The weekly Butte record., 1861-08-17
ADDRESS OF DANIEL S. DICKINSON
Delivered Before the Literary Societies of
Amherst College. Massachusetts,,
July 10Th, IsGI.

experience in human affairs. that there ar,
principles which can never be subverted
truths which never die. The religion of {
Savior, who at bis nativity was Graded on tb,
straw pallet of desttution. who. in declaring
and enforcing his divine mission, was sustained
by obscure fishermen, who was spit upon by
the rabble, prosecuted by power and BETRAYED
by treachery to envy. has by its inherent forces
subdued civilized and conquered world not
by the tramp of hostile armies. the roar of ar
tIlery, or the stirring airs of martial music
but by the swell of the same heavenly harmo
MES which aroused the shepherds at the rock
founded city OF Bethlehem, proclaiming il
their dulcet warbings peace upon earth and
good will toward men not by flashes of con
tending steel, amidst the bad passions of the
battlefield, the shrieks Of the dying, aud the
flames OF subjugated cities, but by the glow
ing light which shot athwart the armament
and illumlned the whole heavens at his advent.
Thus was ushered in that memorable epoch in
the worlds eventful history, the Christian
era-an era which closed one volume in the
record of mans existence, and opened another
which drew aside the dark curtain of death
and degradation, exhibiting to ife's worn and
weary pilgrim along the wastes of ignorance
and barbarism, new domains of hope and hap.
plness for exploration and improvement new
fields for him 10 subdue and fertilize and reap,
and new triumphs for him to achieve in the
cause OF human regeneration. And let him
who fails to estimate the priceless value of
This divine reformation in temporal sense
alone, contrast the condition of man wherever
Christian civilization has Travelled, with peo.
pie cropping amidst the degrading darkness of
idoatry, Or bowing beneath some imposture
still more heaven-daring and impious.
Second only in interest and Importance to
the religion Of Him who spake as never man
spake, is that system of political truth which
proclaims the doctrine of mans equality, and
elevateS him in the scale of dignity to that
station which heaven destined him to fill.
For untold centuries despotsm and kingcraft
had asserted dominion over the word's
masses Every attempt to break the ietters
which held people in vassalage, had resulted
in riveting them more securely upon the limbs
Of servitude. Labor had groaned under the
exactions, and the spirit had prayed long and
fervently for dehverance but in vain The
failure of every effort to correct an organiza-
tion so false, and vicious. and cruel, and to re-
store the power swayed by the tyrannic few TO
the plundered many, had been written in hu-
man blood, until
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell
But our fathers imbued with the spirit of
liberty, which free respiration of the air OF
the new world inspired, and goaded to dospe-
ration by the exactions of oppression, rolled
the stone from the door Of the sepulcbre
where cruciied and entOmbed liberty was
slumbering, and it arose TO light and life to
cEeer, and bless, and give hope to the down.
trodden humanity of the earth to emanci-
pate the immortal mind from the slavery by
which it was degraded. They asserted the
simplest yet sublimest Of political truths, that
all men were created equal. They arraigned
at the bar of Christian world, trembling,
tyrannous, stultlfed legitimacy, while assert
ing its impious dogma of heaven-descended
rulers, and they repudiated and laughed to
scorn the fraudulent theories, base preensions
and vain ceremonlalS OF its political hierarchy.
They declared, in the broadest sense the right
Of mans selfgovernment, and his capacity for
its exercise, and sought release from proud
and naughty monarchy, that they might enjoy
upon this continent nations independence,
aud found system which recognized the
equality of men, in which their theories
were established. They trusted the future of
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
honor " to the chance of a great experiment,
and while the timid faltered, the treacherous
betrayed, the mercenary moaned, and the uu-
believing derided; far-seemg patriotism pressed
forward with an eye Of faith, upon its mission
of progress, until hope gave place to fruition
until expectation became success, until the
most formidable power of earth learned the
sautary lesson that proud nation, mighty in
armed men, and strong in the terrible mate
rial of war by sea and land, could not conquer
the everlasting truth. The experiment, so full
of promise, and yet so beset with dangers, be-
came an established fact. Like a grain of
mustard seed, sOwn in subdued faith, it shot
upward and became an overshadowing tree, so
widespread and luXuriant that the birds of the
air could rest in its branches. Would that
none of the evil-omcn had ever taken refuge
there Thus was planted the germ of liberty
in this holy land of freedom. 1t was nurtured
in the warm hearts blood of patriots and wa
tered by the tears of orphans and of widows
but for time it was tremuous and slender,
and like fail reed. it bowed before every
breeze. Oh, what invocations ascended to
Him "who tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb" for that cherished shoot, that the
winds of heaven might not visit it too rough
ly.' With the Fathers of the Revolution it
was remembered at the morning and evening
sacrifice" When its leaves withered they
mourned, and when it rejoced, they rejciced
with it." But those who planted it and
watched over its Springtime with more than a
fathers solicitude, have gone up TO lottier
courts, and repoze under the fadeless foliage OF
the tree of life. The gray-haired minister
who craved for it Gods blessings, has been
waited away like the prophet of old, in a
chariot of fire, and the children who sported
together on the grass beneath it, now slumber
with their fathers The last Revolutionary
soldier who rejoiced in its pride and told with
tears its carly trials, shouldered his crutch
and showed how fields were won," has beer
mustered into the service of his Lord and
Master, where the tramp of cavalry and the
shock of armies, the neighing of chargers and
the blast of bugles shall be heard DO more
But the slender shoot OF other times has be-
come a giant 10 the worlds extended forest
Its roots have sank down deep in earth its tor
has stretched beyond the clouds. and its
branches have spanned the continent. Its
form is graceful its foliage bright and beauti
ful, and its fruits have carried gladness tc
every quarter of the globe. The oppressed o
other lands, finding, like the wearied dove DC
rest amid the Old Worlds desoation. have
conquered the holiest instincts of the soul, TIE
love Of early home. of the birthplace, of the
dreams of childhood, of the graves of then
Lolo,-oJ Jao1 apd ,ava courht tharino