The Portland daily press., 1894-03-02
THE STAR COURSE.
The Early History of New England-Re-
cent Attempts to RehabiIitate 1t,

Rev.D Dalton opened the Star course
at Second Advent church last evening.
The Doctor said: Races and nations
make their history and then review it..
| This il difficult task. so difficult that
but fewsucceed in it, even in part To
reconstruct the history and institutions
of a graf race requires remarkable
combination of erudition, insight, imag-
ination. mpartiality. Niebuhr was the
pioneer and most successful in regard to
Rome; Grote to Greece. Italy, France,
England, America, have their standard
historians. who have been followed by
specialists cleaning the few straws which
were overlooked or dropped by the great
reapers. Even Homer has been caught
mapping, o, at least nodding, and Shaks-
peare now spells Bacon with some wise
acres. If the mistakes of Moses are
magnified, of course the errors of his
Puritan followers could not pass unchal-
lenged. These attacks have become so
common and bold as to shake the conf
dence of many accustomed to revere the
memory of our ancestors and admire
their virtues. We are now told that these
were less than generally supposed; that
they were in fact, narrow, bigoted, cruel
and well nigh contemplate characters,
undeserving of the eulogies they have re-
ceived. Tie reply is that these critics
judge them by the standards of our time
and not of their own; also that our
present standards are the outcome of
their heroic resistance to tyranny, and of
the new order which they founded here.
If they had been less cautious and firm
in their dealings with outsiders their
enterprise would have failed and their
cause with it. They made new and
wide departure from the politics and
usages of the Old World, as wide as was
compatible in one generation. The sec
ond saw farther changes, and these have
continued to our day, and are still adj
vancing.
(2) They are charged with cruelty to
the Indians. Here and there certain
persons wronged the Indians, but the
public voice was for peace and friendly
intercourse, while these were possible.
But the time came when they ceased to
be possible, VIZ, when the Indians,
alarmed for their hunting grounds,
began wars of determination.
The Pequod war, King Philips, Pom
tiac in the West and ones in the East,
are examples to the point. These wars
did, and could, cease only with the COM
plete overthrowof Indians snd whites.
Further, it is now the fashion to fatter
the French and favorably compare their
conduct with the English, especially tow
ards the Indians. The French are
great and military people. AS such they
planned the conquest of America. The
English on the coast were in their way,
and they bounded on the Indians to root
them out. In this they partly succeed
ed, costing us a quarter of our popnla-
ton and, perhaps, no place suffered
more than Portland, then known as
Casco or Falmouth.
Were the makers CT Portland wrong in
resisting them? Would it have been for
the greater glory OF God brgood of man
kind had the French and Indians sue
ceeded id frightening our. fathers away
from this Forest Cifyand fair State of
Maine? IF not, let fault finders tell how
our ancestors in the East OF West could
have acted otherwiseathan as they did.
On the main issue, the cause was just,
and the means justitiable. If New Eng
land was to be at all, and especially as
we know and have inheritedit, the foun-
ders pursued the proper course to make
it. They had, and we have, to decide
whether they or the indians, should be
masters of this. contin8nt, or rather.
whether the French. who would have
made New England and the continent
just such ascou1try as we see today in
French Canada