Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1870-10-08
New England.

The history of NV England is written i'm
perishably on the face Of a continent, and in
characters as benefcent as enduring In the
Old World, national pride feeds itself with
the records of battles and conqucsts, battles
which proved nothing and settled nothing;
conquests which shifted boundary on the
map and put one ugly head instead Of another
on the coin which the people paid the tax
gatherer But wherever the New Highlander
travels among the sturdy Commonwealtbs that
have sprung up from the seed of the May
flower, churches, schools, colleges, tell him
where the men of his race have been, or their
influence penetrated; and an intelligent free
dom is the monument of conquests, whose re-
suits are not TO he measured in square miles.
Next u the fugitives whom Moses led out of
Egypt, the little ship load of Outcasts who
landed AT Plymouth two centuries and half
ago are destined to influence the future of the
world. The spir tual thiTs.s of mankind have
for ages been quenched at Hebrew fountains
but the embodiment in human institutions of
truths uttered by the Son of Man eighteen
centuries ago, was to be mainly the work of
Puritan thought, and Puritan selfdevOtiOn.
Leave New England out in the cold While
you are plotting it. she sits by every fire-sidc
| in the land where there is piciy, -l...re and
| free thought.
Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work.
| This is the short formula im which VIC may
sum up the teachings of the founders of New
England, "A creed ample enough for this life
and the next. If their municipal regulations
smack somewhat of judaism, yet there can he
no nober aim or more practical wisdom than
theirs; for il was To make the law af man
living counterpart of the law of God, in the
highest conception of it, Werl they too earn
est in the strife 10 leave their souls alive =
| This is sti the problem which every wise and
brave man is lifelong IN solving. Ii the Devil
tai kes a less hateful shape to us than TO our
| FAITH rs, he is as busy with us as with them
| and if we cannot find il in our hearts 10 break.
with gentleman of so much worldly wisdom,
who gives such admirable dinners, and whose
manners are so prrlect, so much the worse for,
u.s.
Looked at on the out side. New England
history is dry and unpicturesque There Is no
rustic of silks, no waving OF plumes, no clink
of golden spurs. Our sympathies are not a.
wakened by the changeful destinies, the rise
and fall of great families, whose doom was in
their blood. Instead of this we have the
homespun fatcs of Cephas and Prudence re-
peated in an infinite series of peaceable same
ness, and finding space enough for record In
the family Bibles we have the house OF axe
and saw, an apOthensis of dogged work, where
reversing the fairy tale, nothing is len TO luck,
and if there is any poetry IL is something that
cannot be helped-the waste OF water over
the dam.-LOteeU among my Books. p
Webster, Clay and CahOrn gave their lives
and talents to public life, and were rewarded
with great fame and all bat the highest oftice.
If they were disappointed, the moral is not
that republics are ungratefu!, but that the per
sonal ambition Of public men is inordinate.
The testimony of Mr.. Greeley has been given
upon this subject in little speech. He says !:
"I wish to give my testimony as that Of one
nearly sixty years of age, and who for forty
years has been actively engaged 10 political
strife, aud that without holding ONCE or at
tanning wealth or position that feel that my
career has been satisfactory one" ~.
f, Harper's Na2aziss.
f...I