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THE HOUR OF PATRIOTISM. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE UNITED SERVICE OF THE " 
 
 Jirsf, mtmik mmi, gortit, and oolrstmiii'iteii 
 f itsbntcrian 0[luirdics, iujfalo, 
 
 NOVEMBER 27, 1862, THE DAY OF 
 
 THE ANNUAL THANKSGIVING 
 
 IX THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 
 
 BY JOEL F. BINGHAM, 
 
 PASTOIl OP WESTMINSTER C O X G R E U A T 1 O N . 
 
 BUFFALO : 
 FRANKLIN STEAM PKINTING HOUSE. 
 
 THOMAS TypoOKAPHEK 
 
 ]8(i2 
 

 1^MK0\ 
 
 W 
 
JESSE KETCHUM, ESQ., 
 
 WHO HAS LONG EXEMPLIFIED IX OUR CO.MMVXITT 
 
 PATRIOTISM. PIETY, AND LARGE LIBERALITY, 
 
 KINDLY ASKED KOR PUBLICATION 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEnifATED 
 
 BY HIS 
 
 FRIEXn AXD PASTOH. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 PSALM CXXII, 6. 
 O Jerusalem, they shall prosper that love thee! 
 
 DuRijsiG the sixty minutes for whicli I am to 
 ask your attention, I shall employ myself in 
 leading you to some views of the Hour of 
 Patriotism, or the Love of our Country in 
 HER Middle Passage. 
 
 No good man but loves his country. A vir- 
 tuous patriotism is a fundamental quality in 
 every virtuous character. It may not always be 
 shining with a supereminent lustre over all other 
 noble and excellent qualities, such as to throw 
 everything else into the shade by an intense and 
 overshadowing brightness. There is a time for 
 all things under the sun ; and it is not always 
 that the requirements of the hour will set this 
 in the foreground. There are times when other 
 
6 
 
 affections anrl other cares will lead. When long 
 years of quiet prosperity have lulled a nation 
 into secure repose; when public order has ruled 
 so long that men have begun to regard an essen- 
 tial broach of the peace as an impossible thing; 
 when ages of national tranquility have brought 
 on national slumber and men have begun to 
 dream that disorder and war belong henceforth 
 only to the dark and fearful past ; that the angel 
 of peace has at last received his conmiission from 
 heaven to control for the future the affairs of 
 earth; that this blessed dominion will steadily 
 spread from shore to shore and never again be 
 disturbed, till the heavens be no more — at 
 such periods, the affection of which we speak 
 will be likely to sleep, like the virgins in the 
 parable of our Lord, while the stillness of univer- 
 sal repose is al)road and the call for its service 
 of fidelity tarries. It is only by their loss that 
 we ever estimate our blessings aright. No 
 man can be expected properly to appreciate an 
 unbought freedom, until he has been taught by 
 experience its value l)y its cost. We all accept 
 it, enjoy it, move about sweetly in it, as we do in 
 the air of heaven, Avithout a. thought of its inesti- 
 mable,' value, oi- of the terrors of its loss. But in 
 
the good man's breast, the sentiment is alive 
 though sleeping; and let the waking call be 
 heard, let the midnight summons burst on the 
 oar, that slumbering love will start from dreams 
 and leap with lamp trimmed and abundant oil to 
 respond to any summons and any sacrifice. And 
 then, too, will the difterence appear between the 
 virtuous aftection and every species of hypocrisy. 
 If the trumpet call sound long enough and loud 
 enough, doubtless all will be awaked. If the 
 upheavings of old foundations roar and tremble 
 like an earthquake beneath every man's fortunes 
 and every man's hopes, doubtless every man will 
 begin to take counsel of his fears. But under 
 the pressure of the hour of action, all shams of 
 sentiment are discovered. However closely 
 they had before lain concealed in the general 
 slumber, now they are compelled, like the faith- 
 less virgins of old, to show their selfishness and 
 hypocrisy. Now tlie world must know that 
 there is no oil in their lamps for the nightly 
 march. In the hour to stand by' a friend in 
 need, to sacrifice self for noble love, to do the 
 self denying part of an honest and pure attach- 
 ment; tlien, all such are forced to let it be 
 seen that they are neither ready for the work of 
 
patriots nor fit for tlie reward of heroes. Sucli an 
 one no good man can be. He may have slum- 
 bered witli the multitude in ungrateful and in- 
 glorious repose ; when awaked to love and duty, 
 he may have made great mistakes and smote to 
 ruin when he ought and meant to have struck to 
 save, but love his country every good man will, 
 love her honestly, self-denyingly, self-forgettingly, 
 love her to the death. 
 
 When David speaks of Jerusalem he speaks 
 of his country. It was his home. It was 
 the representative of his native land. It was 
 the centre of his possessions, the embodiment 
 of his earthly hopes as well as the type of 
 the abode of the blest beyond the grave. Un- 
 der God's own training the ancient Jews were 
 taught to unite their patriotism and their reli- 
 gion more closely, perhaps, than do the best of 
 us now. David's conception of Jerusalem was 
 something more than the mere abstraction which 
 attaches to that name in our minds. It was more 
 to him than a floating fancy, however noble, pure 
 and bright. It was more to him than a vision 
 of faith, however ladeii with future and celestial 
 splendors. It was that earthly Jerusalem whose 
 towers and palaces that moment rose upon his 
 
view. When lie blesses and prays for Jerusa- 
 lem, lie blesses and prays for the capital of his 
 country, the venerable seat of his imperial throne, 
 the head of his countrymen's nationality, power 
 and glory. It did, indeed, cany the destinies 
 of the church of God. It did, indeed, enshrine 
 the eternal hopes of earth's countless millions. 
 Of course the pious David never for a moment 
 forgot that. And had it not been so, doubtless 
 tliat would have subtracted immensely from his 
 pious interest in his country, his Jerusalem, as 
 well as in everything else beneatli the sun. But 
 the true interests of church and state are always 
 one. And any view whatever which sets these 
 two supremest interests of man into any kind of 
 antagonism, or even walls them apart into any 
 essential separation of life and vigor is a disor- 
 dered view and a dangerous view both to the 
 state and to the church. David had no such 
 view. He was a statesman as well as a saint. 
 He saw in the integrity and prosperity of the 
 .state the vehicle wliich slKnild protect and com- 
 fort the church and carry her securely and easily 
 onward in her career of beneficence and hallowed 
 glory. And in a cherished and loyal church lie 
 
 saw that which should purify and ennoble the 
 2 
 
10 
 
 state and make lier fit for the happy citizenship 
 of those whose better kingdom is not of this 
 world. He was prepared, therefore, sincerely 
 and earnestly to pray for Jerusalem. And it 
 was not to pray merely for the church under her 
 symbolical name. His mind was not dealing 
 merely with emblems of a spiritual and invisible 
 good. He was thinking of tangible realities. 
 He was dealing with visible facts. He prayed 
 for the church through the state which enshrined 
 her, for the veritable Jerusalem of Judea, for 
 the home of his countrymen, for all the cities 
 and valleys of that highly favored nation. He 
 prayed for civil and political blessings and above 
 these, indeed, yet through these for rehgious bless- 
 ings upon the precious land of their fathers. 
 Two reasons for his patriotism he has given in 
 the context. Jerusalem, my country, ''for my 
 brethren and companions' sakes,'''' for the sake of 
 my fellow citizens, "/ will noiv say^ Peace he 
 ivithin tlieey And, " because of the house of 
 the Lord our God,'^ for tlie sake of the church,. 
 " I loill seek thy goody blessed home of my 
 countrymen, he says, favored land of a fostering 
 Providence, abode of temporal blessings unparal- 
 leled, seat of priceless privileges of grace, thou 
 
11 
 
 very gate of an earthly and a heavenly paradise, 
 ^^ they shall prosper that love thee!'''' — This is 
 religious, saintly, prophetic patriotism. 
 
 No one will ask me to say that the love of our 
 country is purely a sentiment of religion. This, 
 like every other native impulse, will be ennobled 
 and purified by true religion, but it is indeed 
 one of the sweet charities of our common nature. 
 Among people of every age and every land and 
 every shade of moral sentiment, the name of pa- 
 triot has been always and everywhere a beloved, 
 venerable, sacred name. Wherever any tender 
 affections exist, wherever the meanino' of mother, 
 brother, friend is felt and cherished — widely as 
 this — you will never fail to find also that the 
 word fellow-countrymen carries a treasured 
 sweetness. Commonly, it is true, the sentiment 
 works so quietly as to be little noticed and sel- 
 dom thought of And so, too, under the pressure 
 of cares and the hurr}^ of engagements, how many 
 of us sometimes for the hour forget even that 
 we have wives and children? — But there are 
 two occasions when this attachment ought to 
 make itself felt, and will make itself felt in every 
 breast which is not hopelessly sunk in cowardice, 
 or treachery. 
 
12 
 
 One of these times comes over us, when we 
 find ourselves far away from our home, strangers 
 in a foreign land. Then the images of departed 
 joys, associations gone, privileges debarred, rise 
 vivid in our memory and rule unbidden the 
 emotions of our breast. When we move in the 
 crowd of aliens that know us not, know not the 
 language our mother taught us, know little of 
 and care nothing for the land we love ; then our 
 instinctive affections move toward that distant 
 country which we call our own, where we are 
 known and loved and where is stored our 
 earthly all; then the very sounds of her lan- 
 guage are music, the faces of fellow-countrymen 
 like the flices of brothers. Upon this sensitive 
 instinct of human nature despots have built the 
 punishment of exile. It has always served their 
 purpose well in straining and wrenching the ten- 
 derest strings of the patriot's heart. It works 
 like an invisible rack of torture, and works on 
 the deepest, purest, noblest longings of the soul. 
 I envy not, I love not the man Avho could en- 
 dure exile without pain. I admire not the man 
 who can travel in foreign parts, however plea- 
 santly, without a twinge of this same pain. He 
 may see abroad much that is more splendid than 
 
13 
 
 anything which his country can boast, much 
 tliat is every way worthy and excellent, but he 
 cannot find there the land that bore him, that 
 has so gently yet securely sheltered his life and 
 fostered his fortunes and now waits to afford 
 him a quiet grave, or perhaps an honored sepul- 
 chre, by the side of kindred dust, when he is 
 ready to be gathered to his fathers. I have no 
 respect for the traveler who will not love his 
 country the more, after his wanderings and liis 
 return. 
 
 The other supreme occasion for conscious pa- 
 triotism is a time like that which is now croing- 
 over us — the time of national peril. A friend 
 indeed is a friend in need. The day of danger is 
 the day of patriots. The hour of fear and suffer- 
 ing is the reigning hour of affection. Adversity 
 is the genuine spur of love. As the darkness 
 deepens, that flame will burn hotter in every 
 honest and filial bosom. The shock of ahirm 
 will startle all the energies of affection and ga- 
 ther them into conscious feeling and ready effort. 
 It is in vain to talk of affection that is not felt 
 and seen in the day of trial. Of what material 
 must that man be composed who could view with 
 indifference the mortal agonies of the country 
 
14 
 
 that gave him bh'th? Of what material must 
 that man be composed who could look calmly 
 on the comins; wreck of those 2:entle laws which, 
 like a mother seeking only his interest, have 
 guarded his happiness and nourished his fortune 
 from the first hour of his life? What must he 
 be made of who without tears of anguish and an- 
 ger could see those institutions Avhich his fathers 
 reared, whose beautiful fabric was the object of 
 his boyish dreams, the joy and glory of his ma- 
 turer years, not as he fondly hoped likely to ^o 
 down intact and untarnished an increasing legacy 
 to the latest child that should bear his name, but 
 on the contrary, unless rescued by prodigious 
 and fortunate exertions, likely to be trampled in 
 the dust by exasperated enemies, or malicious 
 conspirators! When that object of our love is 
 plainly in jeopardy ; when those foundations of 
 our trust which ^\^e supposed to be firm as ada- 
 mant and abiding as the everlasting hills are 
 obviously crumbling beneath us and an abyss 
 that none can fathom is opening below; then 
 honest affection must take the alarm; then the 
 sincere heart will need no schooling of logic and 
 wait for no command of irrefragible authority. 
 It will be a joy, it will be a necessity to speak 
 
15 
 
 and to strike for that dear and glorious land. 
 And what this heaven-born instinct, at such a 
 time, is the first to discover and appreciate all 
 else within us that is righteous and noble and 
 true justifies and supports. Reason, duty, reli- 
 gion, rallv round this native sentiment and direct 
 and sanction her work. Then, instinct and prin- 
 ciple, for once, are one. 
 
 It is a good reason, then, why we are right to 
 love and fear for our country, that it is our home. 
 ^Ye have a right to hold dear the untold inter- 
 ests her safety involves to our j^i'osperity and 
 comfort. This space of earth, this soil we tread, 
 these skies and breezes, these organizations of 
 government, of learning, of religion, are our own. 
 They are ours to control, to perfect and to profit 
 by. They are ours to he robbed of, to lose, to 
 suffer by and win an immortality of shame. Our 
 earthly all is at stake. Nothing is so dear, noth- 
 ing is so precious, but it is linked with this su- 
 preme risk. Stripped of this, truly there is 
 nothing left. To put the name of selfishness 
 upon our partiality for the country in whose 
 safety all our interests are merged is to subli- 
 mate morality even above the standard of the 
 Bible. It is the dictate of religion as well as of 
 
16 
 
 natural impulse and common sense to love that 
 which was made on purpose for our love, to 
 keep and enjoy that which was provided for our 
 enjoyment and welfare. And to neglect to do 
 this is not only weakness and folly, but guilt and 
 shame. Whoever is untaught, or unwilling to 
 expend, to labor, to sacrifice for his home is too 
 insignificant, or unworthy to possess a home. 
 
 We love our country, too, most appropriately 
 for her peculiar and precious memories. This 
 land is a legacy from fathers who bought it with 
 labor and blood. It was redeemed, acre by acre, 
 from the wilderness of ages. It was wrested first 
 from barbarism, next from tyranny, and then be- 
 queathed to us, a noble, pure plateau for human 
 liberty and human happiness. No stain of an- 
 cient despotism taints this soil. As it was found, 
 separated by God's great waters from the iron 
 hand of wrong, so it has been left, clean from 
 the clutches of irresponsible power. The dire 
 spell of king-craft was never woven over these 
 wild, free, divine shores. Mo armies of insatiate 
 conquerors ever thundered across these virgin 
 plains. The oppressive maxims of old political 
 systems, the prodigious inequalities of fortune 
 which have divided the inhabitants of the other 
 
17 
 
 continent into princes and beggars, the hoary 
 prejudices of rank and caste — this long cata- 
 logue of governmental vices and human griev- 
 ances and woes, these unsophisticated hills and 
 valleys have never been called to learn. Our 
 land is the mysterious sunset region of ancient 
 wonder. We have come into actual possession 
 of the fabled "western isles of the blest." Shut 
 away, and kept in store, as it were, under God's 
 own padlock, it was given at last by a discern- 
 ing Providence into the charge of our faithful 
 pilgrim sires. 
 
 Some years ago, an English traveler desired 
 to examine the site of ancient Troy and the 
 neighboring celebrities of Homer's Iliad. At 
 Athens he chartered a bark, and took on board 
 a Greek pilot. Their course was nearly the 
 same with that which is represented in Homer 
 as the route of the allied fleets of Greece on their 
 way to avenge the rape of Helen, thirty centu- 
 ries before. The white cliffs of Tenedos at 
 length heave in sight. They coast along its 
 southern margin, and then steer up lietween the 
 island and the Mysian shore. The pilot has been 
 strangely silent for some time and seems excited. 
 By his orders they prepare to cast anchor. At 
 
 3 
 
IS 
 
 last he gives the word, "Let go! 'twas here 
 they anchored our fleet." "What fleet?" asked 
 the astonished gentleman. "What fleet!" re- 
 torted the indignant pilot, " Our allied fleet, the 
 fleet of Greece at the siege of Troy." The tra- 
 veler tells us that he was electrified. The memo- 
 ries of antiquity flashed with overwhelming glory 
 upon his mind. He had forgotten that the poor 
 pilot was of blood which was gentle and heroic 
 when Britain was inhabited by cannibals ^ — which 
 Tvas at the zenith of glory when history opens 
 her earliest intelligible page. Who of us does 
 not sympathize with the fine sensibility of that 
 poor Greek? Who of us does not admire his 
 claim of heirship, and love him for his fond pride 
 over those waters and coasts gilded so long, long 
 ago, with the precious memories of his fathers ? 
 
 But what are the memories of a legendary 
 fleet at Troy, in comparison with the historic 
 glories of ou7' Mayflower riding at anchor on the 
 wintry New England coast? What are the half- 
 fabled characters of Agamemnon Ulysses and 
 the rest, in the darkness of three thousand years 
 ago, in comparison with the true and venerable 
 name of ozfr just departed Washington? What 
 are all the most glorious memories of a Pagan 
 
i 
 
 19 
 
 antiquity; what are all the struggles and mas- 
 teries of brute, selfish force ; when compared 
 with the struggles of Christian heroism ; when 
 compared with the masteries of self-denying prin- 
 ciple — the pure, incorruptible, moral founda- 
 tions upon which, as the work of ou7' fathers, we 
 stand to-day ? 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers! how shall we measure 
 your worth ? — how shall we estimate your right- 
 ful honor ? You were moral giants in a hard 
 and stormy age. You were incorruptible found- 
 ers of institutions that brighten the history of 
 man. I can fancy that the Genius of Liberty 
 will sit evermore musing at the head of your 
 graves. I can almost imagine that the final 
 flames of doom, Avhen commissioned to consume 
 a corrupt and incorrigible world, Avill pause a 
 moment in reverence before your immortal dust. 
 Fortunate land that holds in her bosom the relics 
 of such men ! Fortunate nation that owns as 
 citizens the sons in whose veins still flows this 
 nobler than regal blood ! Read history through, 
 till her whole story is done, and where will you 
 find the like? Are we to l)c blamed for loving 
 with the warmest, the wildest affection a home 
 of such memories ? Are Ave to be blamed for a 
 
20 
 
 jealous solicitude over every blot on her fair 
 name, over every impediment to her growing 
 greatness and splendor? 
 
 We love our country, also, and ought to love 
 her, for her genial and gentle institutions. For 
 we have here no government vrhose strength and 
 prosperity is one thing, and the comfort and 
 prosperity of the people another. We have 
 here no estate of noble beggars pensioned on the 
 public purse. We have here no class who are 
 born to live in idleness through all their genera- 
 tions on the industry of others. With us, merit 
 is nobility, and industry and skill are wealth. 
 With us, none are born only for office and its 
 emoluments, and none only for subjection and its 
 burdens. This is the genius, at least, of our gov- 
 ernment. And this, I think, throughout the sec- 
 tion in which we live, is its practical working. 
 If in another section of our land it is different ; 
 if there is there a privileged aristocracy ; if there 
 is there a birth to office and idleness, and a birth 
 to disfranchisement and slavery ; then, though it 
 be within our body politic, it is not of us. It is 
 an element foreign to all our social foundations. 
 It is a disorganizing, destructive element to such 
 institutions as ours. It has dama":ed us much 
 
21 
 
 already, it may yet damage us vastly more. 
 And if it be true that it has made a kind of con- 
 genital ulcer, too deep and organic to be cut out 
 clean with safety to our national life, then, surely, 
 we shall not hate it the less for that. But we 
 cannot on this account love our precious country 
 the less. Rather, like a dear friend in infirmity, 
 we shall love her the more tenderly, for our pity 
 over her loathesome blemish. We shall long 
 and labor for the day when the wicked and 
 dansferous thincr shall be sloughed off" into the 
 waters of the southern gulf, to be seen by 
 American eyes no more. 
 
 There is another cord of endearment which 
 binds us as Americans with a new attachment to 
 this cherished land — it is the hope of far brighter 
 and better things yet to be. ' When a child of 
 uncommon promise is given to our arms, and 
 daily unfolds into the dawn of qualities which 
 foretell a rare career of honor and usefulness, we 
 all know how it binds parental hearts every day 
 closer and closer to that child. The bright con- 
 summation which the heart craves, the suspense 
 of expectation over the uncertain future, the 
 manifest advance from interval to interval to- 
 ward the idolized result — all serve to strenirthen 
 
22 
 
 and intensify our affection. We begin to love 
 already the fancied ideal of onr hope, and all 
 the tenderness- of solicitude is engendered be- 
 sides over the chances and perils through which 
 the cherished object must pass to arrive at the 
 posture where it should be. So we realize, or 
 ought to realize, that that one thing which gives 
 our country her chief pre-eminence among the 
 nations, is still a principle on probation. Our 
 institutions are still an experiment. They may 
 succeed, and they may fail. The world has 
 never yet seen that which can fairly be set up as 
 a parallel. In the democracy of ancient Athens, 
 in the so-called republic of Rome, in the short 
 and sanguinary attempts of modern France, in 
 the little confederation of Switzerland, — all that 
 would be thought of in comparison with us, — 
 there are differences so essential as quite to neu- 
 tralize the force of any inferences from such com- 
 parisons. The democracy of Athens was an un- 
 restrained ocean of popular power, perpetually 
 surging hither and thither under storms of pas- 
 sion, or the breath of oratory. The famed free- 
 dom of the Roman state was a narrow, selfish 
 platform, built on the slavery of the Avorld. The 
 republic of Prance was essentially a transient, 
 
23 
 
 re-actioiiaiy impulse, and finally Diarried to a 
 military despotism. The little confederation of 
 the Swiss, so small and isolated, has not been 
 subjected to all the strains which fall on the 
 great active nations of the world. Of the 
 three great examples, then, excepting the Swiss, 
 the religion of the two first was a worn out 
 Paganism ; of the third, bald infidelity. But 
 of a great, free, Christian nation, founded on 
 liberty, equality, law and the Bible, open to the 
 whole brotherhood of mankind, and marching 
 on a champion of human rights for all the world 
 and for all the ages — of this we have no paral- 
 lel on which either to predict success, or to pre- 
 sage a failure. We have, however, undoubtedly, 
 rational ground for the strongest hope. We 
 have, undoubtedly, a broad foundation for the 
 most inspiring anticipations of coming years. 
 All we seem to need is to be allowed in safety 
 to go on our way. All we need is a continued 
 growth in greatness like the past, and a growth 
 in virtue to equal it. True, it doth not yet ap- 
 pear what we, as a nation, shall be, but it is sure 
 that it may be such as the world has not yet 
 dreamed of It may be such a home of liberty, 
 such a scene of peaceful order and contented 
 
24 
 
 industry, where the sword of authority never 
 need be drawn from the scabbard, such a theatre 
 of plenty and material prosperity and splendor, 
 such a land of comfort and greatness, such a 
 land of right and virtue and religion as would 
 well answer to the figure of millennial glory and 
 the reign of the Redeemer of men upon earth. 
 We know it is possible, we hope it will be true. 
 And no honest heart need be told how this fond 
 hope enhances our attachment to this "promised 
 land" of mankind. 
 
 But now we must not forget that these insti- 
 tutions which we love are the most delicate and 
 precarious of all things beneath the sun. We 
 delight in them, because they are the very trans- 
 cript and expression of our desir.es and opinions. 
 We glory in them, because they are founded on 
 the will of the people. But all men know that 
 there is not in the whole universe a more unsta- 
 ble thing than the will of the populace. There 
 is nothing in the whole universe more capable 
 of sudden, unexpected and complete revulsions 
 in its course than the breath of the multitude. 
 To-day a measure, or a man may be riding on the 
 topmost wave of popular favor, and be carried for- 
 ward with swift and irresistible force. Tomor- 
 
25 
 
 row this impulse may be in swift recoil and the 
 object of yesterday's huzzahs, left stranded by 
 the ebbing tide, may be the object of equally 
 earnest hatred and curses. It were idle to deny, 
 and it were foolish to blind our eyes to the fact, 
 that there are not, and perhaps it were impos- 
 sible in consistency with the genius of our insti- 
 tions to construct, any safe and insuperable bar- 
 riers which should prevent such a rush of popu- 
 lar sentiment to one extreme, or the other, as may 
 plunge us almost in a day into remediless national 
 perdition. This catastrophe, which history has 
 already written out of others, is plainly possible, 
 too, of ourselves. However unwelcome and start- 
 ling such a thought may be, there is certainly 
 no wisdom in deceiving ourselves on a point of 
 sucli moment, or in refusing to look squarely 
 into the face of facts which we cannot alter. 
 
 When we consider, then, how slight and fragile 
 is the machinery of our gentle government, by 
 the very necessity of its nature ; when we reflect 
 how different are its pliant and elastic founda- 
 tions from the invincible, unyielding, iron foun- 
 dations on which, nevertheless, the great mon- 
 archies have often been shaken almost to a fall, 
 and without which no government has yet proved 
 
 4 
 
I 
 
 26 
 
 itself able to outride the storms of ages ; when we 
 think of the wild .aspiration for ofiice and power 
 which seems to grow with the growth of the na- 
 tion ; when we think of the general supremacy 
 of self-seeking, and the easy and tempting oppor- 
 tunities for' gathering spoils at the expense of 
 truth and justice and the interests of the state ; 
 when we see the rapid and extreme changes in 
 the rotation of elections ; when w^e remember the 
 obscurity and the repulsive features of many 
 needful measures which are in reality too com- 
 plicated in their bearings and too profound ever 
 to be sufficiently understood by a majority of 
 voters, to be intelligently and wisely judged of; 
 when we remember how strong is the desire of 
 popularity in elective officers of state ; when we 
 observe how little respect and fear of authority 
 has come to dwell in the minds of the people, 
 taught to regard themselves as the ever supreme 
 fountain of authority ; when we see liberty seem- 
 ing to be training up a spirit of lawlessness; 
 when we see the mad impatience for desired re- 
 sults, the conflicting interests of individuals and 
 of localities ; when we look into the halls of legis- 
 lation, and compute how few of those senators 
 and representatives constantly vote by their 
 
( 
 
 27 
 
 judgment and conscience for the best public 
 good, and how often and how many vote by a 
 calculation merely upon the highest bribe and 
 for the greatest individual profit ; and when we 
 remember at this very hour our present upheaved 
 and crumblino^ condition, the rao-e of the liurri 
 cane which as yet shows no symptom of abate- 
 ment, if it be not every hour blowing with 
 greater and greater fury ; — who, but an idiot, 
 or a traitor, can rest unconcerned for the sensi- 
 tive and frail machinery of our beloved institu- 
 tions? Who can fail to see that there is no 
 powei', but tliat which rolls the orbs in heaven, 
 which can ensure tlie steadiness and security of 
 so many and so mighty loosely chained forces ? 
 Who can fail to see that ours is no government, 
 and that this is no hour in her history under 
 which a good citizen may sleep away his years 
 in indolence and security ? Who can fail to see 
 that every iota of intelligence, of influence, of 
 conscientious integrity which is possessed by any 
 citizen is demanded of him by the call of patriot- 
 ism to be consecrated to the salvation and per- 
 petuity of this precious, republic, this supreme 
 hope for the liberty and happiness of mankind? 
 I think I can point out in a few closing words 
 
28 
 
 three, or four transcendent duties which every 
 citizen owes to this land, and which every hon- 
 est and intelhgent lover of his country will re- 
 joice steadily to pay with a view to her momen- 
 tary welfare. For none of us, I hope, expect to 
 be preserved and sustained by miraculous inter- 
 positions of Heaven. At the final destruction of 
 Jerusalem, by Titus and his Roman army, the in- 
 fatuated people believed to the last hour that 
 God would yet interpose and by some unex- 
 pected aid deliver their heaven-beloved nation 
 from utter overthrow. But they were miserably 
 mistaken ; and hundreds of thousands who might 
 have escaped hugged their empty delusion, till 
 they perished by the sword, or the flames. Some- 
 thing like this has happened to others, before their 
 day and since. Every nation, I believe, since 
 the world began, has regarded itself as in some 
 way of more consequence in the eye of Provi- 
 dence, than any other. But of this we ma}' be 
 sure, whatever the Hand of God in the matter, 
 we shall be shockingly disap^Dointed, if we trust 
 our perpetuity and welfare as a nation to any- 
 thing which fails to make the people, and each 
 of them, the saviours and protectors of them- 
 selves. 
 
29 
 
 Every citizen's first great duty of patriotism, 
 then, is never to despair of his country's safety 
 and welflire. Despair is not the temper of a pa- 
 triot, nor is it any means of his country's good. 
 Whatever be the straits and the dano-er, no e'ood 
 citizen will for a moment believe that his coun- 
 try is going down in disgrace and ruin. Every 
 citizen must uphold her not only by an uncon- 
 querable arm, but by unconquerable hopes. 
 There is a force in this whole-hearted confidence 
 which cannot be over-estimated We talk of the 
 moral support of foreigners, of the countenance 
 and moral aid of other nations ; but all that the 
 whole outside world can do in this way is not 
 once to be compared with the stability and in- 
 vincible strength which comes, and can come, 
 only from the unwavering confidence of a fond, 
 reliant community at home. In fact, the opinion 
 of the foreigner is of little practical value in an}- 
 way, except as it is wont to operate on this con- 
 fidence of our own citizens here. But it is pre- 
 eminently in the hearts and the hopes of the 
 people that the strength of our government lies. 
 While this fountain of life is sound and healthy 
 and buoyant, her vigor will be like that of Samp- 
 son in the glory of his unshorn locks. The com- 
 
 ■\ 
 
30 
 
 mon shackles and impediments upon national 
 development she will burst through and brush 
 away like withs of tow, because the secret of 
 her great strength is untouched, and she cannot 
 be bound by human hand. But once let the 
 undaunted affection, the confident hope of her 
 citizens be undermined; let the morbid spirit 
 of despair creep over the body politic, like the 
 chill of some noisome ague ; lo, almost in an 
 hour, the strength of a giant will have faded 
 into helpless weakness. The secret of power 
 has been reached. Sampson shorn is led away 
 to shame and slavery. It is a prime duty, then, 
 of every favored subject of our beloved popular 
 government, to guard and foster this undying 
 confidence in his own breast, and to guard and 
 foster it in the bosom of every fellow-citizen. 
 Words^ of despondency must not be allowed to 
 fly about from lip to lip on their errand of mis- 
 chief Words of o'ood cheer must dwell on our 
 tongues, thoughts of hope and confidence must 
 brighten our faces, and deeds of courage and 
 real self-denial must make our Uves noble and 
 heroic, or we are unfit for our place and our 
 day. 
 
 The next precept proposes to restrain a great 
 
31 
 
 vice of our times, and especially a peculiar vice 
 of our American temper and habits. It is a 
 grand old precept of the Bible, and was origi- 
 nally uttered for the spiritual guidance of the 
 faithful Christian, but it is equally appropriate 
 and vastly needed to control the visible, present 
 life of every citizen. It is God's conservatism. 
 It is to let the great stable virtue ^"liave lier i^er- 
 fect luorkj'' And that work will not be indo- 
 lence, nor indifference, nor neglect. It will not 
 shut out attention and interest and anxiety, but 
 it will include forbearance and caution and some- 
 times a wise endurance. It will not be blind nor 
 insensible, it will see and feel, but it will bear 
 and wait. I shall not dispute the national idea, 
 if it be such, that fifteen minutes is time enough 
 for an American to consume on his dinner, or fif- 
 teen seconds time enough for him to deliberate 
 and decide upon the most gigantic bargain in 
 commerce. But American citizens must learn 
 that their quarter of a minute, or quarter of an 
 hour is not the precise amount of time which 
 God may choose to take in working out, even 
 through them, the great moral and civil amelior- 
 ations of man. American citizens must learn 
 that even their own idolized and wonderful na- 
 
 \ 
 
32 
 
 tion is not to run the race of national greatness 
 so swift and so sure as completely to outstrip 
 every assault of human errors and human guilt 
 and completely to escape every shock of disaster 
 and loss. They must learn that swiftness alone 
 is not enough for anything, but the meteor which 
 goes out in darkness at the very moment it has 
 attained the zenith. They must learn to wait 
 without discontent, to labor steadily without 
 impatience, while the slow results of patriotic 
 efforts gradually shape themselves aright and 
 consolidate and mature. They must learn to 
 work with unfailing patience for years and gen- 
 erations upon this difficult and stupendous fab- 
 ric which we hope is now rearing to go down, 
 an honor to our posterity and a blessing to man- 
 kind, and whose brightness, we hope, will, not be 
 dimmed, till its glories are lost in the splendors of 
 the millennial day. This will be a prodigious, 
 amazing achievement ; and like every other great 
 human enterprise, must advance with varied and 
 very uncertain progress. Mistakes, follies and 
 treacheries areto be expected. Hitches will occur 
 in all hunuin machinery. The heart of the patriot 
 will often be stung almost beyond endurance. 
 Yet, in the grand comparison, these drawbacks 
 
33 
 
 are but a little thing in so great a march of light, 
 civilization and liberty onward. They must be 
 endured, and may be comfortably endured, if we 
 will see in them the finger of Providence, as well 
 as the footprints of human imperfection which 
 must be expected to attend even on the march 
 of human amelioration and real advancement. — 
 As to the yet unsolved and terrible question of 
 slavery, the sorest push, no doubt, on the pa- 
 tience of many a noble heart. It is clearly pos- 
 sible that the wheels of the Divine chariot are 
 retarded in mercy. The tender and devoted 
 Redeemer, when summoned once to the sick-bed 
 of a friend, lingered four days in slow prepara- 
 tions for the journey, and when at last told of 
 his death, said He was glad He had not come 
 sooner, because now God would be glorified in 
 a more stupendous miracle. And if it be God's 
 will that an additional year, or two, or more, of 
 peril and suffering shall work out for us a more 
 complete and glorious deliverance, what sincere 
 patriot cannot afford to be patient? Tf God 
 choose to allow the serpent of rebellion to live, 
 despite all our efforts, till it has eaten up the ser- 
 pent of slavery for us, and then dying clears our 
 land of both serpents at once, what good man 
 
34 
 
 will not feel paid for the time of waiting? Some 
 of us, all of us, may be too mucli in a hurry. 
 "He that believeth," says the Bible, "will not 
 make haste." 
 
 One great duty more. It is the genius of re- 
 publics to affect simplicity. It is one of the 
 many charms of our American institutions that 
 public power here can safely lay aside the im- 
 posing paraphernalia of monarchies. Any of- 
 ficer among us can securely and efficiently exe- 
 cute his trust in the ordinary garb of a citizen. 
 Almost while I speak, the Supreme Judiciary of 
 the United States has yielded to the simplicity 
 of republican ideas and cast away the last impos- 
 ing trapping of old traditionary stateliness. That 
 venerable judicial vesture, that long black robe 
 and snowy bands, that awful rag of old despotic 
 power has been put off, to be put on in America 
 no more. Scarce a trace, in civil life, of these 
 relics of the dark and barbarous ages any longer 
 exists among us. It is grand to think that the 
 American people can recognize and obey the 
 reality of power without its coarse, barbaric ap- 
 pendages. That a great people should firmly 
 and thoroughly govern themselves is the loftiest 
 political thought that ever entered the mind of 
 
35 
 
 man. It is an idea which the " statesmen of the 
 old world, for the most part, have no faith in 
 whatever, and which they laugh at, as like a chil- 
 dren's school without a master. And, undoubt- 
 edly, its success demands a simplicity of heart as 
 well as of manners, and a universal loyalty of 
 deportment which no people as yet has conclu- 
 sively proved itself equal to. The grand neces- 
 sity and the grand diflftculty is to secure for the 
 pure abstraction of authority and justice the love 
 and the respect of the great heart of the commu- 
 nity. When a fellow-citizen, at the call of the 
 sacred ballot, takes up the reins of government 
 in any department, then must his countrymen 
 look at him, not as an equal to criticize, censure 
 and condemn at will, but as a necessary incarna- 
 tion of sacred law and inviolable command. 
 Personal qualities, individual likes and dislikes, 
 when once the choice is over, must all be lost 
 sip^ht of, in reco2:nizino^ the called ofiicer of the 
 common weal. Whatever may be the imperfec- 
 tions of the man, the authority which he bears is 
 pure and perfect, and sacred. The poor form of 
 clay, each witli his own peculiarities and infirmi- 
 ties, soon gives place to a different yet differently 
 imperfect successor, but the sacred authority 
 
36 
 
 changes not and dies not. This remains ever- 
 more the same, like God above. This hallowed, 
 benign, omnipotent idea must never be trifled 
 with. This invisible angel of authority cannot 
 with impunity be slighted. This we must every 
 moment obey, defend and uphold with all our 
 might. This faithfully obeyed, defended and 
 upheld will stand by us, as the guardian angel 
 of our liberties and prosperity, till time shall end. 
 It needs no robes, or imposing state. The great- 
 est simplicity is doubtless the best taste for 
 American citizens, in both public and private life. 
 It is, certainly, the most in unison with the genius 
 of our simple institutions. But if public sim- 
 plicity is degraded into emptiness and brutality ; 
 if the dignity of oflQce is lost sight of, in the com- 
 monness of the man ; if the immediate account- 
 ability of elective officers cripple, or debase the 
 supremacy of government itself ; if neglect of the 
 material trappings of authority means failure of 
 respect and fidelity to the authorized power ; if 
 absence of cringing servility means lack of love 
 and loyalty to the actual ruling ai"m ; — then woe 
 worth the day to my country ; — then give me 
 such security as despotism can offer, rather than 
 a grinding to powder under the endless roll of 
 
 i J 
 
37 
 
 radical revolutions. Which may God forbid, and 
 the faithful, wise, self-sacrificing support of my 
 countrymen given cheerfully and always to those 
 fellow-citizens who hold for the time the high 
 offices of authority and trust in the .land happily 
 and forever avert ! 
 
 Custom requires of me one word more. At 
 the close of these annual services, we make an 
 annual offering to these orphan children. They 
 lean on our charities for childhood's bread and 
 their first start in life. Many times, it may be, 
 during the year, some of us have responded to 
 this sweet call. If so it has done us good ; and 
 we have by this route sent so much forward to 
 Heaven which will be paid to us again in solid, 
 incorruptible treasure on our arrival there. But 
 whether it be so, or whether we have lacked 
 opportunity before, what so fit climax to this 
 hour, when we sit down to remember how much 
 we have received and how able we are and how 
 bound we are to lend back to the Lord ! And 
 what act so fitting for the wise citizen and pa- 
 triot, as thus to lend a helping hand to forestall 
 the dens of infamy, rob the almshouse and beg- 
 gar the penitentiary ? For the soiled and ragged 
 little things upon our streets to-day will shape 
 
38 
 
 the destiny of our country and our children 
 tomorrow. 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 BY MRS. H E M A N S . 
 [Sung in conclusion.] 
 
 The breaking waves daslied high 
 On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
 
 And the woods against a stormy sky 
 Their giant branches tossed; 
 
 And the heavy night hung dark 
 
 The hills and waters o'er, 
 When a Ijand of exiles moored their bark 
 
 On the wild New England shore. 
 
 Not as the conqueror comes 
 
 They, the true hearted, came; 
 Not with roll of the stirring drums. 
 
 And the trumpet that sings of fame ; 
 
 Not as the flying come, 
 
 In silence and in fear; — 
 They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer. 
 
39 
 
 Amidst the storm they sang, 
 
 And the stars heard, and the sea! 
 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 To the anthem of tlie free. 
 
 The ocean eagle soared 
 
 From his nest by the white wave's foam, 
 And the rocking pines of the forest roared — 
 
 This was their welcome home. 
 
 What sought they thus afar? 
 
 Bright jewels of the mine? 
 The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 
 
 They sought a faith's pure shrine! 
 
 Ay, call it holy ground, 
 
 The soil where first they trod! 
 They have left unstained what there they found — 
 
 Freedom to worship God. 
 
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