The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-07-06
vALEDICToRY.
Traditions of st. Mary's City.
BY CLARA B. copPERsMIrH.

..Tbe beauty which old Greece and Rome
supg painted wrought lies close at home.
We onIy need the eye, the TO trace these mark
ings of inearnate grace,
The hymns of gods to hear"
When those whom the years have taught to
love st. Marys come to bid her SO long iare-
well, as must the class of 1901 today, It IS not
strange that her scenes, so layishly adorned
by nature. seem never SO beautiful before, and
awakening to the sweetness about to be with
drawn from our lives, the heart fills with sad
sense of approaching loss, grief thai hes too
deep for tears.
Today for us is the dividing line between
the future and the past, and ere we go hence
we fain would take last fond look at our
girlhood's other home, to craven forever on
our memory each beloved feature there.
See. the familiar wooded outline, the golden
sand strip of the farther shore losing itself III
the dim blue distance, the long headlands
jutting ont picturesquely in the CLASSY mirror
of the river. the smooth slope at our feet
stretching to the nearer waters where the but
tercnps each spring renew the Field OF the
Cloth of Gold
Here, the sweet stately seclusion OF our
venerable Alma Mater sacred to the memory
of generations of scholarly women. Hard by
the little cross crowned, ivy-wreathed church,
in whose shadow the crude foretathers of the
hamlet Sleep
Over all this scenic beauty fingers the
strange atmospheric charm of history and ira
dition: that atmosphere which cannot be con-
tanned or conveyed in anything so material as
words, and all this set for US to the daily music
of birds and bells and the merry laughter of
our young companions.
The favorite haunts Of th at consecrated en-
Dc 1cfIll hv no
prints of our forefathers, shall echo to our
footsteps no more. What dreams of the future
have we dreamed there? What pictures of
the unreveaed past have we conjured up from
the msts of tradition? How often guessed
the life stories of those pathetically hidden
from US beneath the green hillocks and messy
marbles at our feet, who once, knew as we do
now, struggle and conquest, JOY and sorrow,
smiles and tears
We have tried to people again in imagina-
ton the .tAcre of God'' with the activity of
Colonial life, beating with the pulse and stir
of the little town, ringing with the sounds OF
coming and going, of buying and selling, OF
busy housewife plying her evening care, of
homes of loves, of marriage and giving in
marriage, but The winds whispering through
the cedars bear to US the prophets sad lament,
tshow doth the city sit desolate that once was
full of people, and the ivy on the graves
Robbed of her civic importance by the re
moval of the Capitol TO Annapolis in 1894, St
Marys steadily declined, until with the razing
of the old Court House to the ground, there
was literally left of her not one stone upon
another The hard-trodden paths of that little
town the grasses of many seasons have over
grown, the ashes Of her firesides the winds of
q century have scattered, and the grave of the
ancient city is only marked by the memorial
stones of the old Court House site, the monu-
ment TO the noble founder, Leonard Calvert
and the clustered tombs OF those who sleep in
this City of the Dead.
perhaps in this neglected spot is laid,
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire,
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or walked to ecstacy the living Tyre"
Gone, and with them that other race who
acted out life's drama before them on the same
broad stage, the unfortunate Indian. That
morn suspicious for us the Indian watchers
marked in the distance the dark hulk of the
Ark and the white wing of the Dove seeking
rest as of old. No prophet of their people
was there to foretell that they bore as their
freight to us the seeds of life; to them, annihi
lation.
Save now and then when some plowman
turns up from the sod broken tomahawk or
an arrow point of stone no trace remains OF
they lived, loved, and died. Where now the
Potomac and the Northumberland proud
ly ply, there the Indian chief once padded !
his light canoe. The echoes that now rebound
to their whistles were once only startled by
the terror of the war cry. Where the lights of
civilized homes tonight will shine out welcome
to the late returning. once the wigwam's fire
blazed for the helpless and innocent, their
sire's beacon guide.
Down on our romantic terrace, under the
same moon that will rise tonight, perhaps some
dusky Hiawatha wooed his Minnie Ha. Ha
In yonder lake he bathed at dewy eve, and
the brave and wise gathered to the council
with the law of the Supreme Being written,
not on tables of stone for them, but the
feshy tablets of their hearts. When we re-
member that TO our forefathers the Indian was
ever good and kind, that he gave them well
come, food, home and wisest counsel, we can
but regret that somewhere here there is not
one dark statue of bronze to tell the younger
generation that the founders of St. Mary's and
their children acknowledge the debt to the
brave and generous Indian.
Thus far, every Marylander feels common
sense of interest and pride in St. Mary's. |
Read the history of the cruel religious perse-
cution of the early part of the seventeenth |
century, and then go forth upon the happy |
hills of Maryland and listen to the Sabbath |
bells pealIng their invitation to every creed, |
and you will concede how great a debt our
liberties of conscience owe to Calvert. This |
noble and courageous man. Leonard Calvert, |
arose as the bright morning star of that relig-
ious liberty which now encrcles this enlight-
ened country, made of Maryland in those
troubled times the sland of TIE sanctuary to
all the oppressed of every creed and cline.
Go read the beautiful inscription on yonder
monument which raises its declaration like
truth forever upward to the Skies and you will
know the civil and religious principles of
liberty which Calvert stood for has become
the corner stone of Maryland government.
OF this institution, founded in 1874 to com
memorate the landing at St. Marys, our state
may well be proud Like a noble river she
has gathered strength from the tributary years.
OF all that is good, all that is beautiful, all
that is ideal in womanhood, she has added to
her honored traditions until at last she comes
to this generation richly laden with every
blessing stream of life on whose banks the
fruits of wisdom and the flowers of beauty
grow for those who'll come 10 pluck them,
and of whose pleasant waters all who will may
ouench their thirst. The education which
she furnishes to the daughters of Maryland is
the material which must be woven into the
very wool and warp of this great nations
strength Its fruit is not borne so much in