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


graced the memories of the men who
took Ticonderoga and conquered ut
Bennington. Thus Lake Champlain and
Plat.sburg cheered the rush of Vermont
farmers to repel She British invasion of
1914. So in 1861 the gun fired on Sum
ter was heard in every hamlet in Ner-
mont. The spirits of the Green Noun
tain Boys of "the Grants" slumbering
in the caves of their mountains, seemed
to arouse to a quickened life, and Allen,
Warner and their compeers once more
to walk the earth. Every heart was
stirred with divine anger, and from
every valley, hillside and mountain-top
echoed back the responsive cry, "Since
you will have il so, so be it, and God
defend the right And so Vermont
sent forth to the fray some thirty-four
thousand of her sons, with her gift of
blessing and armor of the spirit of the
fathers, and they so fought as to make
the name of Vermont and the Vermont
Brigade historic glory, and so died to
the number of five thousand in the
shock of battle as only heroes know how
TO die.
And so the nation was saved by the
sacrificial blood of her sons-the issue of
the fratricidal strife happily solving, as
we trust the riddle of Sampson, "Out
of the eater came forth meat, and out OF
the strong came forth sweetness" the
riddle of all time-good out of evil-the
wrath of man praising God. Thus far,
in spirit of freedom and self-sacrifice, in
patriotic devotion and heroic courage, |
note no degeneracy. We are to bear in
mind that ii is the times and their me-
cessities that search out the before un-
| ldiconyara1 m N fot, fha fitnac. fhat lao
opportunity creates the man for the op-
portunity; and the great occasion makes
the man great for the occasion, who,
without such stress, would have seemed
but common clay, and have died with
out giving sign of the greatness that wa
potential in him. So it is, in the dull
times of peace and the hum-drum quiet
of easy life, the shades of the great men
of heroic past loom high, and are ell
larged to our vision by the misty dist
ance that lies between. This is well,
since it keeps alive reverence and aspi-
ration, and kindles a divine emulation
to be like them. But as there were
brave men before Agamemnon, so,
as think Vermont has had heroes since
Ethan Allen and Seth Warner; wise
governors since Thomas Chittenden;
accomplished diplomatists since Ira Al
len; able statesmen, legislators and iur-
lists since Nathaniel Chapman, if not as
great rs he.
Those improved means of intercourse
: among men and reader intercommuni-
cation of thought and knowledge, the
result OF novel inventions and new APP
plications of science which have marked
the present century and affected the ci-
: vilzation of the world, have not passed
Vermont by, and her people have there
by become less provincial, more cosmo-
politan, less peculiar people, than our
} fathers were. And vet being largely
, all agricultural people. with no very
: Iarg.. Iowns cities, with lew million
aires and few very poor, and little
chance to become rich by speculations,
we have not been tempted to stray very
far from our fathers ways of industry.
economy, simplicity of living and provi-
dence for the future. And, since we are
gathered here about the old hearth-stone,
: we may be allowed, in the freedom and
confidence of the family circle, to feici-
. tate ourselves as Nermonters, not only
, for what our fathers were, for their
} heroic lives and historic deeds and the
institutions they created and transmitted
to us, but that their posterity have so
t faithfully guarded, preserved and wisely
) improved them, and have so well kept
: alive the spirit of those institutions and
| temper of that heroic age, that education
! is free. and that we have freedom i'm re-
ligion, both moving in wider and deeper
: channels than afOretime of culture
and christian charity-that greater
softness of manners has not made us
effeminate; that we are in good degree
a temperate, sober, selfrestrained
people, standing by good order and
obedience to law, conservative and vet
, progressing, having a steadfastness that
: may be counted on, and a will of our
own; not having parted with practical
wisdom and common sense, nor vet far
departed from the religion of paving
our debts.
From this little hive and nursery of
men, how many have gone forth TO the
broader and more inviting fields of the
expanding West, to the great marts of
commerce, and wherever the spirit
of adventure has impelled, or of gain or
ambition lured, carrying with them the
temper and training of their birthplace,
and planting in virgin fields the seed
germs they gathered in boyhood upon
these mountain sides. And as we have
seen the emblematic pine tree of our
state come of such planting, towering
ofttimes above the indigenous trees OF
the land, with branches wide spreading
and royal crown of leaves, singing to
the winds the music of its ancestral
home, how proudly have we cheered
such vision, crying, Grace, grace unto
it. This seed of Vermont sowing,
wherever cast, has bourgeoned into har-
vest to the enrichment of many states
and credit to seed and sower; and we
rejoice to-day to welcome the return OF
so many of the sons of Vermont, bring
ing to our festival golden sheaves of
their culture and harvest.
One hundred years hence, when Ner-
mont shall celebrate the second centen-
NAL year of her life as state, when we
who to-day commemorate the virtues of
our historic fathers shall have long pas
sed into silence, and shall then per-
chance, by search of genealogical re-
cords, be discovered as the fathers OF
that age-alas, how few of us will have
attained other historic immortality
when search among the musty papers
of the then Vermont Historical Society,
to find record of the doings OF
this first centennial year, shall withdraw
from oblivion these poor words which
now stir the air, may they, who shall
then gather to look upon the monu-
ments which we now rear as memorials
of heroic age, as they look back over
this field of Vermont history for two
hundred years, and compare the past
with the present, find state and people
soflened by culture, yet true TO the
spirit of the primeval state and of those
who founded it-a people free, indie
pendent, intelligent, industrious, sober,
honest, conservative of the good,
aggressive toward the wrong, virtuous,
religious-a happy people whose God is
the Lord.
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