New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-12-23
FOREFATHERy DAY.

true significance if only we can dlscoVerlt' IN
fortunately, we make these holidays so much
affairs of routine that we are apt to forget the
reason of our celebration, just as devout
man might keep q saints day without know
ing whether tie martyr to whom it is assigned
by the calendar was burned or decapitated.
The popular notion Of the Puritan happens to be
wrong in almost every respect. lie is supposed
tohave been liberal in religion, and he came un-
pleasantly near to being bigot; he is thought
to have been devoted to civil liberty In our
modern sense of the word, and yet he was so
Biblically theocratic that when he wanted
code he did little more than reenact the code
of Moses. A glamour of poetry has been
thrown over him, and yet he read no poetry
except q poor version of the Psalms OF
David, and would have thought 1T carnal 10
have given o rein the least loose to his I'M
agination. He is credited with an uncommon
degree of intellectual culture, yet he shrunk
from nothing so much as from the domination
of the unsanctifed intellect. He Is thought OF
affectonately, and yet he had no personal
eraces. To him our Democratic opinions are
referred, yet unquestionably he would have
regarded them with adherence. Finally, ours
write and deliver panegyncs upon piety
which we cannot practice, and would not prac-
tice if we could. Why, then, is the Puritan so
enshrined in the popular hearth Why do we
eat annual dinners in his honOr2 There are
two answers to this question, differing, Oh
course, in their pertinence and importance.
In the first place, every people desires demi-
gods, and is prone, for want of better, some
times to manufacture them out OF slender
material. Naturally we who are, nationally
considered, a young and unlegendary people,
mako the most of our central historical
figures, and would have our modern antique
as ancient as possible. Hence our process OF
canonlzation is uncOmmonly rapid; we extern
porize Pan theOn, and thrust into 1t not,
perhaps, the greatest of men, but simply such
as we can command. These not long departed
ones are near enough to our own day to be
prosaic, and yet far enough off to admit OF
poetical color land exaggeratiOn. What mist
Time has not evoked for our heroes, we suffer
tradition to supply for them and they move
about to our eyes as gigantic as If they were
the warriors or sages of Homer or of Ossian.
Tie Pur1tans are tarthest away and, partly
for this reason and partly because of their
than our Revolutionary heroes whose grand
children we may have taken by the hand. We
may make little jokes about Washington, but
the Bradfords the Aldens, and the Standishes
are too massive for our levity.
Mainly however the Puritan is respected
because, in spite of many human frailties, his
sincerity commands our respect. He belonged
to the class of good healthy fanatics without
whose occasional presence it would be either
impossible to live in the world, or it would
not be worth living in. His very vices were
better than much which we fondly call virtue
Whether he was right or mistaken, whether
we can or cannot pray as he prayed, or be-
leve as he believed, we are compelled to adj
mire the sincerity Of his applications and the
tenacity with which he chung, through good
hap and bad, to his honest convictions. We
who find it so hard to have faith in anything
except our doubts, may well look back with
wonder upon the spectacle Of men who really
believed that they had found the truth, and,
for life or for death, were resolved to abide
by it. 1t would be well for us if O man or
two of the Puritan sort were still vouchsafed
to us; but tho breed is pretty much extinct.
How many human beings are there in New
York this morning who would go to the gall
lows or even to the Tombs for the sake either
of religious or q political opnion7 How
many are there who would leave land and
home and become the unsheltered den
liens of an Arctic desert to vindi-
cate their idea of ecclesiastical polity
not perhaps the most important thing
in tho world until persecution has made it so 2
How many are there who would suffer hunger,
and nakodness and pestience for the falth
which Is in them, if haply there should be any
faith in them to suffer for The reader of
these lines probably knows many men and
wOmen-dOes he know one who would undergo
burning or beheading for his or her Credo or
Non Credo2 1t will be said that we live in
an age of liberation; but what manner of pro-
fessor or confessor is he to whom error is toll
cradle In one of DR.. Swift's slvagest verses,
Jove, upon the Day of Judgment, is repre-
scented as declaring it beneath his dignity to
damn such parcel of fools. The fool of this
bitter irony is the man incapable of intense
and earnest belief and, whatever may be
said of his descendants, such a man the Puri-
tan was not Did it never occur TO the indig-
nant reader Of history that it must have re-
quired o good deal of moral courage to hang
Quakers, to burn witches, or to deny salvation
to the nOn-electq OF course, bigotry may be,
considered in another way, terrible mistake,
as we frankly admit; but so is our tepid non
belief mistake and mournful one. What
to us is this OF that form Of prayer, if we
never pray at ALI What this or that creed,
if we practically believe all creeds an absurd
ityf If you would know how highly man
estimates that which he has accepted as