The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1885-07-06
INDEPENDENCE DAY.
A Very Tame Celebration in the
City.
Report of the Proceedings Here and
and at Sebago.

REPORT OF the proceedings Here and
and at Sebago.
Independence Day was the quietest known
in Portland for years. Even the small boy
seemed to lose courage and to explode his
crackers in a tame and lstless manner. The
innovation on custom as regards the ringing,
or failure to ring the bells, met with the
hearty approval of those who have never yet
COMPOUNDED noise with patriotism, and who
were glad to see that even in the old cradle
OF liberty, Philadelphia, this year, the Fourth
could be observed without the death of all
the sick people in the city. Per contra
what was really fitting observance of the
Fourth-the exercises in CityHall- but
small audience, although the Grafton by
DR.. Hill was one of the best ever heard in
the city, and the music by the double quar-
tette specially fine
The public generally flung out their flags
Saturday, and the display was larger than
usual, as many had laid in stock for en-
campment week. With this exception. and
the lannon's salute at noon and sunset, there
was little to distinguish the Fourth from
Sunday
AT CITY HALL.
The exercises at City Hail. as we have
SAID, were very attractive The front of the
platform bore strip of bunting with the
words Liberty under the Law" which was
the subject of DR.. Hills Grafton. Mayor
Deerlng presided. DIR. Carruthers in his
prayer prayed that Gen. Grant, in his noun
tain home, may be preserved and made
strong If in accordance with the Divine
will, and that through Christ he may be
much more than conqueror in his last earth
ly battle. Mr.. George C. Burgess read the
Declaration OF Independence remarkably
well, and the double quartette sang the vari-
GUS patriotic airs with good taste and express
sion. HimmePs Battle Prayer was parti-
cularly well sung, given with much feeling
and delicate shading. The grand chorus to
Grant, written by Comrade Il. M. Butler of
custer Post, Missouri, words by Miss Ida
Scott Taylor was very pleasing compost
ton.
DIR. DR.. Hills Grafton we cannot print in
full, but afford the following abstract:
The distinguished naturalist who came to
our, shores about forty years ago, and gave
such wonderful impulse to scientific study
among our people, speaks, somewhere. of the
great example which the astronomers have
set to the students of other sciences. The
astronomers have devoted century after cen
fury to the study of the movements of very
few simple bodies and have been rewarded.
century after century, for their simple fidel.
Ivy, by the discovery OF numerous, intercon-
nected, far-reaching truths ;opening views of
the grandest and most sublime beauty
Inc same thing might justly be said of the
moral and political sciences AS the most
wonderful and interesting results of modern
astronomy are, after all, mostly connected
with the very same SUN and moon and
planets which the Chaldean astronomers
studied before Abraham went into Canaan.
so the most intricate questions of our modern
Jurisprudence, Craftsmanship and political
economy are, after all, dependent for their
evolution upon the very same fundamental
conception Of rights and duties, clearly an
nouneed In the ancient Hebrew scriptures as
for example in that wonderful poem of I'M
known antiquity, the book of Job. And as,
IN the observatory of today, the patient as
tronomer still finds his richest rewards in
turning his wonderfully improved instru
ments upon the very same stars and planets
that were faithfully watched by the trained
naked eye OF the ancients, so he that would
be wise today on the great themes of social
order and government must still patiently
consider the old first principles of human
nature. the old axioms of right and obliga
ton which occupied the thoughts of the
earliest sages.
The principles of human nature remain the
same to-day that they were at the beginning,
1t is often asserted that all species Of organ
lzed being are flowing and mutable; man
among tne rest Yet, practically, this fails
OF Yerlhcatlon. Great as the difference NAV
be between the domesticated varieties Of
plants and animals, and the wild species. the
eye OF the botanist and of the zoologist easily
detects In any fragment of the solid frame of
the. domesticated kinds the characteristics
which stamp them as identical with the wild
ones. In like manner we find human nature
III all Its great varieties of individual. family
and national character, still having unity
winch not only binds all the present existing
races together, but which binds them to ali
the past, as far back as human records 90.
even into the stone ages, and among the ear
~ troglodytes. Indeed, it is upon this unity
OF nature, IN ourselves and in our ancestry,
that the possibility of progress is founded.
History, it is said, is philosophy teaching by
example; but example has force and value
only to those who have like nature, and
IKE powers with the exemplar. The value
of education is that it lifts the Individual IN
to the inheritance of all the experience of the
race; and those long ages of experience ac-
qulre their value from the fact that we are
continually to-day repeating the experience
OF our earnest ancestry. An author of our
shown that the temptation of Adam and Eve.
in Eden, was substantially the same tempta-
ton as that which, in varied FORMS besets
each one OF their descendants to the present
hour.
From this sameness of human nature and
human experience history and biography ac-
qulre their interest and value. was reading
the present week, the public utterances Of
ANDREW JACKSON, his messages and procla-
nations, during his eight years of adminis
tratlon. They recalled to me, not only the
intense political excitement of his time.
when was first myself beginning to take an
interest IN public affairs but found In them
mncn that seems wonderfully appropriate to
later timpg | wall hor no IA
lull OF party luminosity, and the unanimity of
enthusiastic approval produced by his proc
lamatlon OF December II, 1882; and as read
only four days ago.. that proclamation, /
and widely circulated in 1S60-61; and /
thought that other passages might fifty have
been used last week in welcoming the honored
guests of our city, who had in the terrible
storm OF 81 to %, so fully realized the full
filment of Jackson's predictions.
was, not very long ago, reading an or
alton far older than jackson S proclamation
It was an Grafton of Lysias, written about
2 2sGT y years ago, in honor Of those who had
fallen, years before, in defence of Athens
and liberty. This Greek Grafton was. both
IN its faults and its excelencies, so exactly
like our American oratory, that am per
suaded that a free translation of it. with a
simple change OF the names of places and
persons, might have been delivered before
almost any assembly in our country, gathered
to celebrate this anniversary, without raising
even suspicionsof its origin. 1t contains the
same praise of our fathers, the same eulogv
on democratic forms of government the
same exaltation in the greatness of our coun-
try, and its glory, which used to be the in
variable characteristics of a Fourth of July
Grafton. ..The Athenian was like the ty-
pical American, always rejoicing in the sense
of his freedom.
The rejoicing is rational, for liberty is the
peculiar prerogatiye and honor of manhood:
and that government is best which secures
to its subjects the largest and most unre-
stricted freedom. The matter is, however.
more complex than it may at first appear
and we shall do well if we initiate the as
tronomer's patient study of a few simple OBJ
jects, by patiently examining this question of
personal liberty; and endeavoring to deter
mine in what manner the largest and most
unrestricted freedom may be secured
Man is, in one sense of the word, free by
nature; and must inevitably, by the condf-
tons of his existence, continue SO. The very
essence of human nature is, that man has a
limited power of originating, freely, his own
actions; of determining his own ends; in
that spiritual power consists his likeness to
his Maker This is the fundamental con-
ception of a moral agent and nothing short
of idiocy, insanity, or humiliation, can rem
der man other than moral agent Both
conscience and consciousness are emphatic
in declaring our moral freedom We are.
thorafora ra thar IN innuira oonoar,,;,r, 49,