The Cecil Whig., 1886-01-02
R'"'"'s A"ssao's. fiction.
THE OLD-FASHIONED MAN OF GOD,
A Speech Delivered by the Rev. DR.
John R. Paxton,
At the Dinner Given by the New England
Society, New York, December 22nd,

At the Dinner Given by the New England
Society. New York, December 22nd,
1855.
Mr.. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF
THE NEw ENGLAND SOCIETY: The
Puritan is dead-dead as old Grimes
and as absolete as his steeple-crown
hat and belted tunic. He will not
come to life again in this generation.
The next reckoning day for this world
will be set by the Nihilst and COM
munard-not by the Puritan, who
feared God, loved liberty, hated op-
preston, and put his foot on the necks
of PROSTATE kings in the name of the
Lord of Hosts, enfranchising consci-
ence and making an end of star cham
bers. Applause. Fashions come
and go-never long the same-in re-
llglon or in women's hats. Laughter.
The old Puritan has disappeared for a
time. The Cavalier, the good fellow,
maypoles, Mikades, the Greek nature
in man, the Pompellan instinct, Adonis
and Falstaff and poetry are on top
again. And the weaver who sang
psalms and conquered at Naseby and
Marston Moor-well, he is under now.
Time has done what the chivalry of
Europe, and the fangs of wild beasts,
and the tomahawks of savages, and
the long winters of an inhospitable
wilderness could not do-eliminated
the Puritan and rendered him obsolete
at last, a rare relic, an exceptional sur
vlval, not present fact and a con-
trolling force.
We have been living a good long
time in this century on his transmitted
virtue, but it is almost exhausted. Oc-
casionally one can hear faint echo of
his iron creed and uncompromising
conyictions,-in the halls of Congress
or in an outot-the-way pulpit; but
that is allan echo. His name sur
wives in innumerable households in
New England, but the old nature is
largely lost. There was good deal
of Puritan fibre in the land in 81, but
money is on top now, not civic duty.
The souls it fortified in patriotism and
valor flew up to God from Gettysburg
and the Wilderness, leaving skeletons
to bleach under the sighing tops Of the
tall Virginia pines.
The Puritan has passed. Harvard
is clamoring for optional prayers, and
compulsory football and boating.
Laughter. Andoyer, his last strong
hold against encroaching heresy and
degenerate Harvard, shows signs of
capitulation, rings hollow to the old
creed, and is superseding the narrow
gauge road to Heaven with double
tracks and second class coaches at
tached for the heather. Well. why
complain or lament? "God fulflls him
self in many ways We cannot
breathe through Miles Standisn's lungs.
We cannot put seventeenth century
wine into nineteenth century bottles.
20 build Gothic cathedrals one must
know the Gothic mind saturated with
awe and reverence. To be Puritans
we must have the Puritans' environ
ment and the Puritans' Sinaitic Cod
and tight grip on Him too, which
we have not. Ulysses has gone on his
wanderings and there is no one left to
bend the magic bow. The Puritan
has passed-for Andover is tinkering
his creed. A Bishop in surplice is
dedicating his statue with prayer in
Central Park, and his grandsons are
voting the Democratic ticket and
marching with Tammany Hall. laugh
ter and applause. "The whirligig of
time brings in his revenges." The
Puritan is like virtue, which everybody
praises, but which few practice. We
admire the Puritan-we eat terrapin
and drink champagne and have jolly
good time once year over his glorious
achievements and granite manlness
laughter but we do not live his life
or emulate his deeds. He is dead in
this generation. Science, art, scepti-
cism, culture, sweetness and light"
have whacked away at him with chisels,