Daily Democrat and news. [volume] (Davenport, Iowa) 1859-1864, 1860-12-25

fectsi Every age, every thoughtful
resder Of History, atternpts it and viii
continue % to do. They were not polish
ed characters they did mot plow smooth |
as men used to do on the prairiea but
threw open the burrows to sun, wind
and rain. They thought the harvest
would be larger and come quicker. But
It is not the historic spirit, 1t is not COM
mon candor to lose sight Of their merits
in wondering over their faults. 1t is
their GROWING honor not that they
held nothing wrong which the age held
and everything right which they did not
hold, but that they put the right into
practice so much, and the wrong SO lit
tie. They lived up to their light, bold
ly, manfully, generously; lived for the
ideal good and true. They made the ro-
mantle sober reality, and religious chiv-
airy of the lof,iest type matter of fact.
What they did is more to their just re
nown than aught they said or believed.
Their history teaches that liberal results
are the native fruits, not of love, but Of
rigid principles, rigidly practiced tina,
the elements of human welfare are slow
ly eliminated from the mass OF human
errors and expressions, and that, not by
clear perception Of ultimate truths of
liberty and humanity at the outset, but
by leavening prescriptive wrong with
sentiments and usages inconsistent
Herewith, and destructive thereto that
in this painful and austere work all
members, willing or not, meet some part
of the trial, and pay some part Of the
cost Of larger liberty Of thought and
conscience; that it is the supremacy OF
the religious element alone which sus-
tains long and heroic conflicts with
power; that freedom, the first ideal OF
man in civil life, is his last and browning
attainment, and that those who most de-
serve grateful remembrance in after
ages, act their greatness SO modestly
and unconsclously, as to prefer no claim
to it. 1t is their distinction that they
were true all through, and "builded wis
er" and acted nobler than they knew"
! 1--WE hear the after shout that rings
For them who smote the power Of kings
The swelling triumph all would share,
But who the dark defeat would dare
! 1t were IN enviei fate, we deem,
| To live land recorded theme,
When We are in the tomb
We, too, might yield the joy Of home,
And waves OF winter darkness roam,
And tread . shore of gloom
| Knew all those waves through coming time,
Should roll our names to every Cline
! But no glad vision burst in light,
|; Upon tho Pilgrims sching sight;
Their hearts no proud hereafter swelled
Deep shadows veilsd the way they held"
And yet how they walk to-day in
light along the majestic passages Of his,
tory, royal sou!s-all younger genera.
tons applauding! They have but be,
gun to influence mankind. Their first
colony one hundred and eighty in three
years, five hundred in fifteen, and now
their descendants are third Of our thir-
ty millions ofpeople. Their ideas have
leavened the confederacy. Their free
schools have gone West and South. In
our dress We are all Puritan gentlemen
Their simple harvest festival, begotten
Of piety, upon a sterile soil, has extend
ed by executive appointment and rever.
~
and even the portents of the passing
hour have not hindered its commemora
ton in the States almost without excep
ton. To what they have left behind in
principles and institutions well tested
benefcient and glorious men look, and
will, as long as the gates Of sunrise arc
open at the East, tor examples, fol
the Christian truth and municipal free
dom Of New England. Italy and Hun
gary wait. 4 profound sympathy with
her genius struggles in all patriot hearts
Tumuts and changes will yet attend the
march Of the ideas Of 1920, in the future
as in the past know that foil well
"Thc earth hath bubbles as tho water hath,
And these are OF them
Quiet resolutions take place only il
the world Of thought. There are nc
quiet ones in the world Of action
What the Puritan held and practced il
the interest of MANUFACTURING mans
condition through popular intelligence
caring for the adjacent masses, and sc
reaching out t. mankind-ani stimula
ted by the generous and holy motives o
reIigion-shall yet have universal and
unqualified application. The process
must needs be turbulent and apparently
destructive, at least in part. The dir
that attends the builders work, and the
fragments that lie strewn like ruins abou,
{ it, only show how great and noble
structure is rising. The result is to be
that freedom, knowledge, fraternity and
faith-the Puritan's four grand ideals
STALL bless yet all peoples and races o.
men. then the worM will honor thi.
great recorded example. Aud when the
structure of democratic civilization il
complete, no names shall stand craven
higher on it's memorial tablets
shall be mere brightly blazoned on the
banners of Truth, Freedom and Right
flying wide and triumphant in every
breeze-than those Of the Fathers or
|. NEW ENGLAND.
The most radical vindcation of their
great fundamental principle ever uttered
came from the lips of the first living
statesman of New York, and the mos,
admirable defence Of their usages in
morals and manners is among the writ