Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-01-09

their white-crowned fortresses. 1t was the
! Puritan spirit which Lorenzo de Medici
saw in Jerome S%avonarola and trembled
1T famed in the burning Of John Huss at
Constance. Wycliffe gave new glory to
that spirit in his sublime sacrifice at Lut-
terworth. At last the Renaissance which
opened the brain to the new Ideas that
were rocking human society and calling
for acceptance was its champion. The
p~rinting-preas was it's ally. The telescope
and the compass helped on the movement.
The discovery of a continent opened an
asylum for the oppressed and provided a
stage where the dreams of the refOrmers
might become realities. The time was
ripe when that Puritan Luther stood forth
as the chief champion and incarnation of
the new thought and life of the-church,
and through him Puritanism, or that
which is the same thing, the Reformation,
was born.
On May 20, 1860, the old parliament army
was drawn up on Black Heath to swear al
legience to Charles II and then be muster
ed out. D~isbanded and scattered, they
would march no more! Can it be that they
will march no more? They will march for
evermore! Their soul will go marching on.
Their spirit severed from their'bodies is in
vincibIe. They Will rally again amid new
scenes and for a new cause. That spirit
will stand fire at Lexington Green and it
will be behind the embattled farmers gun,
the discharge of which will be heard
around the world. 1t will repulse the red
coats at Bunker Hill. It will line the
stone walls OF the Boston Road; in shirt
sleeves and with bare heads it will snatch
the fintIocks by the barrel to turn defeat
to victory along the British line of march.
Il cannot understand" said an English
man, standing at Bunker Hill, ''why you
make such a fuss over that monument; we
won the fight" eyes," answered the
American, "but we kept the hill" 1t was
the Puritan spirit of Marston Moore that
sent the husband of Molly Stark from
Londonderry to Bennington, and that, by
the command of the great V~ermonter,
babe Ticonderoga surrender l"In the name
of the great Jehovah and the Continental
Congress" It was Puritan grit that
breathed in the great soul of Sam Adams.
It was Puritan valor that won our battles
on the sea. It was Puritan determination
that smote home at Monmouth and Tren-
ton, that endured in patient heroism the
long and terrible winter at Valley Forge,
that finally ended British rule when the
sword of CORVALLIS was passed to Wash
ington at Yorktown, and it was the Pur-
itan spirit which at last made possible that
liberty which runs along every bar and
shines out Of every star on our national
Wherever her III have gone,
thence hat spirit of Puritan love of right
and freedom-down to the clench at Get
tysburg and Chickamauga, to Hampton
Roads and Mobile, until century replied to
century and the fight at Dunbar found its
sequal and successor at Appomattox. This
is the continuity of history, and these are
the descendants of the saints in Caesars
household. They were men of God.
Theirs was a religion that could bear trans
planting. It was their belief that it was
the privilege of every man to dwell in I'M
speakable intimacy with Goo and that all
medium of communication and dissolution
set up by pope and prelate were not only
useless and cumbersome, but positively
displeasing to Almighty God. In the elo-
quent and ever to be remembered words of
Macauley: ssThey rejected with contempt
the ceremonious homage which other sects
substituted for the free worship of the
soul. Instead OF catching occasional
glimpses Of the Deity through an obscur-
ing veil, they aspired to gaze full on his
intolerable brightness. and to
with Him face to face. Hence originated
their contempt for terrestrial distinction.
X \ x They esteemed themselves rich
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent
in a more sublime language,-nobles by
the right of an earlier creation, and priests
by the imposition of a mightier hand"
They were not invertebrate men. Their
convictions were not made of India rub
Der. Their morality was not of the jelly
fish variety. Their theology did not re-
gard God as a doting grandfather. 1t is a
shame for a man to crawl into a home,
into a government, into comfort, into
wealth and into liberty, and then find
fault with the Puritans because they were
a little straight-laced. If they buttoned
their jackets rather tight, it was that they
might be ready for business. 1t is true
that they did not find their pleasures in
the variety theatre or in the yellow COW
cred novel, or in a fashy dress. Their hap
piness came from a deeper and mightier
source; their peace flowed deep and strong
from beneath the throne, pure and fresh as
the river of God.
I know it is fashionable for some mod
ern literary men to disparage our fathers
and to hold up their Deficiencies for the
of a generation of degenerate sons
of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. That is
their opinion. l respect 1t, but L still adj
here to my own Judgement. An eminent
Judge once said to Daniel Webster On a
d;rnr1+od noint of lam II ord Clarendon