The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1877-08-24

u turned, bringing their foes captive, and
their own dead for burial. With sucl
"reminiscences of these early days and
associations of place, | am to speak tc
you, but cursorily and briefly of what
these suggest-of the New Hampshire
Grants, and of Vermont, and how this
came to be state-and somewhat OF
its characteristics hundred years ago,
and since, and now.
This land of ours, which we now call
Vermont, had before 1850 become ex-
tensively known to the men of New
England by exploration, the visits OF
hunters and the numerous military ex-
pedtions, which, started from the heart
of New England, had, for successive
years during the French and English
war, traversed it. The cession of Can
ada to Great Britain and the conclusion
of peace left these lands open for settle
ment, undisturbed by further terrors OF
French and Indian inroads. The i'll
ducements to immigration and settle
ment here, we of this age should reckon
not inviting. There were no prairies
spread out in readiness for the plow ;
no open pastures ready prepared for
sheep an oxen; no tropic climate and
fruits inviting to rest from labor and to
easy fruition; nor yet fresh discovered
gold fields to set OH fire the lust of men
and draw them as sucking whrlwind,
from the four corners of the earth, in a
mad rush to fortune-or grave; but,
on the contrary, valley and mountain
sides covered with forests which kept
out the sunlight and concealed below
their interlacing roots the possible
meadow, pasture and cornfield, but
possible only to the sweat of labor and
the pain of toll; short summers, with
frosts both late and early; long winters
bound in ice and buried in snow. But
to men like our grandsires, trained to
labor and hardship, the sons of genera
tions of men to whose axes the sight of
tree had been constant temptation,
there was nothing in the climate or
savage features of the land to
deter from following the emigrating
instinct of the race; and so long as
they could, in the minds eye, see
among the dissolving forests the COM
Portable homestead, the waving grain
field, the garden and the orchard, the
school-house, the Westinghouse, the
mill and the village, creations of their
industry, they were rather melted than
repealed by the difficulties which ma
ture had interposed in the way to such
fi'uition. With the thought of better
ing their condition, in a mere prosaic
sense, the love of adventure, the love of
the new and untried, to find what may
be in it, love of the free life of the
woods and of new society, doubtless,
added romance to the movement. Yet
1t was no Texas Or California that allur-
ed them.
Another reason for this early emigra-
ton, particularly from Massachusetts,
and Connecticut, and which prevailed
to considerable extent, partook of a
religious character, and was akin to
that whiih impelled their ancestors,
the Puritans and the Pilgrims, to leave
their homes in England for the sake of
founding church of their liking and
freedom of worship in the New Eng
land wilderness; for it is written of
these early immigrants by one of their
number that "Great numbers of the
early settlers on the New Hamshire
grants were of the sect of New Lights
or Separates, who fed from persecution
in the New England states, and found an
asylum here, where they enjoyed their
religious liberty" This persecution
spoken of came naturally of the ideas
then prevalent, that one of the func-
tions of government was to aid the
church in enforcing upon the whole
community conformity of doctrines
and worship "to the word of God'-
that is, practically, conformity to the
prevailing religious belief, that those
standards Of belief, or profession, cal
led orthodox, TO be found in certain ac-
credited platforms" Upon the New
Lights in doctrine, and The Separates
from the standing order, il bore hard
to be compelled by law to pay towards
the building of meeting-houses which
they would not attend, and to contrib
ute to the support of ministers to
whom they would not listen, and this
while sustaining unaided their own sys-
TENS of worship and teaching; and
then, if their own ministers CHANGED to
be caught preaching outside the limits
of their own parish, without orderly
invitation, to see them treated as poach-
ers or tramps, with fines or the
stocks. The religious liberty which
they enjoyed in this their asylum, they
founded and established. They stamp
ed upon their earliest church records
their reputation of the doctrine of
state interference with matters of relig-
ious doctrine and worship, and made
their plan of organization as church
charter of religious liberty. Thus in
organizing "The church of Christ in
Bennington" December 3, 1862, the
first church organization of the New
Hampshire grants, it was agreed and
voted to except, from their adoption of
the Cambridge Platform, that Sin re-
spect of using the civil law to support
the gospel" and also that part Sin re-
spect of the civil magistrates coercive
power"
What ever else may be said of the re-
ligious teachings, customs and obser-
yanccs of the New England of that day,
it cannot be denied that they trained
up people mighty in the scriptures,
schooled TO great acutcness of intellec-
tual perception by study of the meta
physics of theology, practice of its dia-
lectics, and clash of discussion of the
mysteries of religion and the entangle-
ments OF creed; and that the study of
the questions of church government
educated them to knowledge of the
principles of all just government and
their application TO the affairs ofthe state.
Bigots shall we call them? They were
indeed religious according to the law
and logic of religion, rather than in its
emotions and enthusiasms. | would
rather say of them that they were God
fearing men, and so in fear of no one
else orderly, self-restrained, though
selfreliant in thought and will, stanoh,
stable; men stiti in opposition, stout
in resistance, determined in self-de-
fence of their rights against aggression.
Though these first immigrants were
mostlf farmers, not greatly conversant
with hn0.s, save the one Book, vet
coni 9 from the then most enlightened
part of America, the heart of New Eng
land, the home of the school-house and
the meeting-house, and of those little
town democracies, training schools for
the science of popular self-govcrnment,
they were by no means rude, and had
that practical education in the common
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