New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1844-03-05
The Time, the Purpose, and the Nan.


to every purpose So, too, there is purpose to
every time and as the moment brings its duties
to the man, so the age has It's great duty to per-
iorm-lts great purpose to achieve-its great
problems to solve-its great truths to proclaim.
But the truths which are for the whole world
to know and feel, not left in the form of cold,
inanimate distractions. The age to appreciate
It's own objects, must see them wildly represent
ed and exemplfed in that human life in which
our temporal sympathies begin and end. And,
therefore, in the order of Providence. these lead
ing ideas of the age are always concentrated,
pcTsonlhed, embodied and incarnate in living
form that we admire and revere; and thus we
are fondIy led to love the truth, which in It's dis
embodied existence, might have been too high
too distant and too spiritual for our observation or
appreciation. Thus we learn the great objects Of
the age, the PuRposE OF the TlME, in the person
of the Man, whose life exemplifes and whose
| genius illustrates them.
Wespeak Of times-seasons -ages-meaning
thereby distinct portions Of time. This distinc-
ton is matter Of fact not fancy. It is practical,
real not imaginary. Time has its tides-its
flow and lis ebb-its long high waves, with deep
intervals. A glance at the past shows 1t broken
by great Accommodations Of prominent events, dl.
vided by intervals of comparative lnaction. We
have passed but one such epoch in our national
| history-and arc now approaching the acme of
another The period from the commencement of
our Revolutionary war to the organization of the
Federal government was the first. The time
from that point to the present has been an inter
val made by the subsistence of the Revolutionary
wave and the gradual prolonged rising o! another
surge. The intermediate objects, questions and
interests have been incidental, casual, temporary
The mass is now swelling and pointing again.
That first great epoch was, in our history, like
the chain of the ANeganies in eur chorography
The present brings US to longer, wider and of-
tier range. We arescaling the summit of a Rocky
Northumberland, whence we look back over the
broad valley and turbid rivers we have traversed,
to the peaks on which fathers Stood now
brighter with the rays of our late day, and beyond
them to the ocean OF time past, while before us is
the vaster and illimitabe sea of time to come.
''Say not thou--what is the cause that the for
mer days were better than these for thou dost
not inquire wisely concerning this In our adj
miring retrospect of the past, we often overlook
the dignity Of the present. We forget that we
ourselves are bearing part in what shall soon be
history. In every age the great mass OF men have
acted but for the moment, lnsensible to the pur-
poses to which they contributed 1t is our privi-
lege at this moment to look farther than the mo-
ment--to act with wide view of Our relations
10 the past and to the future.
It's said that" history Is philosophy teach
ing by example, 1t is more. 1t IS God teach
ing by his Providence even as in creahon-gv-
ing evidence of the same all-controlmg design
and bencvolence in both He gives the time It's
purpose-lhe age its crisis. He =" calls the man
TO execute his counsel and gives him for
witness to the people, leader and commander to
the people," In the light OF this truth, let us
look at the first epoch in our national history, to
see the purpose - Of that " time" and the man.
ner otits accomplishment, that we may learn not
only what our fathers did, but what they left for
us to do,-thus " declaring the end from the be-
ginning, and from ancient tunes the things that
are not yet done.
In new country and new world, arose a
new nation, I" born in one day. called into being
!
often attempted, to reveal truths and establish
principles which had been CROPPED after in vain
for thousands of years by the sages of the old
world. 1t is now familiarly and universally &C
knowledged that the establishment of our inde-
pendence and of our national government was
the commencement OF test experiment on
the higher capabilities OF the great mass OF
mankind. and of calculation OF the problem
Z" Can the people govern themselves wisely and
Justly" Yet we often speak Of 1t as an expert
ment already complete, and problem now
fully solved Our Revolutionary age did indeed
establish some great facts, before unknoon, and
did remove some difficulties fatal to popular llb
erty of old. The republican experiment in an
Gent Greece failed for want of federal union
among the States. In Rome, it failed by con-
! sodaton and Capitalization OF all power IN one
State, which was bounded by the walls of SIN
gle city. Rome had subject provinces where she
! ought to have made free States with equal nights
and common liberty, common interest, COM
mon bond OF union. Greece had free States, but
! no national unity.
The evils of these two opposite extremes were
well avoided by our fathers, and the good OF both
was blended into firm basis, upon which we
stand to work. They founded zoe build. The
task OF the Revolutionary age,-the purpose OF
! that time,-was not to orerthrop and destroy,
bat 10 establish, 10 .fr. II was not to show that
free united people could successfully resist ty,
ranny and repel invasion; for that vas en- old
fact,-associated with all the most inspiring re-
membranes of CLASSIC ages That lesson had
been taught to all the world through all time al
Marathon, at Thermopyle, at Salamis, and had
been repeated in the earliest history of republican
home, reiterated through modern ages IN Swift
erland, in Sweden and in Holland. Our Revo
lutionary war, but added TO numerous evl.
dences of a familiar truth which the world could
| never DENY or forget.