Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1899-09-22

hA -N'h'n ArA-Als- lllt AAAAl &AaA N'''l'" 4
tiun ul Abraham and that II the Sacrel .
tine, the sanctihcatiou of Mount Calvary
by the worlds sublimest maytnlom;
aud Ike other towns generally in Yer
muut placed their church 81 as 10 20 up
on 60 the mountain io worship. II fur
uishes fitting representations of the
thoughts and aspirations 81 those hnu-
est. sincere men. and awakruS the lulti-
est conceptions Of their high character
and purposes. 1t also furnishes fit
type Of noble men struggling to reach
the worlds highest ideals. Ii Is still
further typical of their tolls and hard
ships, Tor the heights those men
Preached and kept
We're not attained hy sudden flight,
For they while many Others slept
Were toiling upward in the night"
They are all sleeping now, they who hut
one hundred years ago full OF life vigor,
strength and faith went up on to the
mountain to pray, trusting in God for
the temporal safety Of their homes in the
valley below, winding in and ont among
which ran trail of Savages, accustomed
to 20 up the Clyde TO Island Pond and
thence down the Nulhegan and Connect
lieut. rivers among the hahitations OF the
early settlers. They came up here to
worship with stern purposes and feelings
which have been criticised as iutolerant.
but with as healthy, hearty and intense
enjoyment of this world and its ideas
and especially of the Sublime mysteries
OF God and religion as ever warmed the
lives or inspired the hearts of their chill
dren. And now We go ioyfully up the
same mountain, lighted 10y the same sun
that shUne ON them, to commemorate
their virtues, to indulge III such memo
rial ceremonies and display such tokens
as We may of faith, hope and courage.
which if it did partake somewhat of Il
Cromwellian severity, like it it did "sift
out the deletcriouS and put the salutary
in its stead" and bring to the fathers
able serious preachers who lived godly
lives, FOR SO runs the record.
But who were these men. the honored
dead, to whose memory We have come to
do homage? Time will not permit lis
to individualizc or even to classify them.
Some forms and figures however stand
ont prominently in the twilight of the
century like May, Dana, Footc, Berry,
CuShnan and lIopkinson, and later
Dewey, FollanSby Crawford, lIartShorn.
Benton and Beattie. There were large
families here like the Ilopkinson, Rose
brook, Hubbard, Cutler, Washhurn fam
lies, and many others, furnishing those
elements of strength and fecundity SO
essential to the multiplication and re-
pleniShing of old New England The
morning light of this century dawned on
a line of families in this town composed
Of brave, hardy and rough men, good,
wholesome housewives, healthy boys and
| handsome girls, who We're abundant in
| kindness and bencyolence and who eXrr-
ciSed an mbounded hospitality, which
has never diminished even to this day.
must speak of the characteristics of
the people generally, using individuals
only as types of a class or of the whole,
Those who figured in the first half of
the century are all gone! and those of
the beginning of the last half are nearly
all gone. All, all. belong to the days
that are passed and gone Those of the
earliest days had those peculiarities char
acteriStic of the early settlers of New
England, They saw God in everything
liplll tllt vast ldilOl ANA VI tllt iltdN tlIS
to the mysterious growth of a blade of
corn, and heard Him in every voice of
nature from the deep toned thunder of
heaven to the music of birds They re-
garded His existence as automatic, aud
felt, or seemed to feel, His interposition
in human affairs; and so, whether that
be real or imaginative, they had the
strongest restraints from wr0ng-doing
and the greatest inducements to the
highest morality and even the strictest
religious lives. If the fear o hell as
a "hangmanS whip to baud the wretch
in order was brandished too much by
them it can only be said that if the
fathers went to one extreme the children
are going equi-diStant to the other. They
We're isolated, not having food of pa
pers and magazines pouring the thoughts
and impulses of the whole world upon
them morning and evening. But two
books were wide open to them, the books
Of nature and revelation, exhibiting the
purest, healthiest and most familiar
forms. Nature was to them a shrine
surrounded by woods and fields, and
watered by mountain streams up to which
men walked sturdily defying the enemies
of natures God, while in neighboring
bowers and cool shades pure, good, de.
voted and loving women bowed in meek
dependence and silent alteration in a
presence which moulded, changed fash
toned and glorifed all their lives.
"Sweet the hymns they loved to sing
Underneath that holy sky;
Words and tones that used tn hrinC