4 less unwise and injurious. It discourages1 necessary, noble, and generous efforts, and is: chief among the bulwarks of superstition and despotism. The energies of men can'never remain stationary. A nation that will not tolerate the activity of intellectual energy in the pursuit of political truth, must expect the study of that truth to cease. A nation that has ceased to produce original and inventive minds, restless in advancing , the landmarks of knowledge, virtue, and freedom, from that moment has begun to recede towards ignorance, crimes and slavery. Every stage backwards renders its return more hopeless. I am sure that this-great error, will not last always,, and yet I do not think it is near its end. How long it shall endure, is known only to Him who, although he commands us to sow. and to .plant with undoubting faith, that we shall reap and gather, the fruits of our culture, reserves to himself, nevertheless^ not'only the: appointment, but even the knowledge of the forth-coming seasons. It is because I am unwilling to forego a proper occasion for disavowing that error, that l am here to celebrate, over the graves of the Forefathers, on this day devoted, to their1 memories, the virtues, the labors, and the sufferings, of the Puritans of New England and Old England. My interest in the celebration is not, like your own, a derived, but only a reflected one. lAm not native here, nor was I born to the manner of this high and holy observance. The dogmatical expositions of the Christian scheme by the Puritans have not altogether commanded my acceptance. I shall, therefore, refrain from even an approach to those finer parts of my great theme, justly familiar to your accustomed orators, which reach the profoundest depths of reverence and love in the bosoms of the lineal descendants of the'founders of New England. Not many years after the death of Napoleon, I stood before the majestic column in the Place Vendome, that lifts his statue high above the Capital of France. When I asked who scattered there a thousand wreaths of flowers, freshly gathered, that covered its base, the answer came quickly back, “ All the world. ” So I, one only ofithe same.vast constituency, cheerfully cast my garland upon the tomb of the Pilgrims, and lend my voice to aid your noble purpose of erecting here a worthier and more deserved monument to their memories. It is, indeed, quite unnecessary to their fame; yet it is, alas, only too necessary to correct the basis of >the world’s judgment of heroic worth. Make its foundations broad as the domain which the adventurers of the May Flower, peacefully, atfd without injustice, rescued from the.tramp .of savage tribes! Let its material be of the imperishable substance of these everlasting hills! Let its devices and inscriptions be colossal, as becomes the emblems and tributes which commemorate a world’s ever upheaving deliverance from civil and religious despotism! Let its shaft rise so high, that it shall cast its alternate shadows, changing with the progress of the sun in his journey, across the Atlantic and over the intervening mountains to the Pacific coast! It must even then borrow majesty from the rock which was the first foothold of the Pilgrims on these desolate shores, instead of imparting to it sublimity. But I may not touch the domestic story of your ancestors. Only a Jewish hand could strike the cymbals with the boldness due to the theme of the march of the host Israel, of un^er the guidance of its changeful pillar of cloud and of fire, while pursued, by. the chariots and. horsemen of Egypt, through the divinely divided floods of the Arabian Sea; .or, without temerity almost sacrilegious, lift from the. waving boughs the,harps*which the daughters of Jerusalem hung. upon.the willows,. While by the side, of the rivers of Assyria they sat .down, and. wept the piteous captivity of, their nation;, beloved, but temporarily forsaken of Cod. Itis a sure way of promoting knowledge and virtue, as well as of rising to greatness'and goodness,-to study-Writh due care and reverence the operation of sublime principles of conduct in.advancing the progress of mankind. I desire so to contemplate the working, of Jhe leading principle of the Puritans. I confess that the'Puritans neither disclosed nor discovered any new truths of morals or of government. None such have been discovered,.at least since the Divine Teacher set forth the whole system of private and public ethics
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