St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-07-14

in Alburgh the French tried hard to keer
foothold, but it was soon abandoned
In 1880 or 1871 they began their south.
ern Gibraltar at Crown Point in Fort
st. Frederic, and there and at Chimney
Point on the eastern shore, a musket
shot away, little French village did
spring up and flourish for % or 80
years, but that is all the tale. The rest
is the story of fortifcation. built, aban-
doned or destroyed, rebuilt, retaken or
given to the flames, like old Fort CARL
Ion, that afterwards became Ticon-
deroga.
But in 1857 the greatest man in Eng
land took the reins and in two years the
French dream of North America had dis
dissolved. William Pitt was master.
Quebec was taken, Crown Point and
Ilconderoga were in English hands, and
the red horrors OF $50 years were to be
thenceforward but a thrilling Preside tale.
The legends of that ghastly time lie all
around us, and memories of the later
wars that swept the lake are thick as
leaves OF summer, and colored like the
leaves OF autumn with glory and ro-
nance. We have only to reach out our
hand to take them. For seven days now
the conJurer's wand has been waved
over this lovely valley, calling the dead
to lite. We have gone through the wicket
gate at old Fort I'll, step by step with
Allen, we have seen Arnold still wearing
the rose OF his loyalty, uncankered by
the worm of treason, we have fought
with him his desperate fight at Valcour,
and leaped with him from his flaming
bowsprit; we have watched the British
fleet start from this shore and move
southwark to its doom at the hands of
the invincible Marlborough. Memorial
and procession, speech and song and
story have taken up the threads of an
Gent, half forgotten life, and made the
glowing pattern live anew Again we
see the plumed and painted savage on
his trail, the settler working with his
flint lock in the hollow of his arm, the
Highlander in his plaid, hireing Hessian
in his scarlet coat, the forester in his deer
skin of buff and blue, the French and
British regulars, who wore upon their
breasts the trophies of famous battles
over sea, and as we look we seem to see
the gathering of the nations, not now for
war, but for the beginning OF a new era
under happier skies.
Three hundred years. Why, it sounds
like eternity, in the ears of a child, and
yet four mortal lives, and those not very
long, might accomplish it. There must
be many living in the world today whose
great grandfathers could have remember
ed 1909, and in the long march of the
worlds progress, it is less than a watch
in the night. There have been periods of
800 years that signify nothing in the life
OF man. They came and went, like
waves upon the beach, leaving no mark
behind them. But the 800 years that lie
behind us in our thought today have
filled the earth with marvels. Even the
physical aspect of the earth has been
In 1909 the western hem
sphere had been scarcely braved by the
explorer. And see it now. Africa was a
desert and jungle. 1t is swarming now
with eager nations. Asia was a mystery |
and a dream, a fabulous, enchanted |
place, whose ivory and golden portals
western feet were not to pass. Its doors
are open now and East and West are
mingled. Three centuries ago the Pacific
was sailless sea. Now upon its oppos-
ng shores the eastern and the western
worlds stand face to face and the
struggles and the rivalries of the coming
age will be upon it's bosom. Hawaii,
New Zealand, Australia, the Central and
south American. republics, what were
hese They were not even names three
ago. Europe herself, that has
ent her millions to all quarters of the
'lobe, has increased enormously in num-
'ers. Even in the last century her popu-
alton more than doubled.
We seem standing in the presence of a
miracle. And yet all these changes are
IS nothing to the changes that have
ONE to pass in the life of man through
he discoveries of science. Modern
cience, practical modern science, began
With Francis Bacon, and Bacon did not
'ublish his Novum Organum until
go, less than three centuries ago. He
aught men to invent by teaching them
Q study nature, and died in consequence
II an experiment. Following the path
hat he pointed out, and turning their
JACKS on the barren speculation of the
ncients, men have made existence on
his planet a comfort and a 10Y to
1llllons, where once it was a gift hardly
o be accepted. For it is not merely
hat we make a thousand miles TODAY
S quickly and far more easily than our
ncestors could make ten or twenty; it
not that we speak with one another
cross continents and flash our feeling
nd thought under the deep sea, make
lie waves Of the air bear messages from
ne world to another. That is not the
,al and solid ground for our rejoicing.
ut that by all these means and many
theirs, the life of common men upon the (
obee has been made something better.
he tat years now are able to keep out
lie lean. India may now in her famine
ted by Kansas in her plenty; earth
laken Sicily may perhaps even hope for s
ccor in battleship that flies the s
ars and Stripes. Multtudes, not {
st here and there a solitary, man t
ay feel the broadening influence of
this, all may know what all the rest
e doing, and that means confidence, it l
cans the end of ignorant mistrust and J.
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