Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1853-10-22


pot-house clowns would be ashamed to use in
their intercourse with each other-as if our
matchless Choate, for instance, who has Just
electrified the land with burst OF eloquence
not easily paralleled in the line Of time, i'll
sent with a message from higher stage of
being, would come skulking and rapping be-
hind the wainscot, instead Of coming in robes
Of light, with voice like the music of the
|spheres;-an age, say, that believes all this
and yet doubts and sneers at the wonder
working fervor of earnest men, swayed by
the all-powerful influence of sincere faith.
1t believes, yes, in the middle Of the nine
teenth century it believes, that you can have
the attraction Of gravitation, which holds the
universe together, suspended by Snowman
for dollar, who will make a table dance
round the room by an act of voltion, (forget-
ful 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
lit, every planet that walks the armament, yea
all the starry suns, centres Of the countless
Isystems, unseen Of mortal eyes, which fill
the unfathomed depths Of the heavens, would
crumble back to chaos, but it can see in the
Pilgrims nothing but a 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 had been established as a grand
temple of religious and civil liberty-a gene
raj refuge of humanity-but chapter in po-
litical history, which neither requires nor ad
mts explanation.
Mr. President, this may sound like phi
losophy, but it is the philosophy of the Sad
ducee. 1t quenches the brightest glory of
our nature. The Pilgrims were actuated by
that principle, which (as have just said) has
given the first impulse to all the great move
religious faith. They had the frailties of hu-
manity. This exalted principle itself was
combined with human weakness. 1t was
mingled with the prejudices and errors Of
age, and country, and sect; ii was habItually
gloomy; it was sometimes intolerant; but it
was reverent, 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; it
enabled the humble to brave the frowns of
power; it triumphed over cold and hunger,
the prison and the scaffold; it taught unedu-
Gated men to speak with persuasive fervor; it
gave manly strength and courage to tender
and delicate women. In the admirable letter
of Robinson and Brewster--whom call
great men, Mr.. President-written to Sir
Edwyn Sandys in l6I7,-whom, they patheti-
ically say, under God above all persons
and things in the world we rely upon, .
among the suggestions which they make to
encourage him to further their undertaking is
this:
1--WE Go verify believe and trust that the
Lord is with US, unto whom and whose SER
vice we have given ourselves in many trials,
and that he will graciously prosper our en-
deavors, according to the simplicity Of our
hearts ~
The men who can utter these words with
sincerity, and who have embarked in a just
cause, have already succeeded. They may
not gather the fruit, but they have planted
the seed; others may build, but they have
laid the foundation. This is the spirit which
in all ages has wrought the moral miracles Of
humanity; which rebuked and overturned the
elegant corruption ofthe classical polytheism,
as it did the darker and fiercer rites Of Thor
and Wooden which drove back the false
and lcentious crescent into Asia. and held
Europe together through the night of the
middle ages; which limited neither to coun-
TRY, communion or sex, despite Of human
weakness and errors, in the missions of Para
lguay and the missions Of the Sandwich Is
lands, in Winthrop, in Penn. and in Wesley;
lin Eliza Seton and Mary Ware, has accom-
plished the benefceht wonders of Christian
faith and love. % si' gHis .4afe ''
j But, sir, our fathers embraced that second
grand idea of Civic Liberty, with not less
fervor than the first Irwas kindred fruit
of the same stock They cherished with a
zeal not less intense and resolute. This is a
ltoIic for column, rather than for the closing
sentence of speech at the dinner table. ]
will only say that the highest authorities in
English history-Hnme, Hallam, Macaulay
neither of them influenced by sympathy
with the Puritanss concur in the opinion that
I England was indebted to them for the pre-
Iservation Of her liberties in that most critical
period Of her national existence, when the
question between prerogative and law, abso-
lutte authority and constitutional government,
was decided forevr. - - r.
Il In coming to this country, our fathers most
certainly contemplated not merely safe re-
!, treat beyond the sea, where they could worship
flood according to the dictates of their own
conscience, but local government found
E ed on popular choice. That their foresight
|stretched onward through the successive
, stages of colonial and provincial government
. which resulted in the establishment OF a
r great republican confederacy, il would be ex-
] ltravagant to pretend but from the primi-
, tive and venerable compact signed on board
! 1.-The Mayflower, while she yet nestled in the
lembrace, of Provincetown' harbor, after her
|deso!ate voyage like weary child at evening
lin its mothers arms, through every docu-
Iment and manifesto which bears on the ques-