 
 company in England to themselves, and so brought the 
 government with them. 
 
 In sixty-eight years after its foundation Dr. Mather 
 writes of it : "The town hath indeed three elder Sisters 
 in this colony, but it hath wonderfully outgrown them 
 all, and her mother. Old Boston in England, also. 
 Yea, within a few years after the first settlement, it 
 grew to be the metropolis of the whole English 
 America." 
 
 The town of Boston has a history. It is not an 
 accident. It is not a windmill, or a railroad station, or 
 cross-roads tavern, or an army-barracks, grown up by 
 time and luck to a place of wealth, but it is a seat of 
 humanity, of men of principle obeying a sentiment and 
 marching loyally whither that should lead them; so 
 that its annals are great historical lines inextricably na- 
 tional, part of the history of political liberty. 
 
 How easy it is, after the city is built, to see where 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 381 
 
 it ought to stand. In our beautiful Bay, covered with 
 sails from every port; with its islands hospitably shin- 
 ing in the sun; with its shores trending steadily from 
 the two arms which the capes of Massachusetts stretch 
 out to the sea down to the bottom of the Bay where the 
 city domes and spires sparkle through the haze. But 
 it took ten years to find this out. 
 
 There are always men ready for adventures — more 
 in an over-governed, over-peopled country, where all 
 the professions are crowded and all character sup- 
 pressed, than elsewhere. This thirst for adventure, for 
 war, for crusades, for gold-mines in a new country, 
 speaks to the imagination, and offers free swing to the 
 confined powers. There is always there and elsewhere 
 a class of innovation and one of repose. In political 
 economy all capital is new. The fruit of the last night 
 or two is always that which is consumed to-day. 
 Waste England, waste France, waste every city and 
 every town, and in a year or two there is just as much 
 wheat and hay as in the barns and fields before. It 
 does not take some men long to build. Why, it is in 
 the memory of all of us when the solid city of San 
 Francisco went up like a peddler's booth at a muster, 
 or a camp-tent in an army. 
 
 The planters in Massachusetts do not appear to have 
 been hardy men ; rather comfortable citizens, not at all 
 accustomed to the rough task of discoverers, and they 
 exaggerated their troubles. Bears and wolves were 
 many, but early they believed and affirmed there were 
 lions. Captain John Smith was near to death by being 
 stung by the most poisonous tail of a fish called a sting- 
 ray. In a journey of Rev. Peter Bulkeley and his 
 company through the forest from Boston to Concord, 
 they fainted from the powerful odor of sweet-fern in 
 the sun, like what befell, still earlier, Biorn and Thor- 
 
382 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 finn, Northmen, in their expedition to the same coast, 
 who ate so many grapes from the wild vines that they 
 were reeling drunk. The lions have never appeared 
 since — nor before. Their crops suffered from pigeons 
 and mice. Well, Nature has never again indulged in 
 these exasperations. It seems to have been the last 
 outrage ever committed by the sting-ray, the sweet- 
 fern, or the fox-grape. They have been of peaceable 
 behavior ever since. Every engineer or lumberman is 
 accustomed to face more serious dangers than any 
 enumerated, except the hostile Indians. But the awe 
 was real and overpowering in the superstition with 
 which every object was magnified. The dangers of the 
 wilderness were unexplored, and, in that time, the ter- 
 rors of witchcraft, terrors of evil spirits, and a certain 
 idea of terror still clouded the idea of God in the mind 
 of the purest. 
 
 The leaders, however, were educated, polite persons, 
 men of mark and of good estate, and, still more, ele- 
 vated by devout lives. As cloud on cloud, as snow on 
 snow, as the bird on air, as the planet rests on space in 
 its flight, so do the natures of men and their institutions 
 rest on thoughts. The divine will descends into the 
 barbarous mind in some strange disguise ; its pure truth 
 not to be guessed from the rude vizard under which it 
 goes masquerading. The common eye cannot tell the 
 bird by seeing the egg, nor distinguish the pure truth 
 from the grotesque tenet which shields it. So these 
 Englishmen, with the Middle Ages still obscuring their 
 reason, were filled with Christian thought. They had 
 a culture of their own. They were precisely the ideal- 
 ists of England — the most religious in a religious era. 
 Who can read the fiery ejaculations of St. Augustine, 
 a man of as clear sight as almost any other; of Thomas 
 a Kempis, of Milton, of Bunyan even, without feeling 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 383 
 
 how rich and expansive a culture — not so much a cul- 
 ture as a higher Hfe — they owe to the promptings 
 of this sentiment? Who can read the pious diaries 
 of Enghshmen in the time of the Commonwealth 
 and later, without a sigh that we write no diaries 
 to-day? Who shall restore to us the odoriferous Sab- 
 baths which made the earth and the humble roof 
 a sanctuary? I trace to this religious sentiment and 
 its culture, great and salutary results to the people 
 of New England; first, namely, the culture of intel- 
 lect which has been always found in the Calvinis- 
 tic Church. It was these men who, five years after 
 their landing in Boston, founded Harvard Univer- 
 sity. Many and rich are the fruits of that simple 
 statute of the General Court of Massachusetts, "Or- 
 dered, to the end that learning may not be buried in 
 the graves of our fathers, that every township, after 
 the Lord hath increased them to fifty households, shall 
 appoint one to teach all the children to read and write," 
 and so forth ; "and where any town shall increase to the 
 number of a hundred families they shall set up a Gram- 
 mar School, the masters thereof being able to instruct 
 youth so far as they may be fitted for the University." 
 The laborious, economical, rude and awkward popula- 
 tion of New England, where is little elegance and no 
 facility; with great accuracy in details, little spirit or 
 knowledge of the world, always somewhat leaned to 
 grace and elegance; you shall not infrequently meet 
 that refinement which no education and no habit of so- 
 ciety can bestow, which makes the elegance of wealth 
 look stupid, and unites itself by a natural affinity to 
 the highest minds of the world, nourishes itself on 
 Plato and Dante, Michael Angelo and Milton; on 
 whatever is pure and sublime in art, — and, I may say, 
 gave hospitality in this country to the spirit of Cole- 
 
384 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ridge and Wordsworth, and to the music of Beethoven, 
 before yet their genius had found a hearty welcome in 
 Great Britain. It is the property of the rehgious senti- 
 ment to be the most refining of all influences. No ex- 
 ternal advantages, no good birth or breeding, no cul- 
 ture of the taste, no habit of command, no association 
 with the elegant — even no depth of affection that does 
 not rise to a religious sentiment can bestow that deli- 
 cacy and grandeur of bearing which belong only to a 
 mind accustomed to celestial conversation. All else is 
 coarse and external, all else is tailoring and cosmetics 
 beside this, for thoughts are expressed in every look 
 or gesture. And these thoughts are as if angels had 
 talked with the child. Michael Angelo said : "As from 
 fire heat cannot be separated, neither can beauty from 
 the eternal," and this sentiment gives a rich purpose 
 to generous and manly schemes. 
 
 John Smith says that "thirty, forty or fifty sail went 
 yearly to America, only to trade and fish, but nothing 
 would be done for a plantation till about some hundred 
 of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and Leyden 
 went to the new Plymouth, whose humorous igno- 
 rances caused them for more than a year to endure a 
 wonderful deal of misery, with an infinite patience." 
 The action of Endicott and Winthrop in securing a 
 charter for Massachusetts shows as if they felt the dan- 
 ger which threatened the institutions of home. They 
 wished to make a New England with the habits of 
 youth. The great speed and success which distin- 
 guished the planting of the Massachusetts colony over 
 any other in history, owe themselves to two consider- 
 ations — namely, the subdivision of the State into small 
 corporations of land and power, and the subdivision of 
 power, each man forming part of that perfect struc- 
 ture growing out of the necessities of the occasion. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 385 
 
 Instructed by necessity, each little company organized 
 itself, after the pattern of the larger towns, by appoint- 
 ing its constable and half-military officers. In Massa- 
 chusetts as early as 1633 the office of townsman or 
 selectman appears first appointed by the General Court, 
 In 1635 the Court says, "Whereas particular towns 
 have many things which concern only themselves, it 
 is Ordered, that the freemen of every town shall have 
 power to dispose of their own lands and woods, and 
 choose their particular officers." This pointed chiefly 
 at the office of constable, but they soon chose their own 
 selectmen and very early assessed taxes, a power at 
 first resisted, but speedily confirmed to them. 
 
 It was on doubts concerning their own power that 
 in 1634 a committee repaired to Governor Winthrop 
 for counsel, and he advised, seeing the freemen were 
 grown so numerous, to send deputies from every town 
 once in a year to revise the laws and to assess all 
 moneys; and the General Court, thus constituted, only 
 needed to go into separate session from the Council, 
 as they did in 1644, to become essentially the same 
 assembly they are to-day. The governor conspires 
 with the townsmen in limiting his claims to their obe- 
 dience, and values much more their love than his char- 
 tered authority. The disputes between that forbear- 
 ing man and the deputies are like the quarrels of girls, 
 so much do they turn upon complaints of unkindness 
 and end in such loving reconciliations. In a town- 
 meeting the great secret of political science was uncov- 
 ered and the problem solved how to give every indi- 
 vidual his fair weight in the government without any 
 disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting the roots 
 of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, 
 but the poor also, and, moreover, the just and the un- 
 just. I had occasion some time since to look over with 
 
386 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 much attention the whole series of Town Records in 
 one interior town in Massachusetts, which happened to 
 have had an important share in the early history of the 
 colony. He is ill informed who expects, in running 
 down the Town Records for two hundred years, to find 
 a church of saints, a metropolis of patriots enacting 
 wholesome and reasonable laws. The constitution of 
 the towns forbid it. In this open democracy every 
 opinion had utterance, every objection, every fact, every 
 acre of land, every bushel of rye its just weight. The 
 moderator was the passive mouthpiece, and the vote 
 of the town, like the vane on the turret overhead, free 
 for every wind to turn, and always turned by the 
 last and strongest breath. In these assemblies the 
 public weal, the call of interest, duty, religion were 
 heard, and every local feeling, every private grudge, 
 every suggestion of petulance and ignorance was not 
 less faithfully produced. Wrath and love came to 
 the town-meeting in company. In 1641 a law was 
 passed that every man might introduce any business 
 into the public meetings. The ill-spelled pages of the 
 Town Records contain the results. I shall be excused 
 for confessing that I have set a value upon every symp- 
 tom of meanness and pique in those antique books, as 
 proof that justice was done : that if the results of our 
 history are approved as wise and good, it was yet a free 
 strife; if the good counsel prevailed, the sneaking coun- 
 sel did not fail to be suggested ; and freedom and virtue, 
 if they triumphed, triumphed in a fair field. And so 
 be it an everlasting testimony and so much ground of 
 assurance of man's capacity for self-government. 
 
 I esteem it the happiness of Boston that its settlers, 
 while exploring their natural and granted rights and 
 determining the power of the magistrate, were united 
 by personal affection. Members of a church before 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 387 
 
 whose searching covenant all ranks were abolished, 
 they stood in awe of each other as religious men. The 
 cords of authority were there examined for their sound- 
 ness. Governor Winthrop, in his speech to the peo- 
 ple, tells them "that he had received gratuities from 
 divers towns with much comfort and content; that 
 he had also received many kindnesses from particular 
 persons, which he would not refuse, lest he be ac- 
 counted uncourteous, but he professed that he received 
 them with a trembling heart in regard of God's rule 
 and the consciousness of his own infirmity, and desired 
 that they would not take it ill if he did refuse presents 
 from private persons, except they were assistants or 
 some special friends." He was told afterward that 
 many good people were grieved at it, for that he had 
 never any allowance towards the charge of his place. 
 The ambition of power of that day had not the greedi- 
 ness of this. There was a great deal of labor, and 
 there was no reward of money, but great risk of spend- 
 ing your own estate. In 1623 "it was enacted, by pub- 
 lic consent of the freemen of New Plymouth, that if 
 now or hereafter any man were elected to the office of 
 Governor and would not stand to the election, nor hold 
 nor execute the office for the year, that then he be 
 amerced in twenty pounds sterling fine, to be levied 
 out of the goods and chattels of the person so refusing. 
 If any, elected to the office of Council, refused to hold 
 the place, that then he be amerced in ten pounds ster- 
 ling fine." 
 
 With all their love for his person, they took immense 
 pleasure in turning out the Governor and Deputy and 
 assistants, and in contravening the counsel of the clergy, 
 when they urged, as John Cotton did, that they should 
 make the Governor perpetual, and that they should make 
 the office of the Assistant perpetual. A house in Boston 
 
388 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 was worth as much again as a house as good in a town 
 of timorous people, because here the neighbors would 
 defend each other against bad governors and the troops. 
 Quite naturally, house-rents rose in Boston. There 
 never was wanting some thorn of dissent and innova- 
 tion to prick the sides of conservatism in that town. 
 I know that history contains many black lines of cruel 
 injustice — the murder of Quakers, the murder of Mian- 
 tonomoh (the Indian princess), the persecution of 
 Wheelwright, and other acts of injustice, but the seed 
 of prosperity was planted. It is the honorable dis- 
 tinction of that first colony of Plymouth, of the Pil- 
 grims, not of the Puritans, that they did not persecute ; 
 that those same persons who were driven out of Massa- 
 chusetts then were received in Plymouth. They did 
 not banish the Quakers. 
 
 The seed of prosperity was planted. The people 
 did not gather where they had not sown. They did 
 not try to unlock the treasure of the world, except by 
 honest keys of labor and skill. The Massachusetts 
 colony grew and filled its own borders with a denser 
 population than any other American State, all the 
 while sending out colonies to every part of New Eng- 
 land, then South and West until it has infused all the 
 Union with its blood. 
 
 Boston is sometimes pushed into an attitude of theat- 
 rical virtue to which she is not entitled, and which she 
 cannot keep; but the genius of the place is seen in her 
 real independence, the productive power, and Northern 
 acuteness of mind which is in nature hostile to op- 
 pression. America is growing like a cloud, towns on 
 towns, States on States, and wealth, always interesting, 
 since from wealth power cannot be divorced, is piled 
 in every form invented for comfort and pride. 
 
 The State papers that have emanated from Boston, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 389 
 
 from its Governor Winthrop down to its Governors 
 Andrew and Claflin, have drawn admiration, while the 
 decisions of its courts are respectable and respected. 
 Literary ability was brought with us when we came, 
 and it was never quite lost. Mather's "Magnalia," the 
 first important book by a native in this country, has a 
 vitality still which makes it entertaining reading. Ben- 
 jamin Franklin knew how to write, and John Adams 
 also. The Fourth of July orations I give up to the 
 compliments of the official bodies who heard them, and 
 the American sermons before the days of Channing I 
 leave to those who heard them. I confess I do not 
 find in our people, with all their education, a fair share 
 of originality of thought, not any remarkable book of 
 wisdom, not any broad generalization, any equal power 
 of imagination. Nature is a frugal mother, and never 
 gives without measure. When she has work to do she 
 qualifies men for that and sends them equipped for that. 
 In Massachusetts she did not want epic poems and 
 dramas yet, but first, planters of towns and fellers of 
 the forest, builders of mills and forges, builders of 
 roads, and farmers to till and harvest corn for the 
 world. 
 
 Boston never wanted a good principle of rebellion in 
 it from its planting until now ; there is always a minor- 
 ity unconvinced; always a heresiarch whom the gov- 
 ernor and deputies labor with but cannot silence ; some 
 new light, some new doctrinaire who makes an unneces- 
 sary ado to establish his dogma; some Wheelwright 
 or defender of Wheelwright; some protester against 
 the cruelty of the magistrates to the Quakers; some 
 tender minister hospitable to Whitefield against the 
 counsel of all the ministers; some John Adams and 
 Josiah Quincy and Governor Andrew to undertake and 
 carry the defense of patriots in the courts against the 
 
390 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 uproar of all the Province ; some defender of the slave 
 against the politician and the merchant ; some champion 
 of first principles of humanity against the rich and 
 luxurious; some adversary of the death penalty; some 
 pleader for peace; some noble protestant who v^rill not 
 stoop to infamy when all are gone mad, but will stand 
 for liberty and justice if alone, until all come back 
 to him.^ 
 
 I fear to confine your attention too long to the annals 
 of this town, though I am presuming on the presence 
 of the friends of New England, and therefore, such 
 details are not impertinent; but we will say that never 
 country had such a fortune, as men call fortune, as this 
 of ours in its geography, its history, and the advan- 
 tage which the American has over all other nations. 
 Well, one of them is his domain. Great country ex- 
 pands our views of men and things. Room it gives 
 for wide variety of talents. America is England seen 
 through a magnifying glass. There can be no famine 
 in a country reaching through so many degrees of 
 latitude as ours; no want that cannot be supplied. 
 European critics regret the detachment of the Puritans 
 to this country without aristocracy, which a little re- 
 minds one of the pity of the Swiss mountaineers, who 
 said, when shown a handsome Englishman, "What a 
 pity he has no goitre!" The future historian will re- 
 cord the detachment of the Puritans without aristoc- 
 racy the supreme fortune of the colony, and as great a 
 gain to mankind as the opening of this Continent. 
 For what principally characterizes America is the no- 
 bility of her institutions. It is the perpetual insurrec- 
 tion which is the quality which secures their continu- 
 
 ^ The original of the follow- evidently faulty, had to be re- 
 ing pages is for the most part produced, 
 lost, and the newspaper report, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 39i 
 
 ity, and rectifies all errors by perpetual appeals to the 
 people. England has a great deal of cheap wit upon 
 America. She dislikes our manners, gives us kind 
 counsel, and is often quite right in her criticisms; we 
 make the same ourselves. But is this the real opinion 
 of England which we read in the London Times, 
 Punch and other journals? I think not. I rather 
 choose to read British opinions in this — in the immense 
 emigration of English people to these shores, the im- 
 mense commerce that is carried on between London 
 and New York, the immense investment of British 
 capital in this country. The American sits secure in 
 the possession of his vast domain, sees its inevitable 
 force unlocking itself in elemental order day by day 
 and year by year, looks from his coal-fields, his wheat- 
 bearing prairies, his gold-mines, to his two oceans on 
 either side, regards with security not only the annexa- 
 tion of English colonies, but the annexation of Eng- 
 land. England has long been the cashier of the world, 
 but the English merchant must soon pass from India 
 by the Pacific Railroad and must make his exchanges 
 in New York. This is but a type of many other 
 changes. We read without pain what they say to the 
 advantage of England and to the disadvantage of 
 America, for are we not the heir? 
 
 "Percy is but my factor, good my lord." 
 
 England has made herself the founder of her colo- 
 nies — educating the native population in good schools, 
 putting them in good employment, aiming to put them 
 in a condition to attend to their own affairs. Colonies 
 have grown to empires, and then, with her full consent, 
 have been released from her legislative authority. 
 England should say, "Go; I have given you English 
 equality, English laws, manners and customs ; de-Ang- 
 
392 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 licize yourselves if you can." When we see for our- 
 selves that her own foreign interest is to assure herself 
 at all time of the friendly relations of America, which 
 is one with her by speech, by religious equality and by 
 equal civilization, in all the dangers which are likely 
 to threaten her from other nations, America is sure to 
 sympathize with her, and extend a protection as noble 
 to bestow as to receive. In estimating nations, it is 
 well to consider the nature that is underneath; thus in 
 England it is well to consider what criticism we can 
 make. There are noble men there, yet all thoughtful 
 men know that the force of that race may still any day 
 turn out a better man than any now there. England 
 has a higher school, has more writers, but we read out 
 of her books ; she has a better poet. They have a better 
 blow-pipe there, but we have a continent full of coal. 
 England has six points of Chartism; let us see what 
 they are : Universal suffrage, vote by ballot, paid legis- 
 lation, annual Parliament, equality of electoral dis- 
 tricts, no property qualifications. They have all been 
 granted here. England has still a load to carry. We 
 began with this freedom, and are defended from shocks 
 for the future by the celerity with which every measure 
 of reform can instantly be carried. 
 
 I have detained you too long. History teaches by 
 experiment — this which we study to-day is one of the 
 best experiments by the smallness of the means and the 
 largeness of the results. The little colony of Ply- 
 mouth since 1792 has merged itself in the Colony — 
 not long after State — of Massachusetts, and is repre- 
 sented by Boston, in which her sons have adorned and 
 prospered the State. That little representative town 
 has grown to a census of 270,000 souls. She has her 
 large share of emigration, yet can only prosper by ad- 
 hering her faith, to the moral power of the forefathers 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 393 
 
 of her State. The other cities into which she has 
 sent her sons have almost outgrown the Httle town 
 from which they departed. In your strict relations to 
 that city, I know you will join me in the hope that 
 every child that is born of her and every child of her 
 adoption will keep her name as clean as the sun, and in 
 distant years the motto on her shield, Sicut patribus, 
 sit Deus vobiscum, shall be the prayer of millions in 
 all the lands into which our children have emigrated. 
 May they always say, "As with our Fathers, so God be 
 with us" — Sicut patribus, sit Deus vobiscum. 
 
RESPONSE 
 
 YOU are very prodigal in your goodness, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, but my duties for last night were prevented, 
 and I had not been instructed that I was to answer to 
 any such remarkable compliments to-night. I feel the 
 dignity and beauty of the occasion, and rejoice very 
 much in the noble and generous words that have been 
 spoken, certainly by yourself and the representatives 
 of the Navy Department from Washington. These 
 high tributes to New England history and genius I 
 rejoice in. They are noble, and I have a feeling that 
 the audience around me, of New England men, New 
 England-born or New England-descended, recognized 
 the literal truth of whatever statements have been 
 made. I have perhaps an inordinate appreciation of 
 the value of New England history, and perhaps exag- 
 gerate the influence which that history has had and 
 shall have in the world, but certainly I have not been 
 contradicted in my sentiment by anything that has been 
 uttered here to-night. You will think I am a little 
 "green," perhaps, but I accept it all as literally true; 
 indeed I think we have much more to claim and much 
 more to affirm than anything you have yet heard. I 
 fully believe that the remarkable history of the fathers 
 of New England is not yet, with all our appreciation of 
 that colony, held at its full claim, and I trust that we 
 shall never be false to our estimate thereof. I know 
 
 394 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 395 
 
 very well the part which comedy, which satire, which 
 the poets and romancers have played in that history, 
 and that much of it is become a Punch picture and 
 ridiculous, which was, in its origin and in its act, real, 
 true and great, and I am quite willing to indulge the 
 present generation in any underestimate which they 
 may hold. 
 
 At the same time, I am quite free to believe that 
 there was an excess of a certain enthusiasm in that set- 
 tlement; that there were many individualities, I may 
 say, carried to an extreme ; that there were many prose- 
 cutions which we regret ; that there were many prosecu- 
 tions which cannot be defended ; but that the spirit of 
 liberty, that the spirit of justice, that the power of 
 progress existed then and has not ceased to effect its 
 logical consequences in this country and throughout 
 this country. I also firmly believe that we are in- 
 debted to the sanctity of the men who founded the Ply- 
 mouth Colony, and of the milder class of gentlemen 
 who formed the colony of Boston ; and that this whole 
 country is indebted to them for the establishment of 
 the right principles of the existing American Consti- 
 tution is my firm belief, and is the reason for my ac- 
 cepting, sir, your invitation to come to this festival. 
 
 I have no right, to be sure, to pass your limitation 
 of five minutes for each respondent, but I perhaps have 
 some hereditary right to speak for Plymouth, being the 
 descendant of a very early Pilgrim, myself the seventh 
 in a series of clergymen descended from the founder of 
 a colony that went to Concord, Massachusetts ; I have 
 indeed to say for them that their virtues were some- 
 times pushed to excess ; we know them as Puritans, we 
 know them sometimes as extremists, and perhaps mod- 
 ern philosophy has done something for benefit in its 
 qualification of their extreme and severe views. I re- 
 
396 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 member well, I might almost say it is a matter of fam- 
 ily history to me, that in the old times if a man became 
 rich he was disowned by all his relations. I have 
 heard that people of that time of colonization were so 
 good that when they were out in the huckleberry pas- 
 tures they had to hold hard on the huckleberry bushes 
 for fear they would be translated. They were enam- 
 oured of death instead of life. They preferred to ride 
 on a horse to riding in a carriage. Perhaps they carried 
 their virtues a little into extremes, but I wish to confirm 
 all that I have heard from the eloquent gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania and all that was seriously said by our 
 esteemed president on this occasion, and, gentlemen, I 
 will relieve you. 
 
ORATION 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
 1885 
 
 From "Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis; 
 Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 (1824- I 892) 
 
 June 6, 1885, the society unveiled in Central Park a statue, "The 
 Puritan," by Mr. J. Q. A. Ward. It stands on a rise, looking 
 on the East Drive. The orator chosen for this day was Mr. 
 Curtis, then editor of "Harper's Weekly," and in the midst of 
 his long warfare in behalf of civil-service reform. The "How- 
 adji" books, "Potiphar Papers," "Prue and I," and "Lotus- 
 Eating" had made him well known before 1857. He began his 
 career in New York, in 1851, with the "Tribune." Later he 
 was connected with "Putnam's Monthly," and in 1858 he com- 
 menced the series of essays in "Harper's Magazine" that, under 
 the name of the "Easy Chair," ran with never-ceasing charm 
 and brilliancy for over thirty years. 
 
ORATION 
 
 '"'T^O-DAY and here, we, who are children o£ New 
 J_ England, have but one thought, the Puritan; one 
 pride and joy, the Puritan story. That transcendent 
 story, in its larger relations, involving the whole mod- 
 ern development and diffusion and organization of 
 English liberty, touched into romance by the glowing 
 imagination, is proudly repeated by every successive 
 generation of the English-speaking race, and lives and 
 breathes and burns in legend and in song. In its 
 greatest incident, the Pilgrim emigration to America, 
 it is a story of achievement unparalleled in the annals 
 of the world for the majesty of its purpose and the 
 poverty of its means, the weakness of the beginning 
 and the grandeur of the result. Contemplating the 
 unnoted and hasty flight by night of a few English- 
 men from the lonely coast of Lincolnshire to Holland, 
 — the peaceful life in exile, — the perilous ocean-voyage 
 afterward, lest in that friendly land the fervor of the 
 true faith should fail, — the frail settlement at Ply- 
 mouth, a shred of the most intense and tenacious life in 
 Europe floating over the sea and clinging to the bleak 
 edge of America, harassed by Indians, beset by beasts, 
 by disease, by exposure, by death in every form, be- 
 yond civilization and succor, beyond the knowledge or 
 interest of mankind, a thin, thin thread of the Old 
 
 399 
 
400 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 World by which incalculable destinies of the New 
 World hung, yet taking such vital hold that it swiftly 
 overspreads and dominates a continent covered to-day 
 with a population more industrious, more intelligent, 
 happier, man for man, than any people upon which the 
 sun ever shone — contemplating this spectacle, our ex- 
 ulting hearts break into the language which was most 
 familiar to the lips of the Pilgrims, — a p?ean of tri- 
 umph, a proud prophecy accomplished, — "The desert 
 shall rejoice and blossom as the rose," "A little one 
 shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong 
 nation." 
 
 Here, indeed, we are far from the scenes most fa- 
 miliar to the eyes of the Pilgrims; we are surrounded 
 by other traditions and solicited by other memories. 
 But under these radiant heavens, amid this abounding 
 beauty of summer, our hearts go backward to a winter 
 day. The roaring city sinks to a silent wilderness. 
 These flower-fringed lawns become a barren shore. 
 This animated throng, changed to a grave-faced group 
 in sombre garb, scans wistfully the solitary waste. 
 The contrast is complete. All, all is changed. — But 
 no, not all. Unchanged as the eternal sky above us is 
 the moral law which they revered. Unfailing as the 
 sure succession of the seasons is its operation in the 
 affairs of men. All the prosperity, the power, the per- 
 manence of the republic, — more than ever the pride of 
 its children, more than ever the hope of mankind, — 
 rests upon obedience to that unchanged and unchange- 
 able law. The essence of the Fathers' faith is still the 
 elixir of the children's life; and should that faith decay, 
 should the consciousness of a divine energy underly- 
 ing human society, manifested in just and equal laws, 
 and humanely ordering individual relations, disappear, 
 — the murmur of the ocean rising and falling upon 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 401 
 
 Plymouth Rock would be the endless lament of nature 
 over the baffled hopes of man. 
 
 Undoubtedly, New England in all its aspects of 
 scenery and people, in its history and achievement, its 
 energy, intelligence, sagacity, industry, and thrift, — 
 New England of the church, the school, and the town 
 meeting, is still the great, peculiar monument of the 
 Puritan in America. But where beyond its borders 
 more fitly than here, upon this ground settled by chil- 
 dren of the hospitable country which was the first 
 refuge of the Puritan, could a memorial statue stand? 
 In England "they had heard that in the Low Coun- 
 tries was freedom of worship for all men," and thither 
 the Pilgrims first fled; and when from that pleasant 
 haven they resolved to cross the sea, they brought with 
 them from Holland the free church and the free school, 
 and unconsciously, in their principles and the practice 
 of their religious organization, the free state. They 
 were urged by a trading company in Amsterdam to 
 settle under Dutch protection here in New Netherlands. 
 But yet, although they courteously declined, when 
 after sixty-four days' tossing upon the ocean they saw 
 the desolate sands of Cape Cod, they resolved to stand 
 toward the south, "to find some place about the Hud- 
 son River for their habitation." They turned again, 
 however, to the bleaker shore. The Fathers did not 
 come. But long afterward the children came, and are 
 continually coming, to renew the ancient friendship. 
 
 Well may the statue of the Puritan stand here, for in 
 the mighty miracle of the scene around us his hand, too, 
 has wrought. Here upon this teeming island the chil- 
 dren of New Netherlands and of New England have 
 together built the metropolis of the continent, the far- 
 shining monument of their united energy, enterprise, 
 and skill. Together at the head of yonder river, richer 
 
402 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 in romance and leg-end than any American stream, the 
 Puritan and the Hollander with their associate colo- 
 nists meditated the American Union. Together in this 
 city, in the Stamp- Act Congress, they defied the power 
 of Great Britain; and once more, upon the Hudson, 
 the Puritan and the Cavalier and the Hollander, born 
 again as Americans, resistlessly enveloped and over- 
 whelmed the army of Burgoyne, and in his surrender 
 beheld the end of British authority in the Colonies. 
 Here, then, shall the statue stand, imperishable memo- 
 rial of imperishable friendship; blending the heroic 
 memories of two worlds and two epochs, the soldier of 
 the Netherlands, the soldier of old England and the 
 soldier of New England, at different times and under 
 different conditions, but with the same unconquerable 
 enthusiasm and courage, battling for liberty. 
 
 The spirit which is personified in this statue had 
 never a completer expression than in the Puritan, but it 
 is far older than he. Beyond Plymouth and Leyden, — 
 beyond the manor-house of Scrooby and the dim shore 
 of the Humber, — before Wickliffe and the German re- 
 formers, — on heaven-kissing pastures of the everlast- 
 ing Alps, — on the bright shores of the Medicean Arno, 
 — in the Roman forum, — in the golden day of Athens 
 of the violet crown, — wherever the human heart has 
 beat for liberty and the human consciousness has 
 vaguely quickened with its divine birthright, — wher- 
 ever the instinct of freedom challenges authority and 
 demands the reason no less than the poetry of tradition 
 — there, there, whatever the age, whatever the country, 
 the man, the costume, there is the invincible spirit of 
 the Puritan. 
 
 But the vague and general aspiration for liberty took 
 the distinctive form of historical Puritanism only with 
 the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Forerun- 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 403 
 
 ners, indeed, harbingers of the general awakening, 
 there had been long before Luther, scattered voices as 
 of early-wakening birds in the summer night preluding 
 the full choir of day. The cry of all, the universal cry 
 that rang across Europe from Wickliffe to Savonarola, 
 from John Huss and Jerome of Prague to Zwingli and 
 Erasmus, from the Alpine glaciers to the fiords of Nor- 
 way, and which broke at last like a thunder clap from 
 the lips of Martin Luther and shook the ancient eccle- 
 siastical system to its foundations, was the demand for 
 reform. To reform in the language of that great cen- 
 tury meant to purify, and the Reformation was iden- 
 tical with Purification, with Puritanism. 
 
 But the spiritual usurpation intolerable in a pope was 
 insufferable in a king. Henry the Eighth would have 
 made England a newer Rome; and Edmund Burke's 
 stately phrase, studied from the aspect of a milder 
 time, was justified in all its terrible significance in 
 Elizabethan England. The English hierarchy raised 
 its mitred front in Court and Parliament, demanding 
 unquestioning acquiescence and submission. But the 
 conviction that had challenged Rome did not quail : 
 and the spirit of hostility to the English as to the 
 Roman dogma of spiritual supremacy, the unconscious 
 protector of that religious, political, and civil liberty 
 which is the great boon of England to the world, a 
 boon and a glory beyond that of Shakespeare, of Bacon, 
 of Raleigh, of Gresham, of Newton, of Watts, beyond 
 that of all her lofty literature, her endless enterprise, 
 her inventive genius, her material prosperity, her 
 boundless empire, was Puritanism. 
 
 If ever England had an heroic age, it was that which 
 began by supporting the Tudor in his rupture with 
 Rome, then asserted his own logical principle against 
 his daughter's claim, and after a tremendous contest 
 
404 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 ended by seeing the last of the Stuart kings exiled for- 
 ever, an impotent pensioner of France. This was the 
 age of Puritan England, the England in which liberty 
 finally organized itself in constitutional forms so flex- 
 ible and enduring that for nearly two centuries the in- 
 ternal peace of the kingdom, however threatened and 
 alarmed, has never been broken. The modern Eng- 
 land that we know is the England of the Puritan 
 enlarged, liberalized, graced, adorned — the England 
 which, despite all estrangement and jealousy and mis- 
 understanding, despite the alienation of the Revolution 
 and of the second war, the buzz of cockney gnats, and 
 official indifference in our fierce civil conflict, is still the 
 mother-country of our distinctive America, the mother 
 of our language and its literature, of our characteristic 
 national impulse and of the great muniments of our 
 individual liberty. To what land upon the globe be- 
 yond his own shall the countryman of Washington 
 turn with pride and enthusiasm and sympathy, if not 
 to the land of John Selden and John Hampden and 
 John Milton ; and what realm shall touch so deeply the 
 heart of the fellow-citizen of Abraham Lincoln as that 
 whose soil, and long before our own, was too sacred for 
 the footstep of a slave ? She is not the mother of dead 
 empires, but of the greatest political descendant that 
 ever the world knew. Our own revolution was the 
 defence of England against herself. She has sins 
 enough to answer for. But while Greece gave us 
 art and Rome gave us law, in the very blood that beats 
 in our hearts and throbs along our veins England gave 
 us liberty. 
 
 We must not think of Puritanism as mere acrid de- 
 fiance and sanctimonious sectarianism, nor of the Puri- 
 tans as a band of ignorant and half-crazy zealots. Yet 
 mainly from the vindictive caricature of a voluptuous 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 405 
 
 court and a servile age is derived the popular concep- 
 tion of the Puritan. He was only slandered by Ben 
 Jonson's Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-land 
 Busy. The Puritan of whom Macaulay, following 
 Hume, said that he hated bear-baiting, not because it 
 gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to 
 the spectator, was the Puritan of the plays of Charles 
 the Second, when Shakespeare had been replaced by 
 Aphra Behn, and the object of the acted drama was to 
 stimulate a passion palled by excess and a taste bru- 
 talized by debauchery. The literature that travestied 
 the Puritan sprang from the same impotent hate which 
 scattered the ashes of Wickliffe upon the Severn and 
 disinterred the dead Cromwell and hung the body in 
 chains at Tyburn, insulting the dust of the hero who 
 living had made England great, and to whose policy, 
 after the effeminate and treacherous Stuart reaction, 
 England returned. The Cavaliers ridiculed the Puri- 
 tan as Burgoyne and the idle British officers in Bos- 
 ton burlesqued the Yankee patriot. They had their 
 laugh, their jest, their gibe. But it is not to the rollick- 
 ing masqueraders of the British barracks, to the scar- 
 let soldiers of the crown, that we look to see the living 
 picture of our Washington and Hamilton, our Jay and 
 Adams, who plucked from the crown its brightest gem. 
 It is not the futile ribaldry of fops and fribbles, of 
 courtiers and courtesans, of religious slavery and po- 
 litical despotism, whose fatal spell over England the 
 Puritan had broken forever, which can truly portray 
 the Puritan. 
 
 When Elizabeth died, the country gentlemen, the 
 great traders in the towns, the sturdy steadfast middle 
 class, the class from which English character and 
 strength have sprung, were chiefly Puritans. Puritans 
 taught in the universities and sat on the thrones of 
 
4o6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 bishops. They were Peers in Parliament, they were 
 Ambassadors and Secretaries of State. Hutchinson, 
 graced with every accomplishment of the English gen- 
 tleman, was a Puritan. Sir Henry Vane, by whose 
 side sat justice, was a Puritan. John Hampden, purest 
 of patriots, was a Puritan. John Pym, greatest of 
 Parliamentary leaders, was a Puritan. — A fanatic? 
 Yes, in the high sense of unchangeable fidelity to a sub- 
 lime idea; — a fanatic like Columbus sure of a western 
 passage to India over a mysterious ocean which no 
 mariner had ever sailed; — a fanatic like Galileo who 
 marked the courses of the stars and saw, despite the 
 jargon of authority, that still the earth moved; — a fa- 
 natic like Joseph Warren whom the glory of patriotism 
 transfigures upon Bunker Hill. This was the fanatic 
 who read the Bible to the English people and quick- 
 ened English life with the fire of the primeval faith; 
 who smote the Spaniard and swept the pirates from the 
 sea, and rode with Cromwell and the Ironsides, prais- 
 ing God; who to the utmost shores of the Mediterra- 
 nean, and in the shuddering valleys of Piedmont, to 
 every religious oppressor and foe of England made the 
 name of England terrible. This was the fanatic, soft 
 as sunshine in the young Milton, blasting in Cromwell 
 as the thunder-bolt, in Endicott austere as Calvin, in 
 Roger Williams benign as Melanchthon, in John Rob- 
 inson foreseeing more truth to break forth from God's 
 word. In all history do you see a nobler figure ? Forth 
 from the morning of Greece, come, Leonidas, with 
 your bravest of the brave, — in the rapt city plead, De- 
 mosthenes, your country's cause, — pluck, Gracchus, 
 from aristocratic Rome its crown; speak, Cicero, your 
 magic word; lift, Cato, your admonishing hand, — and 
 you, patriots of modern Europe, be all gratefully re- 
 membered ; — but where in the earlier ages, in the later 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 407 
 
 day, in lands remote or near, shall we find loftier self- 
 sacrifice, more unstained devotion to worthier ends, 
 issuing in happier results to the highest interests of 
 man, than in the English Puritan? 
 
 He apprehended his own principle, indeed, often 
 blindly, often narrowly, never in its utmost amplitude 
 and splendor. The historic Puritan was a man of the 
 seventeenth century, not of the nineteenth. He saw 
 through a glass darkly, but he saw. The acorn is not 
 yet the oak, the well-spring is not yet the river. But 
 as the harvest is folded in the seed, so the largest free- 
 dom political and religious, — liberty, not toleration, 
 not permission, not endurance — in yonder heaven Cas- 
 siopeia does not tolerate Arcturus nor the clustered 
 Pleiades permit Orion to shine — the right of absolute 
 individual liberty, subject only to the equal right of 
 others, is the ripened fruit of the Puritan principle. 
 
 It is this fact, none the less majestic because he was 
 unconscious of it, which invests the emigration of the 
 Puritan to this country with a dignity and grandeur 
 that belong to no other colonization. In unfurling his 
 sail for that momentous voyage he was impelled by no 
 passion of discovery, no greed of trade, no purpose of 
 conquest. He was the most practical, the least roman- 
 tic of men, but he was allured by no vision of worldly 
 success. The winds that blew the Mayflower over the 
 sea were not more truly airs from heaven than the 
 moral impulse and moral heroism which inspired her 
 voyage. Sebastian Cabot, Sir Walter Raleigh, Fran- 
 cis Drake and Frobisher, Cortez and Ponce de Leon, 
 Champlain, bearing southward from the St. Lawrence 
 the lilies of France, Henry Hudson pressing north- 
 ward from Sandy Hook with the flag of Holland, 
 sought mines of gold, a profitable trade, the fountain 
 of youth, colonial empire, the north-western passage, a 
 
4o8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 shorter channel to Cathay. But the Puritan obeyed 
 solely the highest of all human motives. He dared all 
 that men have ever dared, seeking only freedom to wor- 
 ship God. Had the story of the Puritan ended with 
 the landing upon Plymouth Rock, — had the rigors of 
 that first winter which swept away half of the Pilgrims 
 obliterated every trace of the settlement, — had the un- 
 noted Mayflower sunk at sea, — still the Puritan story 
 would have been one of the noblest in the annals of the 
 human race. But it was happily developed into larger 
 results, and the Puritan, changed with the changing 
 time, ,adding sweetness to strength, and a broader hu- 
 manity to moral conviction and religious earnestness, 
 was reserved for a grander destiny. 
 
 The Puritan came to America seeking freedom to 
 worship God. He meant only freedom to worship God 
 in his own way, not in the Quaker way, not in the Bap- 
 tist way, not in the Church of England way. But the 
 seed that he brought was immortal. His purpose was 
 to feed with it his own barnyard fowl, but it quickened 
 into an illimitable forest covering a continent with 
 grateful shade, the home of every bird that flies. Free- 
 dom to worship God is universal freedom, a free state 
 as well as a free church, and that was the inexorable 
 but unconscious logic of Puritanism. Holding that 
 the true rule of religious faith and worship was writ- 
 ten in the Bible, and that every man must read and 
 judge for himself, the Puritan conceived the church as 
 a body of independent seekers and interpreters of the 
 truth, dispensing with priests and priestly orders and 
 functions; organizing itself and calling no man master. 
 But this sense of equality before God and toward each 
 other in the religious congregation, affecting and ad- 
 justing the highest and most eternal of all human rela- 
 tions, that of man to his ]\Iaker, applied itself instinc- 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 409 
 
 tively to the relation of man to man in human society, 
 and thus popular government flowed out of the Refor- 
 mation, and the Republic became the natural political 
 expression of Puritanism. 
 
 See, also, how the course and circumstance of the 
 Puritan story had confirmed this tendency. The ear- 
 liest English reformers, flying from the fierce reaction 
 of Mary, sought freedom in the immemorial abode of 
 freedom, Switzerland, whose singing waterfalls and 
 ranz des vachcs echoing among peaks of eternal ice and 
 shadowy valleys of gentleness and repose, murmured 
 ever the story of Morgarten and Sempach, the oath of 
 the men of Riitli, the daring of William Tell, the 
 greater revolt of Zwingli. There was Geneva, the 
 stern republic of the Reformation, and every Alpine 
 canton was a republican community lifted high for all 
 men to see, a light set upon a hill. How beautiful 
 upon the mountains were the heralds of glad tidings ! 
 This vision of the free state lingered in the Puritan 
 mind. It passed in tradition from sire to son, and the 
 dwellers in Amsterdam and Leyden, maintaining a 
 republican church, unconsciously became that repub- 
 lican state whose living beauty their fathers had beheld, 
 and which they saw glorified, dimly and afar, in the 
 old Alpine vision. 
 
 Banished, moreover, by the pitiless English persecu- 
 tion, the Puritans, exiles and poor in a foreign land, a 
 colony in Holland before they were a colony in Amer- 
 ica, were compelled to self-government, to a common 
 sympathy and support, to bearing one another's bur- 
 dens; and so, by the stern experience of actual life, 
 they were trained in the virtues most essential for the 
 fulfilment of their august but unimagined destiny. 
 The patriots of the Continental Congress seemed to 
 Lord Chatham imposing beyond the law-givers of 
 
410 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Greece and Rome. The Constitutional Convention a 
 hundred years ago was an assembly so wise that its 
 accomplished work is reverently received by continu- 
 ous generations, as the children of Israel received the 
 tables of the law which Moses brought down from the 
 Holy Mount. Happy, thrice happy the people which 
 to such scenes in their history can add the simple gran- 
 deur of the spectacle in the cabin of the Mayflower, 
 the Puritans signing the compact which was but the 
 formal expression of the government that voluntarily 
 they had established — the scene which makes Ply- 
 mouth Rock a stepping-stone from the freedom of the 
 solitary Alps and the disputed liberties of England to 
 the fully developed constitutional and well-ordered re- 
 public of the United States. 
 
 The history of colonial New England and of New 
 England in the Union is the story of the influence of 
 the Puritan in America. That is a theme too alluring 
 to neglect, too vast to be attempted now. But even in 
 passing I must not urge a claim too broad. Even in 
 the pride of this hour, and with the consent of your 
 approving conviction and sympathy, I must not pro- 
 claim that the republic like a conquering goddess 
 sprang from the head fully armed, and that the head 
 was New England. Yet the imperial commonwealth 
 of which we are citizens, and every sister-State, will 
 agree that in the two great periods of our history, the 
 colonial epoch and that of the national union, the in- 
 fluence of New England has not been the least of all 
 influences in the formative and achieving processes 
 toward the great and common result. The fondly 
 cherished tradition of Hadley may be doubted and dis- 
 proved, but like the legends of the old mythology it 
 will live on, glowing and palpitating with essential 
 truth. It may be that we must surrender the story of 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 411 
 
 the villagers upon the Connecticut sorely beset by In- 
 dians at mid-day and about to yield ; perhaps no actual, 
 venerable form appears with flowing hair, — like that 
 white plume of conquering Navarre, — and with mar- 
 tial mien and voice of command rallies the despairing 
 band, cheering them on to victory, then vanishing in 
 air. The heroic legend may be a fable, but none the 
 less it is the Puritan who marches in the van of our 
 characteristic history, it is the subtle and penetrating 
 influence of New England which has been felt in every 
 part of our national life, as the cool wind blowing from 
 her pine-clad mountains breathes a loftier inspiration, 
 a health more vigorous, a fresher impulse, upon her 
 own green valleys and happy fields. 
 
 See how she has diffused her population. Like the 
 old statues of the Danube and the Nile, figures reclin- 
 ing upon a reedy shore and from exhaustless urns 
 pouring water which flows abroad in a thousand 
 streams of benediction, so has New England sent forth 
 her children. Following the sun westward, across the 
 Hudson and the Mohawk and the Susquehanna, over 
 the Alleghanies into the valley of the Mississippi, over 
 the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific Ocean, the endless 
 procession from New England has moved for a cen- 
 tury, bearing everywhere Puritan principle, Puritan 
 enterprise, and Puritan thrift. A hundred years ago 
 New-Englanders passed beyond the calm Dutch Ar- 
 cadia upon the Mohawk, and striking into the primeval 
 forest of the ancient Iroquois domain began the settle- 
 ment of central New York. A little later, upon the 
 Genesee, settlers from Maryland and Pennsylvania 
 met, but the pioneers from New England took the firm- 
 est hold and left the deepest and most permanent im- 
 pression. A hundred years ago there was no white 
 settlement in Ohio. But in 1789 the seed of Ohio was 
 
412 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 carried from Massachusetts, and from the loins of the 
 great eastern commonweaUh sprang- the first great com- 
 monwealth of the West. Early in the century a score 
 of settlements beyond the Alleghanies bore the name 
 of Salem, the spot where first in America the Puritans 
 of Massachusetts Bay set foot ; and in the dawn of the 
 Revolution the hunters in the remote valley of the Elk- 
 horn, hearing the news of the 19th of April, called 
 their camp Lexington, and thus, in the response of 
 their heroic sympathy, the Puritan of New England 
 named the early capital of Kentucky. But happier 
 still, while yet the great region of the Northwest lay in 
 primeval wilderness awaiting the creative touch that 
 should lift it into civilization, it was the Puritan in- 
 stinct which fulfilled the aspiration of Jefferson, and 
 by the Ordinance of 1787 consecrated the Northwest to 
 freedom. So in the civilization of the country has New 
 England been a pioneer, and so deeply upon American 
 life and institutions has the genius of New England 
 impressed itself, that in the great Civil War the pe- 
 culiar name of the New-Englander, the Yankee, became 
 the distinguishing title of the soldier of the Union ; the 
 national cause was the Yankee cause ; and a son of the 
 West, born in Kentucky and a citizen of Illinois, who 
 had never seen New England twice in his life, became 
 the chief representative Yankee, and with his hand, 
 strong with the will of the people, the Puritan prin- 
 ciple of liberty and equal rights broke the chains of a 
 race. New England characteristics have become na- 
 tional qualities. The blood of New England flows 
 with energizing, modifying, progressive power in the 
 veins of every State; and the undaunted spirit of the 
 Puritan, sic semper tyrannis, animates the continent 
 from sea to sea. 
 
 I have mentioned the two cardinal periods of our his- 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 413 
 
 tory, the colonial epoch and the epoch of the Union. 
 In all exclusively material aspects our colonial annals 
 are perhaps singularly barren of the interest which 
 makes history attractive. Straggling and desultory 
 Indian warfare, — the transformation of wild forest 
 land to fertile fields, — marches to the frontier to repel 
 the French, — the establishment of peaceful industries, 
 — the opening of prosperous trade, — a vast contest with 
 nature, and incessant devotion to material circumstance 
 and condition, but with no soft and humanizing light 
 of native literature shining upon the hard life, no re- 
 fining art, no great controversies of statesmanship in 
 which the genius of the English-speaking race delights, 
 — these, with a rigid and sombre theology overshadow- 
 ing all, compose the colonial story. Yet the colonial 
 epoch was the heroic period of our annals. For be- 
 neath all these earnest and engrossing activities of 
 colonial life, its unwasting central fire was the sensi- 
 tive jealousy of the constant encroachment of the home 
 government against which the Puritan instinct and the 
 Puritan practice furnished the impregnable defence. 
 The free church, the free school, the town meeting, in- 
 stitutions of a community which not only loves liberty 
 but comprehends the conditions under which liberty 
 ceases to be merely the aspiration of hope, and be- 
 comes an actual possession and an organized power, — 
 these were the practical schools of American indepen- 
 dence, and these were the distinctive institutions of 
 New England. Without the training of such institu- 
 tions successful colonial resistance would have been 
 impossible, but without New England this training 
 would not have been. 
 
 Nay, more; I can conceive that New England, 
 planted by a hundred men who were selected by the 
 heroic struggle for freedom of two hundred years, — 
 
414 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 New England, of a homogeneous population and com- 
 mon religious faith, cherishing the proud tradition of 
 her origin, and during the long virtual isolation from 
 Europe of a hundred and forty years successfully gov- 
 erning herself, might, even alone, with sublime temer- 
 ity and without the co-operation of other colonies, have 
 defied the unjust mother-country, and with the unap- 
 palled devotion of the Swiss cantons which the early 
 Puritans knew, and with all the instinct of a true na- 
 tional life, have sought its independence. This I can 
 conceive. But the preliminary movement, the nascent 
 sentiment of independence deepening into conviction 
 and ripening into revolution, the assured consciousness 
 of ability to cope with every circumstance and to com- 
 mand every event, that supreme, sovereign, absolute 
 absorption and purpose which interpret the truth that 
 "one with God is a majority," — all this in colonial 
 America without New England I cannot, at that time, 
 conceive. I do not say, of course, that except for New 
 England America would have remained always colo- 
 nial and subject to Great Britain. Not that at all ; but 
 only this, that for every great movement of change and 
 progress, of research and discovery, of protest and 
 revolution, there must be a pioneer. Who supposes 
 that except for Columbus the western continent would 
 have remained hidden always and unknown to the 
 eastern world? But who can doubt that except for 
 the perpetual brooding vision which filled the soul of 
 the Genoese and bound him fast to the mysterious 
 quest, the awed Indians of San Salvador would not 
 have seen the forerunner of civilization on that October 
 morning four centuries ago, and that except for Colum- 
 bus, America would not then have been discovered? 
 So in the colonial epoch, doubtless the same general 
 feeling prevailed through all the colonies, the same 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 415 
 
 great principles were cherished, the same motives 
 stirred the united colonial heart. The cry was not Vir- 
 ginia nor Massachusetts, it was continental America. 
 But none the less, on the transplanted sapling of the 
 English oak that drew its sustenance from the common 
 American soil, the one spot most sensitive, most swell- 
 ing, from which the vigorous new growth was sure to 
 spring, was Puritan New England. 
 
 In our second historical epoch, that of the Union, the 
 essential controversy, under whatever plea and dis- 
 guise, was that of the fundamental principle of free 
 government with a social, political, and industrial sys- 
 tem to which that principle was absolutely hostile. 
 Tariffs, banks, fiscal schemes, internal policy, foreign 
 policy, state sovereignty, the limitations of national 
 authority, — these were the counters with which the 
 momentous game was played. I speak to those in 
 whose memories still echo the thunders and flash the 
 lightnings of that awful tempest in the forum and the 
 field. I accuse no section of the country. I arraign 
 no party. I denounce no man. I speak of forces 
 greater than men, forces deep as human nature, forces 
 that make and unmake nations; that threw Hampden 
 with the Parliament and Falkland with the king. It 
 was a controversy whose first menace was heard in the 
 first Congress, and which swelled constantly louder and 
 more threatening to the end. A house divided against 
 itself cannot stand, said the beloved patriot who was 
 to be the national martyr of the strife. The conflict is 
 irrepressible, answered the statesman who was to share 
 with him the conduct of the country through the storm. 
 Who could doubt that it was irrepressible who knew 
 the American heart, but who could doubt also that it 
 would be tremendous, appalling, unyielding, who knew 
 the resources of the foe? American slavery was so 
 
41 6 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 strong in tradition, in sentiment, in commercial inter- 
 est, in political power, in constitutional theory, in the 
 timidity of trade, in the passion for Union, in dogged 
 and unreasoning sectional hatred; it so pleaded a reli- 
 gious sanction, the patriarchal relation, even a certain 
 romance of childlike dependence and the extension of 
 Christian grace to the heathen, that like an unassailable 
 fortress upon heights inaccessible it frowned in gloomy 
 sovereignty over a subject land. 
 
 There was but one force which could oppose the vast 
 and accumulated power of slavery in this country, and 
 that was the force which in other years and lands had 
 withstood the consuming terrors of the hierarchy and 
 the crushing despotism of the crown — the conscience of 
 the people; a moral conviction so undaunted and un- 
 compromising that endurance could not exhaust it, nor 
 suffering nor wounds nor death appal. The great ser- 
 vice of the Puritan in the second epoch was the appeal 
 to this conscience which prepared it for the conflict. 
 Its key-note was the immortal declaration of Garrison, 
 in which the trumpet-voice of the spirit that has made 
 New England rang out once more, clear and unmistak- 
 able, awaking at last the reluctant echoes of the conti- 
 nent: 'T am in earnest; I will not equivocate, I will not 
 excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be 
 heard." There were other voices, indeed, voices every- 
 where, harmonious and historic voices, swelling the 
 chorus ; but chiefly from New England came the moral 
 appeal, penetrating and persistent, disdaining political 
 argument and party alliance — an appeal which, with 
 all the ancient fervor of the Puritan faith, spurning 
 every friendly remonstrance, every plea of prudence, 
 every prophecy of disaster, and every form of obloquy 
 and malignant enmity, urged upon every citizen the 
 personal guilt of complicity with national wrong, and 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 417 
 
 by Its divine logic inexorably forced parties to the true 
 issue, moulding our politics anew; and when debate 
 ended, the same spirit irradiated the embattled cause 
 of the Union, of the national pride, of the honor of the 
 flag, with the resistless glory of the old and eternal 
 Puritan principle of human liberty and equal rights, in 
 which our shame and our sorrow and our long sec- 
 tional alienation were utterly consumed. 
 
 In the great drama of our history this was the dis- 
 tinctive part of New England in the separate colonies 
 and in the later Union. Under another sky, in a dif- 
 ferent time, and amid changed conditions, it was the 
 service of the same spirit that challenged the Vatican, 
 shook the crowned majesty of the Tudor and the Stu- 
 art, and made straight in the desert a highway for 
 republican liberty, — the spirit of the Lincolnshire fugi- 
 tive, of the exile in Holland, of the Pilgrim of the May- 
 flower and his brethren of the Arbella ; of the English 
 Puritan, expanded, developed, matured into the Ameri- 
 can patriot. It is a spirit to be reverenced and cher- 
 ished, and perpetuated. If It may be, in adequate and 
 noble human form and so made permanently visible to 
 men. We know, Indeed, that the builders of memorial 
 statues measure themselves ; that they raise in enduring 
 marble and in bronze Imperishable, relentless censors 
 of the lives of those who build them, and that no man 
 shall stand unrebuked in the sculptured presence of 
 departed greatness. But the power that rebukes in- 
 spires; and this statue shall stand not only as the 
 memorial of our reverence for the Fathers, but as the 
 pledge of the children's fidelity to the sublimity of their 
 fathers' principle and the grandeur of their fathers' 
 aim. 
 
 Here in this sylvan seclusion, amid the sunshine and 
 the singing of birds, we raise the statue of the Puritan 
 
41 8 NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY ORATIONS 
 
 Pilgrim, that in this changeless form the long proces- 
 sion of the generations which shall follow us may see 
 what manner of man he was to the outward eye whom 
 history and tradition have so often flouted and tra- 
 duced, but who walked undismayed the solitary heights 
 of duty and of everlasting service to mankind. Here 
 let him stand, the soldier of a free church calmly defy- 
 ing the hierarchy, the builder of a free state serenely 
 confronting the continent which he shall settle and sub- 
 due. The unspeaking lips shall chide our unworthi- 
 ness, the lofty mien exalt our littleness, the unblench- 
 ing eye invigorate our weakness ; and the whole poised 
 and firmly planted form reveal the unconquerable moral 
 energy — the master-force of American civilization. So 
 stood the sentinel on Sabbath morning guarding the 
 plain house of prayer while wife and child and neigh- 
 bor worshipped within. So mused the Pilgrim in the 
 rapt sunset hour on the New England shore, his soul 
 caught up into the dazzling vision of the future, be- 
 holding the glory of the nation that should be. And so 
 may that nation stand forever and forever, the mighty 
 guardian of human liberty, of God-like justice, of 
 Christ-like brotherhood. 
 
Dec Id 1901 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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