Glass F ' f'/ . WAREHAM-SIXTY YEARS SINCE, DISCOURSE, J 3 I ^6 ? DELIVERED AT WAREHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, MAY 19, 186 1, BY E. BURGESS, D. D BOSTON: PllESS OF T. R. MARVIN & SON, 42 CONGRESS ST. 1861. Wakeham, May 20, 1S61. Rev. E. Burgess, D. D. Dear Sir: — At the close of divine service yesterday, it was unanimously voted, by the congregation worshiping in connection with the First Church in this place, "that the thanks of the Congregation be presented to the Rev. Dr. BuKGESS, for his instructive and interesting Discourse delivered in the morning, commemorative of Wareham sixty years ago, and that a copy be earnestly requested for publication." T. F. CLARY, D. NYE, Committee. Dedham, Mat 20, 1861. Rev. T. F. Clary and D. Nye, Esq. Gentlemen : — I am happy to learn that my Discourse, delivered in Ware ham yesterday, commemorative of the Town as it was sixty years since, is acceptable to the people. Its mission is fulfilled. If however, in your judg- ment, some aged persons may be gratified to read it, and some young persons may better appreciate the example and principles of their worthy ancestors, I shall not feel at liberty to withhold a copy of it from your hands. E. BURGESS. fHirsri n DISCOURSE NEHEMIAH ii. 3. THE PLACE OF MY FATHERS* SEPULCHRES. The history of this Jewish patriot is short and impressive. He was probably a descendant of the royal family of Judah, born in captivity, and early adopted as a servant into the palace of Artaxerxes, king of Persia. He was advanced to the office of cup-bearer, and attended on the person of his mas- ter, approved for fidelity, address and talent. He often thought of the land of his fathers, on which he had never set his foot, and of the holy city which he had never seen. He learned from some of the emigrant captives, that the wall of Jerusalem was yet broken down, and that the Jewish race in that land were suiFering great affliction and reproach. He applied himself to fasting and prayer before God. The king marked the sadness of his face, and charged him with some treasonable plot. iSTehe- miah was alarmed, but he appealed to the rational generosity of the king : " Let the king live forever : why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire." His prayer to God, his request to the king, his liberal commission, his zeal, patriotism and success in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, cannot now be reviewed. In his answer to the king, he refers to Judea, not as the land given to Abraham, the ancestor of his race, nor as the former seat of a powerful kingdom, but simply as the place of his fathers' sepulchres. A reverence for ancestors is a sentiment instinct- ive in our nature. Even when a knowledge of the invisible God dies out in the soul, some grateful remembrance of the fathers still survives. The hoary head, the placid face, the wise counsels, are not forgotten. The religion of the Chinese is un- derstood to be ancestral worship. Some tribes, low in the scale of civilization, sprinkle wine on the graves of the dead. The North American Indian comes from the West, far towards the rising sun, to visit the mounds and hearth-stones of former gen- erations, the rivers where they speared the salmon, and the forests where they chased the deer. In near alliance to the persons of the fathers are the places where they were laid. We would not doubt the immortality of the soul in other worlds, but our senses assure us that the body was buried in the dust of the ground. The nearest local ap- proach that we can make to the dead, is to visit the grave-yards with slow step and thoughtful mind. Here they lie, side by side, kindred and friends, the aged and the young. What a wonderful doctrine is the resurrection of the dead. " This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." We set up the slab to mark the spot, where the body of our father or mother was laid. One visits the tomb of Washington, another the statue of Franklin, another the grave of Web- ster. The eloquent Whitefield and the devout Brainerd have those who hold them in respectful remembrance. The shaft at Lexington marks the spot where fell the first victims in the American Revolution, and the monument on Bunker Hill rears its head among the clouds to commemorate a more severe conflict. Nor will the hill at Plymouth always remain without a memorial to the Landing of the Pilgrims. The best memorial is indeed the love of a grateful posterity. No statue, painting or monument, is of equal value. Who will not say, ' Let my children with filial reverence bury me among my fathers in any seclud- ed spot, decently inclosed and shaded with trees, where the birds may sing among the branches. It will not disturb my slumber, that no marble is set up and no flattering epitaph is inscribed.' " Bury me not in Egypt," said the dying Jacob to his chil- dren : " bury me with my fathers, in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite : there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife ; and there I buried Leah." More than half a century has passed away, since I have wandered from the place of my fathers' sep- ulchres. We are a migratory people. Our Canaan is not divided by lot to the several tribes, as an inheritance not to be alienated. We leave our natal home, and take up our abode among strangers, as duty or interest may seem to demand. In this place, another generation has grown up, and young families dwell in these houses and possess these lands. Old names are extinct, and new names are introduced. " The fathers, where are they '? and the prophets, do they live forever'? " I walk among the tomb-stones, and there I find the truthful record. What is more enduring, except the in- scription on the living heart] Buildings decay, estates are alienated. The hills and rocks, rivers and islands, do indeed remain, and they are all dear to me ; but how small are they in magnitude or distance, in comparison with the image on my youthful mind. In this full congregation, ye all appear to be young. The face of the stranger meets me on every side. I look in vain for Everett in the pulpit, — or Mackie at the holy supper, reading off the hymn, line by line, in Scottish style, — or Fearing in the gallery, leading the choir with loud voice. — or Sa- very with white locks bending over his staff, — or Nye with powdered wig like an English judge, — or the aged men and women, sitting in front of the pulpit in open seats, — or mothers with babes in their arms seated in chairs in the porch of this temple. No carriage of any kind then rolled its wheels over the ways of this Zion. Men and women, who lived at a distance, rode hither on saddle and pillion ; while the young people of both sexes, with all those who did not keep horses, \l walked two or three miles without complaint, — and Bourne and brother, with prosperous families, dur- ing the pleasant months of the year, sailed peace- fully across from the Indian neck in an open boat. The intermission at noon was one hour only, which gave ample time to exchange words of civility and to take some refreshment. The horses, in the mean time, having no sheds, were safely tied to staples driven into the old oaks, then standing around this holy spot, and horse-blocks, so called, of wood or stone, were placed near each door. Nor was the meeting-house warmed by stove or furnace during the winter. And is it now a hardship for a woman to walk a few miles ? Is it vulgar for a mother to sit in the porch with a babe in her arms, that she may enjoy the sermon and the prayers 1 Is the cold of winter dreaded, even when the house is well w^armed 1 Must a carriage be in attendance to take the family to the church? To what a state of refined degeneracy are we reduced. This was chiefly an agricultural town. The soil was thin, except the stony ridges and some of the necks of land projecting into Buzzard's Bay. The salt marshes supplied the fodder for the cattle in the winter, and both the herds and flocks of sheep were turned into the forest-common, stretch- ing away to Plymouth, to find a scanty subsistence for the summer, where an ox might be drowned in some bog, and a lamb devoured by the fox. The water-power on our rivers was made to turn a few mills for the grinding of grain and the sawing of lumber. The iron-works, beginning then to be 8 introduced, weia not in full blast. The cod-iishery was prosecuted to some extent ; but the whale- fishery, once attempted, demanded more capital and a better harbor. Some vessels of moderate size were built from year to year, and chiefly em- ployed in the coast trade. By the diligent culture of the ground, with the aid of the fishery, the salt marsh and the pine forest, the people always ob- tained a comfortable and independent subsistence. Their houses were decent and cleanly, their ap- parel plain and substantial, their food ample and healthful. With the town opening to the bay, while the soil was moderate in its compensation for labor, the young men were much attracted to the sea. Some few removed to Vermont, and more to Maine, then a district of Massachusetts, but a volume could hardly contain a sketch of the noble young men, the pride and strength of Wareham, so ath- letic and so generous, by the name of Gibbs, Swift, Besse and others, who fell victims to the disas- ters of the sea or to the fever of a sultry climate, whose bones bleach along our Southern shore or among the West India islands. Whole families arc nearly extinct, though once large. If these young men had been content to cultivate the ground, and if they had been encircled with families like those which gave them birth, they had filled up whole townships in the East or in the West. What an infamous gulf is the maritime city. What a recep- tacle of the dead is the yawning sea. How signifi- cant is the prophecy, yet distant in fulfillment : " And the sea gave up the dead which were in it." Yes, ye mourners, whose husbands and sons are engulfed in the ocean, be assured that the Omnis- cient One is the Lord of the sea, no less than the land. My youthful patriotism was sometimes stirred within me, by the narrative of soldiers who had served in the old French wars, at the capture of Louisburg and Quebec, and much more in the war of the American Revolution — soldiers who had seen hard service, and who felt themselves allied in danger and honor to Washington, Greene, Putnam, Knox, and others. Nor were there wanting some who could speak in suppressed words of the part which they had taken in the infamous slave-trade. There were too some men of superior talent and enterprise, who were born here or had their abode in this place. The immortal Kendrick, the circum- navigator of the world, was one ; who, I believe, like Capt. Cook, fell by the hand of savage barbar- ism in the Isles of the Pacific. On old maps his voyage was represented by a line across the Pacific and Southern Oceans. Paul Fearing was an early pioneer to Ohio, and a town near Marietta perpet- uates his name. Gen. Israel Fearing was for many years in rank the second military officer in the county of Plymouth. "VVareham was a part of Plymouth, bought of the Indian sachems for a satisfactory compensation. It was never the seat of war. A few of the aboris;- 2 10 inal race lingered here since my memory, but as a people they have faded away. Half a century after the landin": of the Pil