Lewisburg chronicle. [volume] (Lewisburg, Pa.) 1850-1859, 1853-08-19
God and Liberty.

TEDwARD EVERETT, made a brilliant
speech at the Plymouth Rock Anniversary,
from which we copy the following:]
There are two Master Ideas greatest OF
the spiritual images enthroncd in the mind
of man, the only ones comparatively
speaking, which deserve name among
men, springs of all the grand benefieeni
movements of modern times, by whose in
fuence the settlement of New England
may be nationally explained. You have
anticipated me, descendants of the Pill
grims, these Great Ideas Of Con and LIE
ERrY. 1t was these that inspired our
Fathers, by these that their weakness was
clothed with power, that their simplicity
was transmitted to wisdom by these that
the great miracle of their enterprise was
wrought.
am aware that to ascribe such result,
even in part, to the influence of religion,
will sound like weakness and superstition
in this material age; an age at once su-
premely skeptical and supremely credulous
which is ready to believe in everything
spiritual rather than God, and admits all
marvels but the interposition Of his provi-
dence an age which supposes it thing
of every days occurrence to evoke from
their awful rest the spirits Of the great and
good, and relieves that master intellects,
which while they lved-obstructed with
these organs OF sense-ravished the cars
with "tongues Of men," and have now
cast off " this muddy vesture of decay"
and gone where they speak with "the
tongues of angels" can yet find no medi-
um of communication from the eternal
world but wretched inarticulate ratings
and Gatherings, which pot-house clowns
would be ashamed to use in their inter
course with each other-as if our matchiess
Choate, for instance, who has just electri-
fed the land with burst of eloquence not
easily paralleled in the line Of time, if sent
with message from a higher stage of be-
ing, would come skulking and rapping
behind the wainscot, instead of coming in
robes of light, with voice like the music
of the spheres; an age, say, that be-
lieves all this, and yet doubts and sneers
at the wonder working fervors Of earnest
men, swayed by the all-powcrful influence
of sincere faith.
1t believes, yes, in the middle of the
nineteenth century it believes that You
can have the attraction Of grayitation,
which holds the universe together, suspen-
ded by Snowman for dollar, who viii
make table dance round the room by an
act of yolition, (forgctful Of the fact that
if the law of gravitation were suspended
for the twinkling of an eye, by any other
Power than that which ordained it, every
planet which walks in the armament, yea,
all the starry suns, centres of the countless
systems unseen of mortal eyes, which fill
the unfathomed depths of the heavens,
would crumble back to chaos, } but it can
be seen in the Pilgrims nothing but
handful of narrow minded bigots, driven
by discomfort from the Old World to the
New; and can find nothing in the majestic
process by which United America has been
established as grand temple CT religious
and civil lberty-a general refuge for hu-
manity-buta chapter in political history,
which neither requires nor admits ezplana-
tion.
Mr.. President, this may sound like phi
losophy, but it is the philosophy of the
Sadducee 1t qucnches the brightest glory
of our nature. The Pilgrims were actua-
ted by that principle, which Gas L have
Just said) has given the first impulse to all
the great movements of the modern world
II mean profound religious faith. They
had the frailties of humanity. This ex-
alted principle itself was combined with
human weaknesses. 1t was mingled with
the prejudices and errors of age and
country, and sect; it was habitually
gloomy it was sometimes intolerant; but
it was rovcrcnt, sincere, all-controlling.
1t did not influence, it possessed the soul:
1t steeled the heart to the delights of life /;
it raised the frame above bodily weakness
1T enabled the humble to brave the frowns
OF power; it triumphed over cold, and
hunger, the prison and the scafold; ii
taught uneducated men to speak with per.
suasive fcrvor; it gave manly strength and
courage to tender and delicate women
In the admirable letter of Robinson ant
Brewster-Kh9m l call great men, Mr.