Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-12-29
THE PURITAN MINIS TER.

ABSTRACT OF PROF. HOWARD'S ADDRESS
AT The FoREFArHERS' CELEBRATION.
"Puritanism is older than the Emancip
ton proclamation colder than the Declala>
ton of Independence colder than that SUI
emn Landing Oh the lonesome shore Of Ply
mouth bay. 1t is older than the reign Of
Elizabeth and antedates the Reformation
two hundred years. 1t goes far back to
the dim old days when Wycliff gave Il
Bible to the waiting world aud the lean
and haggard Lollards paced with solemn
steps the ways of England. And older,
too, if we seek the root of the matter;
for ruritanism is grounded in the Anglo
Saxon character and came to England
when the world was young with tho e
old pilgrims from the German woods.
Individual independence was always the
fundamental principle of the Teutonic
character. Their chiefs gained their
leadership, not with club, but by the
suffrage of the people. They believed
themselves to have all descended from the
gods, and kings were made, not born.
And all along the tangled way the
English race has fought, stern-eyed,
whte-faced for liberty. Wyclitl' was
the voice of one crying in the wilder
ness, so that when the Reformation
really came it found fruitful soil in
England. There was the genius of the
people whose birthright was individual
liberty. There was the memory of re-
cent contests for civil rights and the
traditions of the race. There vas a
devout and thoughtful people with an
open Bible and sober faith. The Re-
formation came. and in that great epoch
the minds oil men expanded into grand
err and truer life. Religion was the
central idea of the age, and the thought
of all men who thought at all took
on the lift of high and holy themes. The
Bible, as never before, became the tesla
ment of God. 1t was was read III public
and great crowds flocked to hear the
wonders of the revelation. 1t was read
in private and became the talisman of
the fireside. 1t was in an age without
literature, and the Bible became the
| fountain of philosopy to the rugged
minds of men who thought, while the
imagery of the Hebrew scriptures filled
their meagre lives with beauty never
known before. In that strange atmos-
phere, where God and heaven and hell
and the immortal soul were the all-ob-
sOrbing themes, meas minds took on a
sober manner and their speech solemn
tone. Then Bloody Mary came and filled
all England with the ashes of the saints
And so some went to heaven, and some
to Switzerland; and life in merry Eng
land had long since ceased to be a holi-
day. But when the persecution was
over and the Joy bells were ringing for
Elizabeth the refugees returned from
Geneva and brought with them the
never failed. Elizabeth was protestant
but nonconformlty was treason; and il
was in her reign that the English Puri-
tan became a recognized element in Eng
fish politics. There are times
peculiar-times of one idea; times wher
only one weapon can be forged upon the
anvil of the world; times when men car
think of only one thing, and one sen
tence beats its endless repetition in al
mems minds. Such time followed the
Protestant Reformation. The unseer
world hung so close about them tha
the world they lived in became the
shadow only of the world to come. The
Reformation in England, where individ
ual independence and individual respon
sibility were inbred in the people, made
religion not a national issue only, but ;
matter of vital interest and supreme
consequence to every man and woman
in the land; and personal religion became
the subject that filled all mems thu ught:
and was upon all mems tongues.
These were the things that made the
Puritans and sent the Pilgrims acros;
the sea.p But the prophets of that era
the martyrs of that creed and the priests
of that faith were the Puritan ministers
Their education-for many OF
them were university men-gave to New
England the inestimable advantage of 4
generous start in learning and "A fear
|, ssness of universal education that ha:
been productive of untold blessings t.
the whole wide world"
The speaker then reviewed in detail
the achievements of the leading Puritan
divnes of the early day. He spoke il
particular of the unjust accusations made
against them and of the misconceptions
of them that exist even in our owl
time. Concluding, he said;
"Whie the Puritans built New Eng
land and New England built the nation
the Puritan ministers were the monlder'
of the whole. If whatever is dark il
our history is to be laid to their charge
so whatever is grand and good is to b'