The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-09-09


| notions of temperance in some things, ever
dreamed of total abstinence from all that in
| toxicates. No people then, though they had
seen and covered at the lghtning's fash eve,
dreamed that our dwellings could be safely
lighted by its brilliant chandeliers or that il
could be made to take the place of the sun in
our streets and to send our messages around
the world as rapidly as light if not as thought
So while our ancestors had crude notions oi
religious liberty, such as did not conflict with
| their own views still actual, genuine civil and
| religious liberty in all it's comprehensiveness
had never dawned upon their minds, or those
| of any other people; and we might as justly
| charge them with evils which have resulted
! from the absence of total abstinence, or the in
conveniences and want of facilities which the
present knowledge of electricity has overcome,
| as to hold them responsible for the conse-
| quences of their notions of liberty. They came
| to the wilderness to establish cultivate and
| enjoy unabated their own conscientious views,
and resorted to all expedients to protect them
| selves therein. For many of their acts looking
toward such protection, measured by the
standards of this last part of the 10th century,
| we find no justification. But considered with
| the history of their times, the circumstances
| which surrounded them. their character, stu
| alton, wants, the enemies they had to en-
counter, the fruits of their acts, their unprece-
| dentedly rapid advancement, their prodigious
success-and he is bold man who would dare
| declare that their plan as it was developed by
their unquestioned self sacrifice, their
| patience, long suffering and unshrinking cour-
! age, did not disclose great practical wisdom.
They were no amateurs; for the real tough
| untamed spirit of what is now the foundation
| of our civil and religious institutions, was in
| Il ,1a +bo,~ fault voro
the suckers which sprouted out from the main
trunk of their virtues cultivated to an extreme
extent, they improved on all those SO called
radical reformers who push their particular
truths out to their utmost logical conclusion.
regardless of other equally great truths; for
our ancestors promulgated along with their
extreme religious views, those educational and
free civil rights which, based on like authority,
run parallel Herewith, and have proved pow
erful antidotes thereof
Pure Christianity could not, of course, be
expected among men of such times. AS that
crystal spring of water is pure and hmpld
when it bubbles from the crevice of the rock
up there on the side of Pixies Hill, but as 1t
overhows its basin and trickles along down the
hill. it takes on the color and taste of the
soluble earthly substances through which 1t
flows and percolates; so the Christian religion,
5OeAAS~
mon on the mount since it is something
concerning which mankind not only reasens
but hopes and fears, loves and hates takes on
the hue of the mind and heart, through which
it comes. For in the language of the auto
crat of the breakfast table, "Whatever comes
from the brain, carries the hue of the place
it comes from, and whatever comes from the
heart. carries the heat and color of its birth
place"
Nor were all who were classed among the
Puritans of the colonial or later age, necessa-
rily good and sincere men. No one has oc-
casion to question the deep sincerity OF sect
when few in number and prescribed; for as
persecution and suffering were essential TO
make perfect the sinless one, so the same DIS
ciplne purifies and develops the virtues OF
sinful man; but when its numbers have be-
come the swollen majorities of COM
munity and its power and influence have
become established, and its short
sighted devotees hold out to the
world its favor as the stepping stone and high :
way to honor or wealth, worldlings enter lis
fold, learn its language, outwardly conform to
its ritual but that with the heart and charac-
ter of such even in our own time, its princl-
pies have but little to do our State prison fully
bears witness.
But admitting everything that respectable
historical authority has ever laid to the charge
| of the puritans in New England, and it is
| but dust in the balance compared with the
meeting house, the school house, and the town
| house, and their respective fruits, free altar,
| free lips and free famity,--and how quick the
stains bleach out and disappear No people
| can Withhold the most grateful remembrance OF
such incalculable services, even if those who
rendered them, like the great king of Israel,
had "some stains of the times about them. /"
You are the descendants of this race of mighty
ideas. Are you as good as they and worthy
sons of worthy siress Not unless you are as
much better than they as your great opportu-
mites ought to make you.
Although the early settlers or Norway be-
longed to the revolutionary and constitutional
age which was the beginning of our national
manhood, they were the descendants OF the
colonial period, which has been denomlnated
'sthat charmed, eventful infancy and yonth OF
our national life While they look upon the
towns which they created as 1.-THE unit OF the
government, prior to and behind the town was
the family, and family meant something to
every inmate of it. Marriage was not then
looked upon as san egg that might addle or
hatch according to circumstances" No "do-
ting mother SHE'D her daughter" at those quasi
specimens of humanity which frolic at the top
of modern society like foam on the waves OF
the sea, known as "dudes." That fungus OF
modern growth had not then been invented.
Marriage was inspired by that "love which
educates the heart, and not by that caprice,
which when the honeymoon is passed, turns
to cold indifference which is more cruel than
hate,-a love predicated of home, were 1t ever
SO homely which made the wifely heart grow
| tender, and warm, and womanly. Ihey TOOK
| upon themselves the marriage vow without
0.&1 had
| thought other than that the union was for life
| and while they acquainted themselves with
| the rules of addition and multiplication; di-
vision, unless the division were death. never
entered their minds. The serpent of divorce
except for Scriptural cause, had not then made
| so many devious paths into the garden Of
| welded hearts, The miasma of fashion had
| not poisoned the young wife. She saw hel
| duty in being help Innate to her industrious
though poor husband and joyfully labored
| through each livelong day for their mutual
| good.
| A brief allusion to persons snd l will re-
lieve you.
| No citizen of Norway, while citizen, ever
| represented his district in Congress; none
| was ever candidate. They seemed not to be
| fully aware that an NJ. G. was. otherwise than
ca o6fcio, the greatest as well as the best man
| IN MS ulStIlCLs 4NO OlO Va ehSAAA SNS~S~ -
realize that the district could not longer sur
vive without such self sacrifice on his
| part as to ''allow his friends to urge his can
didacy"
could name fifty men whom I found her'
in 1S4S, of middle age or more, who, IN my
opinion, based upon quite an extensive ac-
| auaintance throughout the State, would com
pare favorably with like number selected II
any other town of the same population. Som'
of them have faithfully and intelligently fllet
important offices in this county as well as IL
legislative and executive departments of tn
State; and very many of them SO carefully
discreetly and intelligenty performed tn
complicated and important duties of tow
officers, that the name of Norway nowher
appears in any of the II volumes of Main
Reports.
should like to briefly sketch the charac
tiers of each of these men and show the pres
ent generation how, in various ways, they witt
others who could never be induced to hold an,
public office, have impressed their characte
and salutary influence upon the town throug
its municipal management,-demo b
the absence of any embezzlement of publ
funds,-in its commercial business, its churche
| educational and reformatory institutions
whose influence will live, speak and be uncon
sciously felt, long after their names shall nav
passed from the memory of the generation
But time will allow brief allusion to but thre,
The image and character OF one of these al
engraved upon my heart and memory wit