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

loyalty to duty which was voiced in these
few lines of Emerson:
Though love repine and reason chafe,
There comes a voice without reply,
lis mans perdition to be safe,
When for the truth he ought to die.'
Puritanism breathed in their lungs, ran
in their veins, quivered in their nerves,
and was buiIded into their characters. The
rock of New England hills got into their
constitutions and made them men whom
it was safe to tie to. The nation itself, I'M
der the imperialism of conscience and hui
manity and civic righteousness is the proud
moment to the Puritan spirit. I say if
Puritanism produces men like these, may
God give us more of it. These sons of
the Pilgrims hove lone the l~oftiest think
ing of the nation. This spirit it is which
has fused the sacred elements and made
one republic out of many races. 1t has
taken the manly Swede, therobust Scotch
man, the hardy Irishman, the strong HUI
g%uenots, the gentle Quaker and the broad
German and fused them all into anew race
which is the American race and this spir-
it which crossed the sea in the MayfoWer
was so strong and comprehensive that
v Il - LIN &SR> SAO
we'll forth defence ofth new nation when
Washington, the Virginia cavalier, be-
came the leader and defender of the infant
states of America. These men wrought
with their eye on the future. They were
men of vision. They had the imaginative
quality. The strength of the Puritan spir-
it blossomed into poetry''Evangeline, "and
''Tales of a Wayside Inn" and ~''Thanatop-
sis" in Lowell's "Present Crisis" and in
the bugle call of our Quaker poet:
IA lamb in temper with a lions hearth
who dared confront the shifting and spe-
cious policy of his contemporaries with
words like these that burn and pierce:
"God forgive the miserable politicians who
gamble for office with dice loaded with
human hearts," 1t blossomed into anti
slavery sentiment in "The Bigelow Papers,
''The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' and
in "Uncle Toms Cabin" A confederate
brigadier- generalIsaid that Lee surrendered
to Mrs. Stowe at Appomattox. 1t bios
somed into oratory in Wendell Phillips
in whose veins ran the bluest blood of
New England, when 'with Concord and
Lexington Juggling at his his heart" he
arose in Fanuel Hall to buk those who
applauded the murder of Lovejoy, and
said: "When / heard the gentleman lay
down principles which placed the rioters,
incendiaries and murderers side by side
with Otis and Hancock and Adams, l
thought those pictured lips would have
broken into voice to rebuke the recreant
American, the slanderer of the dead. "Who
are we that we laugh at the old faith or the
old morals? How often does one glance
at our national legislature take all the
conceit out of us, and compel the remem-
brance that thirty-five years ago Abraham
Lincoln said there was intelligence enough
in every northern regiment to fill both
houses of Congress! What would he say
if he could look in upon some modern leg
i stature? In America we are fond of say
ing that the old Revolutionary struggle
was over the injustice of taxation without
representation. How often now are we
reduced to the extremity of taxation
with Misrepresentation" Noble and splen-
did as our history has been, we tremble
over the result of legislative incompetency.
And this inability in a peoples leaders al
ways argues degeneracy in themselves.
That Puritan, Wendell Phillips, said: ga
nation is judged by the men whom it
crowns" And Lowell declared, "They en-
slave their children's children who make
compromise with SIM" Our sketch of the
Puritan would be incomplete If we did not
mention his love for education. In this
he has been preeminent. The genius of
Puritanism is enlightened. 1t has builded
our great colleges and stretched the long
line of their children as a belt of light
away from the rock at Plymouth to where
the waves of the Pacific beat against the
Golden Gate. The Puritans trusted the
power of MONDAY ruth. "They reverence
ed the Sabbath, and practised that law
alone, of all the codes of time, ordains for
labor ffty-two holidays in every year, and
they proved that God VIII bless the land
where every week is ounded on the west
by rest and prayer" 1t was the Puritan
spirit whose beacon fires guided the black
men through the wilderness of slavery
and pointed them to the North Star, the
star of hope. 1t was that spirit which
spoke through Garrison's printing-press
and through his lips when he said, 81 will
not retreat, and I will be heard" 1t was
that which beat down the institution of
slavery and added the Thirteenth Amend
ment as the great successor of the Magma
Chrata and the Declaration of Independ-
ence. Such is Puritanism and Pilgrimism!
grant that this nation may never
any future into which Plymouth
Rock cannot be built unhewn." Consci-
ence, that echo of Gods imperial voice;
liberty, that great watchword emblazoned
on the banner of the Republic; equality,
that imperial doctrine of the Declaration;
intelligence, that safeguard of a govern
ment founded uDOn universal suffrape.