The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1843-12-23


At one o'clock precisely, the orator of the day,
and the Hon. Daniel Webster, Rev. DR.. VAIN
wright, Rev. DIR. Adams, and the Hon. Moses II.
Grinnell assembled the platform, amid the plaudits
of the assemblage.
The exercises were commenced by the Sacred
Music ISociety and the audience singing the fol-
lowing
HYMN
Tune" Old HundreS.'
Hail. Pilgrim Fathers OF our race
With grateful hearts your tolls we trace
Again this votive day returns,
And finds us bending DER your urns.
Jehovah's arm prepared the rod
The Heather vanished at his nod
He gave His Vine lasting root,
He loads its goodly boughs with Fruit
The hills are covered with ts shade;
It's thousand shoots like cedars spread
Its branches to the expand,
And reach to broad Superior's strand.
OfPeace and truth the gladstone ray
Smiles in our skies, aRd cheers the day;
And new Empires splendent wheels
Roll DER the top of Western hills.
Hail. Pilgrim Fathers Of our race!
With grateful hearts your tolls trace
Oft as this votive day returns,
Well pay due honoisto your urns.
After the hymn the Rev DIR. Adams offered up
anseloquent but somewhat heightened prayer, ex-
pressing gratitude to the Almighty for past bless
ings, and imploring the divine; guidance and gra-
cous care for the future.
The following new cantata, by Benjamin Wy
man. was then sung by the Sacred Music Soce-
ty-
In grateful alteration now,
Upon the barren sands they how
What tongue Of joy e'er woke such prayer,
As bursts in desolaton there 7
What arm of strength e'er wrought such power,
As waits to crown that feeble hour
Chorus.
There into lite an infant empire springs,
There falls the iron from the soul,
Up to the King 81 Kings
To fair creations farthest bound,
The thrilling summons yet shall sound,
The dreaming nations shall awake,
And to their centre earths old kingdoms shake.
Before the loftier throne of heaven,
The hand is raised, the pledge is given,
One monarch to obey, one creed to own =
That monarch God-that creed, His word alone.
After the Grafton the following hymn was sung
by the Sacred Music Society, having been CON-
posed for the occasion by GEORGE P. MORRIS.
A rock in the wilderness welcomed our sires,
From bondage far over the dark-rolng sea
On that holy altar they kindled the fires
Jehovah which glow in our bosoms for thee.
Thy blessings descended in sunshine and shower,
Or rose from the soil that sown by thy hand;
The mountain and valley rejoiced in thy power,
The Pilgrims of old an example have given,
OF mild resignation, devotion and love,
Which beams like the star in the blue vault Of heaven;
In ans h"Ig n m
Their temple and chapel were valley and hill
But God is the same in the aisle or the air,
And He is the Rock that we lean upon still.
Grafton.
The Hon. Mr. CHoAyE then stepped forward, and
his Grafton as follows We come again. the chill.
dren of the Pilgrims, to remember our fathers
Away from the scenes with which the American
portions of their history are associated irsgparaby
SO unadorned, yet clothed to the moral eye with
charm above and beyond the sphere of taste
1.-the indissouble rock-hat hill from whose side
those delicate springs are still gushing 1.-The low,
little island that welcomed them in their foreign
garments from the sea, and witnessed the rest and
worship of that Sabbath day before their first land
ing---away from all these scenes-without the
limits of the fond old colony that keeps their
that is their wider burial place and filter monu-
ment-in the heart of this chief city of the Union
into which the feeble band has grown, we come
again to repeat their names one by one-to retrace
the lines of their great characier-to look once
more upon lineamefts and features on which the
grave has no power-to appreciate their virtues-to
trace and recount the courses Of their lives, full of
heroic deeds-soured by sharpest trials
crowned by transcendent consequences--to elevate
and refresh and touch our spirits by coming for
an hour once more into their more immediate
presence-such AS they in the DAYS of their
h agony of gory-l,Applause., Mr., Choate
then proceeded, In similar exceedingly ford and
iniateu style eulogxe the character and achieve
ments OF the first settlers. of New England. He
represented them as the Incarnation of that pur-
and suffering, from the time Of Wckif till the ac-
cession of James L., had reared on the English
soil He traced, in BRIEF the progress of those in
tants to rcpublicans-and from Englishmen to pill.
grims--and from pilgrims to the founders of free
church, and the fathers of free people in a new
world. He spoke of the embarcaton at Delft
Wer's picture of that interesting scene. The
perilous voyage across the seattle landing-the
sore trials which were met and bravely undergone
tho stern, lofty virtues of the men were spoken
position that this was the grand heroic age of this
republic. He deemed il great thing for any
people to be able to look back on such an age, as
It passed from stage to stage of its history
whether II looked back in the morning or the eve
ming of its days---whether, as now, in the eager
fervor of youth, in the full strength Of manhood.
with its breasts full of milk, and its bones moisen-
ed with Inarrow--.or in dotage and decreptude,
with the silver cord loosened, and the golden bowl
broken at the fountain---whether from the age
of Percles or of Plutarch, II was always great
and precious thing to be able to ascend TO an
age and race---a heroic age and race---which il
could justly call Its own. BY an heroic age and
race, he meant not necessarily and exclusively the
earliest age or race, but one the affairs OF whose
history, and the traits of whose character and the,
extent and permanency OF whose influences, are
Of Kind and power to be recognized in after time;
not merely respectable and useful, but of a kind
to kindle and feed the moral Imagination, move
the capacious heart and justify the intelligent won
der OF the world lie meant by nations heroic
by chronological relations merely but by a concur
renee Of grand and impressive agencies, with strik
ing and large results--by some splendid triumph OF
man over some great enemy-some great labor
oarf1A mt oxytl- a
tlngushed from others, when were seen extraordi-
nary men performing extraordinary deeds---a time
in which we're exhibited uncommon examples of
rare and difficult virtue, tried by an exgency that
happens only at the beginning of new epochs-at
the beginning of some new dynasty of dominion
or liberty when the great bell of time sounds out
audibly another hour.--(Applausc.) Mr. Choate
extended considerably this definition OF "heroic
era Of the landing at jamestown was an ''hcroic
age" lie next advcrted TO the Influences which