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 ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE CELEBRATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF 
 
 Cije SuflDfog of tf>e ©ID iHeettng^ouse 
 
 AT HINGHAM. 
 On the Eighth of August, 1881. 
 
 by 
 
 CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 SEtotowsitg Press. 
 1882. 
 
1 & 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE CELEBRATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 OF 
 
 Cl)e Eutltimg of ti)e €>to jmeettng^ouse 
 
 AT HINGHAM. 
 On the Eighth of August, 1881. 
 
 by 
 CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 (Smtasttg |3t£ss. 
 
 1882. 
 

ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Reverend Sir, 1 Your Excellency, 
 
 Men and Women of Hingham : — 
 
 You have thought it becoming to commemorate 
 the building of this old Meeting-house on its two 
 hundredth anniversary. You have chosen me, as 
 the lineal descendant of the minister settled over 
 this parish when the Meeting-house was built, whose 
 voice was the first to ask the blessing of God within 
 these walls, and who for many years, Sabbath after 
 Sabbath, here taught the people of the ways of the 
 Lord, — you have chosen me, his descendant, to 
 give expression to the thought and sentiment nat- 
 ural on such an occasion as this. I undertake the 
 duty, to which you have called me, in a spirit of 
 filial piety. Five generations of my forefathers 
 united with your ancestors in worship under this 
 roof. I see around me the descendants of those 
 who listened to the first sermon heard from the 
 ancient pulpit. The names of Hobart, Lincoln, 
 Thaxter, Beal, Cushing, Fearing, Loring, Hersey, 
 Whiton, Sprague, attest the permanence of the 
 families of the early settlers, and the continuity of 
 the life of the town, while they bear honorable wit- 
 ness to the excellence of the stock planted here. 
 
 1 Rev. Calvin Lincoln. 
 
I shall be easily pardoned if to-day I recall a his- 
 tory familiar and dear to many of you. 
 
 No building in the United States is more vener- 
 able than this within which we are met. Of all 
 edifices an ancient church is the most reverend. 
 This is the house of worship in which the weekly 
 service of prayer and preaching has been for a 
 longer time continuous than in any other in New 
 England, — probably than in any other in the United 
 States. For us, in this still new world, its age is 
 great. But our antiquities are modern as compared 
 with those of our Mother-country ; the oldest of 
 them are of to-day in comparison with the Pyra- 
 mids ; they are novelties in the eternity of Nature. 
 But the two centuries during which this house has 
 existed are the longest centuries in the history of 
 mankind, for in their course man has made greater 
 progress in the knowledge of the world in which 
 he lives, and consequently in power over it, than 
 in all preceding time. His relations to Nature 
 have changed. He has come into possession of 
 new faculties. His thoughts have widened. The 
 denizen of a parish two hundred years ago, the 
 intelligent man is to-day the citizen of the world. 
 Spiritually measured this little span of time is longer 
 than cycles of Egypt or Cathay. To the imagina- 
 tion this Meeting-house is the monument of a great 
 antiquity. 
 
 But it has more than the interest of mere age. 
 Like all the works of the hand of man, it tells the 
 
story of its times. It is the expression of the moral 
 convictions and material conditions of the men who 
 built it. Here is no fine art. No touch of beauty 
 is visible here ; no faith is here nobly realized in 
 imperishable form ; no ideals of life are displayed 
 here in dedicated shapes of prophets, saints, and 
 kings ; no aspirations are manifest in lavish wealth 
 of consecrated ornament ; no sentiment of pious ar- 
 dor finds utterance in sacred symbols. All is plain, 
 bare, homely, unadorned, the work of an ascetic 
 race. The fancy can hardly find, in this rough tim- 
 ber frame, a type of the temple of the Holy City, 
 with its gold and silver and iron and brass and 
 purple and crimson and blue ; or recognize, in the 
 builders with plank and shingle, a community of 
 spirit with those who wrought miracles of stone in 
 mediaeval church and cathedral. No, this is the 
 poor Meeting-house of a poor people, of a people 
 moreover, to whom the adornment of the church 
 and the pomp of ritual were an abomination, and 
 who rejected all the imagery of earlier ages of piety, 
 even the deepest and tenderest symbols of the faith, 
 because associated with superstition and confounded 
 with idolatry. To them this plain house, their 
 Bethel, was more truly the Gate of Heaven than if 
 it had been a pearl like the gates of the New Jeru- 
 salem ; and they trusted that the promise made by 
 Jehovah to Solomon held good also for them : 
 " Mine ear shall be attent unto the prayer that is 
 made in this place." 
 
I know not if the legend be well attested, but 
 you are familiar with the tradition that the little 
 band of the first settlers of Hingham, on their land- 
 ing here in 1635, led by the father and first minis- 
 ter of the town, the valiant Peter Hobart, gathered 
 round their pastor under an old oak, to join with 
 him in asking the blessing of the Lord on their 
 new planting in the wilderness. Within a few 
 months they had a house built for public worship. 
 It was the central house of the little village, the 
 common refuge in times of spiritual stress or mate- 
 rial peril. In 1645, at the time of alarm lest the 
 Narragansetts should break out in war against the 
 colonists, it was voted to erect a palisade around 
 the Meeting-house, " to prevent any danger that may 
 come unto this town by any assault of the Indians." 
 To that house, thus protected, the forefathers of the 
 town came to worship and take counsel for forty- 
 five years. There, for forty-three of those years, 
 Peter Hobart, to whom Governor Winthrop bore 
 testimony that "he was a bold man and would 
 speak his mind," taught his people. Age brought 
 its usual burdens to him, but his heart remained 
 fresh, and in his last days, as Cotton Mather re- 
 ports, " he set himself with great fervour to gather 
 the children of his church under the saving wings 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in order thereunto 
 preached many pungent sermons on Ecclesiastes 
 xi. 9, 10, and xii. 1." Beautiful is the picture of 
 the venerable man, himself the father of many chil- 
 
dren whom he had carefully nurtured, 1 worn with 
 the infirmities of years, and weary with the labors 
 which fell to those who had, in their own words, 
 "transported themselves, with their wives, their lit- 
 tle ones, and their substance, from that pleasant 
 land where they were born, over the Atlantic ocean 
 into the vast wilderness," for the sake of " liberty 
 to walk in the faith of the gospel with all good 
 conscience," — beautiful is the picture of the old 
 and faithful pastor, death now near at hand, look- 
 ing with benignant eyes on the younglings of his 
 flock, the first native-born New Englanders, and 
 appealing to them : " Remember now thy Creator 
 in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come 
 not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, 
 I have no pleasure in them." 
 
 It was on the 27th of November, 1678, that " he did 
 with his aged hand ordain a successor, which when 
 he had performed with much solemnity he did after- 
 wards with an assembly of Ministers and other 
 Christians at his own house, joyfully sing the song 
 of aged Simeon, Thy servant now lettest thou de- 
 part in peace." Less than eight weeks afterward 
 he died. 
 
 That successor was Mr. John Norton, a young 
 man twenty-seven years old, who had received as 
 good a training as New England could then be- 
 stow. He had been bred under the shadow of the 
 
 1 He names fifteen children in his will. Five of his sons graduated at 
 Harvard College, and four of them became ministers. 
 
8 
 
 church. Named for his more noted uncle, one of 
 the four famous Johns who were the lights of the 
 early church of Boston, he had derived from him 
 a taste for learning, and the consecration to the 
 ministry. He graduated at Harvard College in 
 1 67 1, in the last class sent forth by the pious and 
 learned President Chauncy ; and Sewall, afterward 
 Chief Justice, was one of his classmates. 1 It was 
 a distinction then to graduate at Harvard. It 
 meant being one of the clerical or magisterial 
 order. It meant the possession of pre-eminent ad- 
 vantages. But the relation of the clergy to the 
 community had already become very different from 
 what it had been in the earlier days of the Colony. 
 The contrast between the prominent position in 
 public affairs, the wide and strong influence, the 
 admitted authority of the uncle, and the tranquil, 
 retired life, and the narrow limits of influence of the 
 nephew, was not altogether the result of diversity 
 of opportunities and of gifts. It affords an illustra- 
 
 1 From an entry in Sewall's Diary, published by the Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society, — a book from which more is to be learned than from any 
 other of the life of Boston and its neighborhood during the last quarter of the 
 seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth, — it would appear 
 that Mr. Norton had grave doubts as to coming into the Church. " Satterday, 
 Mar. 3, 167% went to Mr. Norton to discourse with him about coming into 
 the Church. He told me that he waited to see whether his faith were of the 
 operation of God's spirit, and yet often said that he had very good hope of 
 his good Estate . . . He said, was unsettled, had thoughts of going out of 
 the country. . . . And at last, that he was for that way which was purely 
 Independent. I urged what that was. He said that all of the Church were 
 a royal Priesthood, all of them Prophets and taught of God's Spirit, and 
 that a few words from the heart were worth a great deal : intimating the 
 Benefit of Brethren's prophesying: for this he cited Mr. Dell. I could 
 not get any more." It is not certain that the Mr. Norton with whom Sewall 
 held this conversation was Mr. John Norton, but it seems probable. 
 
tion of the general fact that while religion had been 
 the chief motive that had brought the colonists to 
 the wilderness, and the ministers of religion had 
 naturally been their intellectual and often their civil 
 leaders, the mere growth of the Commonwealth they 
 had planted, with the increase of social and politi- 
 cal interests and responsibilities, had resulted in 
 the diminution of the preponderance of religious 
 concerns in the State, as well as of the authority of 
 the clergy. The beginnings of civil democracy were 
 weakening the hold of a dominant class. There 
 was no sudden revolution, but a gradual and stead- 
 ily increasing, though as yet hardly recognized, de- 
 cline in the position and power of the ministers. 
 As a class they still exercised authority, in virtue 
 of their sacred calling and their superior educa- 
 tion, but they were no longer the masters they 
 had been. 
 
 The year 167S was an important one in the life 
 of the young scholar. In that year he was married, 
 in that year he was settled over this parish, and in 
 that year he published a poem. It was a " Funeral 
 Elogy, Upon that Patron of Virtue, the truly pious, 
 peerless & matchless Gentlewoman, Mrs. Anne Brad- 
 street." I find in my ancestor's performance very 
 slight merit, though it gives indication of formal 
 training in the stiff poetic fashion of the day; but 
 the enthusiastic historian of American Literature, 
 Professor Tyler, who has an eye for swans, discovers 
 in it "force" and "beauty," calls it "a sorrowful and 
 
IO 
 
 stately chant," and even ascribes " poetic genius " to 
 its author. Its real interest is in the proof that he 
 possessed a fair measure of such culture as was 
 possible in New England at the time, and that he 
 brought to Hingham the refined tastes, the schol- 
 arly disposition, and the literary sympathies which 
 would confirm the regard of his people to him, and 
 could hardly fail to quicken their own intellectual 
 life. 
 
 With the new minister came the thought of a 
 new meeting-house. The people had outgrown the 
 old house. The Indians had been defeated ; King 
 Philip was dead; the palisado was no longer needed 
 for defence. After long debate and bitter difference, 
 it was resolved to build a new house on a new site. 
 Human nature was then much as it is now. " There 
 have been successively many days of temptation," 
 says Cotton Mather, "in this and that particular 
 plantation throughout the country : one while the 
 rebuilding and removing of meeting-houses has un- 
 fitted the neighbors for lifting up pure hands with- 
 out wrath in those houses, and one while the disposal 
 of little matters in the militia has made people 
 almost ready to fall upon one another with force of 
 arms." Hingham experienced both these tempta- 
 tions. But the good sense of her people carried 
 them through these trials without lasting harm. On 
 the 26th, 27th, and 28th days of July (Old Style), 16S1, 
 the frame of the new Meeting-house was raised; 
 on the 5th of January, 168 1-2, the town-meeting 
 
II 
 
 was held for the first time in the completed house ; 
 and on the next Sunday, the 8th of January, the 
 services of public worship were first held within it, 
 and two infants were baptized. It had cost the town 
 ^"430 and the old house. 1 
 
 The building of the new Meeting-house was an 
 indication of the prosperity of the people, and of 
 their recovery from the losses and depression occa- 
 sioned by King Philip's War. New England was 
 now at peace ; and the inhabitants of her towns and 
 villages were busy with their domestic concerns, and 
 with preparation for the struggle into which they 
 were entering to maintain their political and ecclesi- 
 astical liberties against the aggressions of the Eng- 
 lish Crown. For Hingham these were tranquil 
 days, and cheerful, in such narrow sense as the word 
 retains when applied to the life of New England at 
 the end of the seventeenth century, — a life for the 
 most part grave, sombre, austere. The interests of 
 the dwellers in a village like Hingham, though more 
 varied than those of the inhabitants of inland settle- 
 
 1 This was no small sum. Dr. Palfrey seems to believe that in 1679 
 the value of the personal property of the whole Plymouth Colony did not 
 amount to over ^12,000. See his History of A r ew England, iii. 215. The 
 sum required to pay for the Meeting-house was raised by a rate made in 
 1680 by the selectmen. The rate was levied on one hundred and forty-three 
 persons ; the smallest sum laid on any one was five shillings, the largest 
 £15 12s. 6d. See appendix to the Rev. Calvin Lincoln's Discourse, delivered 
 to the First Parish in Hingham, Sept. 8, 1869, on Re-opening their Meeting- 
 house, pp. 25-28. 
 
 The minister's salary was ^85. In 1698 the rate made for the mainte- 
 nance of the ministry, school, poor, etc., was ^130, and the price of grain 
 was fixed as follows: Indian corn, y. per bushel, barley, y., rye, y. 6d., and 
 oats, is. 6d. — Lincoln's History of Hingham, p. 89, note. 
 
12 
 
 ments, were few and narrow. Men and women ap- 
 plied themselves to their different modes of rugged 
 industry in a sober and severe spirit, born of hard- 
 ship and poverty, and of nature kindred to their reli- 
 gion. Their recreations were scanty and infrequent ; 
 many simple amusements were prohibited by law, 
 others by public opinion. The natural gayety of 
 youth and the pleasant exhilaration of good spirits 
 were alike repressed. It was not because men were 
 virtuous that there were neither cakes nor ale, but be- 
 cause their religion had spoiled their taste for cakes 
 and ale. Hardly one gay laugh of light-hearted and 
 innocent mirth is heard in those days. "Once 
 hearing some of us laughing very freely," writes the 
 Rev. Nicholas Noyes, one of the most cruel perse- 
 cutors of the witches at Salem, in his account of the 
 excellent Rev. Mr. Thomas Parker, — "once hear- 
 ing some of us laughing very freely, while I suppose 
 he was better busied in his chamber above us, he 
 came down, and gravely said to us : ' Cousins, I 
 wonder you can be so merry, unless you are sure of 
 your salvation.' " 
 
 Not a song has come down to us from that time ; 
 not a love poem ; not a strain of secular music. 
 The elevating delights of the arts were unknown, and 
 the lack of them unfelt. The creative and poetic 
 imagination found scanty nutriment in a soil not yet 
 enriched by long human experience and tradition. 
 
 Nature vainly displayed her ever-renewed beauty 
 to the eyes of men and women who saw in it a snare 
 
*3 
 
 for their souls, and regarded her as an enemy rather 
 than a friend. The rosy-fingered dawn smiled in 
 vain as she mounted from the eastern sea over the 
 islands of your bay, and the stars — 
 
 "Burning fierce anthems to the eternal light" — a 
 
 rose ineffectual save to darken with intenser gloom 
 the souls of men who felt themselves fallen under 
 the curse of Adam. In the writings of the first and 
 second generations of the native-born New Engend- 
 ers, there is scarcely a touch of genuine observation 
 of nature, or an indication of pleasure in her aspect. 
 The famous Anne Bradstreet sings of Philomel 
 " chanting a most melodious strain " on the banks 
 of the Merrimac. Neither she nor any of her con- 
 temporaries had eyes for the flowers or ears for the 
 birds of New England. 
 
 One single passage, inspired by the homely nature 
 familiar to him, stands conspicuous and beautiful in 
 the quaint treatise 2 entitled " Phenomena quaadam 
 Apocalyptica ; or, some few Lines toward a De- 
 scription of the New Heaven as it makes to those 
 who stand upon the New Earth," of the sedate, 
 stout-hearted, provincial Judge Sewall. It is like a 
 breath of fresh air, and has a sparkle of the open 
 sunshine. It is a prophecy of the Christians of 
 Newbury : — 
 
 1 This strong verse is from a feeble and tumid Funeral Song by Samuel 
 Wigglesworth, the son of the more noted poet, Mr. Michael Wigglesworth. 
 
 2 First printed in 1697; a second edition appeared in 1727; this para- 
 graph which I cite is like a white patch on a black robe. 
 
14 
 
 " As long as Plum Island shall faithfully keep the com- 
 manded post, notwithstanding all the hectoring words and 
 hard blows of the proud and boisterous ocean, as long 
 as any salmon or sturgeon shall swim in the streams of 
 Merrimac, or any perch or pickerel in Crane Pond; as 
 long as the sea-fowl shall know the time of their coming, 
 and not neglect seasonably to visit the places of their 
 acquaintance ; as long as any cattle shall be fed with the 
 grass growing in the meadows that do humbly bow down 
 themselves before Turkey Hill ; as long as any sheep shall 
 walk upon Old-Town hills, and shall from thence pleasantly 
 look down upon the River Parker, and the fruitful marshes 
 lying beneath ; as long as any free and harmless doves 
 shall find a white-oak or other tree within the township, to 
 perch, or feed, or build a careless nest upon, and shall 
 voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of 
 gleaners after barley-harvest; as long as Nature shall not 
 grow old and dote, but shall constantly remember to give 
 the rows of Indian corn their education by pairs, — so long 
 shall Christians be born there, and being first made meet, 
 shall from thence be translated to be made partakers of the 
 inheritance of the saints in light." 
 
 Few of his contemporaries had such open vision 
 as this pure, tender-hearted, upright magistrate. 
 
 Temptation and danger lay around the people. 
 The forest encompassed them, giving shelter not 
 only to wild beasts but to the Indian savage. In 
 1676, in war-time, John Jacob went out with his 
 musket to shoot the deer that trespassed on a field 
 of wheat, on what you still call Glad-Tidings Plain. 
 He was found dead near his father's house, killed by 
 the Indians. The next day Joseph Joanes's and 
 Anthony Sprague's and three other houses were 
 
*5 
 
 burned. This was in war-time, but it takes a long 
 while to get rid of the impression made upon the 
 fancy, especially upon the sensitive fancy of child- 
 hood, by such events as these. Boys and girls durst 
 not venture to the far end of the pasture for berries 
 or for the cattle. Men carried their firelocks to 
 the hay-field, and when they strolled fishing along 
 the shore. 
 
 But the fancy was even more affected by dread of 
 the spiritual occupants of solitary places than by fear 
 of wolf or Indian. The Devil was everywhere. " No 
 place that I know of," says one of the Boston preach- 
 ers, " no place that I know of has got such a spell 
 upon it as will always keep the Devil out." " He is 
 here, even in the Meeting-house." " Go where we 
 will, he is nigh unto us." There was no saying what 
 form, familiar or strange, alluring or terrifying, he or 
 his ministers might not assume, what illusion they 
 might not practise. Grave, pious, and learned men 
 fostered the belief in these spectral apparitions. It 
 was a common opinion that " the devils had doubt- 
 less felt a more than ordinary vexation from the 
 arrival of Christians in this wilderness," which pre- 
 viously they had occupied unmolested by "the sacred 
 exercises of Christianity." It was ten years after 
 this Meeting-house was built that the devils dis- 
 played their power on the other side of the bay, in 
 the frightful visitation of witchcraft with which 
 Salem was cursed. Men, women, and children 
 gathered round the fireside at night to scare them- 
 
i6 
 
 selves into frenzy with reports of the deeds of 
 witches, with stories of spectres and signs and por- 
 tents. In the howlings of the wintry winds they 
 heard the voices of the devils of the air. They in- 
 terpreted every mishap as a buffet of the Evil One. 
 
 Ignorance added to their terrors. The native- 
 born New Englanders were less instructed than 
 the patriarchs, men of liberal education and wise 
 counsel, who had come from the Old World. They 
 were farther from the sources of enlarged un- 
 derstanding and liberal culture. They were no 
 longer borne onward by the deeper currents of the 
 life of the world. They had become provincial. 
 Their minds had narrowed to their fortunes ; their 
 intellectual interests were scanty. Books were few ; 
 in many households the Bible was the only one. 
 Even the Minister's library was but poorly supplied, 
 and its shelves were for the most part loaded with 
 treatises of controversial theology. The resources 
 of English literature were unknown. Some of the 
 chief glories of literature were prohibited. Shake- 
 speare was a playwright, the minister of corruption. 
 For a century after the settlement of New England 
 I find no evidence that there was a copy of Shake- 
 speare in the colonies. 1 Pioneers and farmers have 
 
 1 Of course there are likely to have been a few copies in the hands of 
 men not Puritan at heart ; but there is no reference to his works, so far as I 
 know, in any New England book of this period. The student of New Eng- 
 land life would give much for the catalogue of two collections of books, the 
 first, the library of Mr. Winthrop the younger, to which Governor Winthrop 
 refers in his History, under the year 1640, in a passage that curiously illus- 
 trates the superstitious temper of the times, when even the wisest of the lead- 
 ers of the Colony could write : " About this time there fell out a thing worthy 
 
17 
 
 little leisure, and less inclination to read. There 
 were no newspapers. 1 There were no means, by 
 regular communications from distant places, of di- 
 verting or enlarging the thoughts. The horizon of 
 ideas was as limited as the horizon of the land- 
 scape. 
 
 But the intelligence — stunted, starved as it might 
 be — sought and found nourishment for itself, not al- 
 together healthy, in one important source. Religion 
 became the absorbing and permanent intellectual 
 concern. It partook of the dryness of the intellec- 
 tual life outside of it, but it served to keep alive the 
 minds of men. The system of theology then gener- 
 ally accepted was one of the most complex and 
 elaborate bodies of doctrine that has ever been 
 devised by the ingenuity of subtle and vigorous 
 thinkers in the attempt to frame a creed that should 
 account for the existence of the universe, the nature 
 of the Creator, and the destiny of man. Based 
 upon the assumption of the absolute authority of 
 the Scriptures, of the Old not less than of the New 
 
 of observation. Mr. Winthrop the younger, one of the magistrates, having 
 many books in a chamber where there was corn of divers sorts, had among 
 them one wherein the Greek testament, the psalms, and the common prayer 
 were bound together. He found the common prayer eaten with mice, every 
 leaf of it, and not any of the two other touched, nor any other of his books, 
 though there were above a thousand." Savage's Winthrop, ed. 1826, ii. 20. 
 The list of this thousand volumes would show us what books the first settlers 
 brought over. The second catalogue that one might wish for is that of the 
 venture of books brought over by John Dunton in 1686, for sale in Boston, of 
 which he says, in his entertaining Life and Errors, that "they were most of 
 them practical and well suited to the genius of New England." p. 152. 
 
 1 The first Anglo-American newspaper, the Boston A r ews-Letter, appeared 
 on Monday, April 24, 1704. It was a small folio half-sheet, issued weekly. 
 It contained little news, and had a narrow circulation. 
 
Testament, as the Word of God, and their complete 
 sufficiency as a theory of the universe and a guide 
 to conduct, the creed attempted to embody the doc- 
 trines essential to salvation in a series of mutually 
 dependent logical propositions. In its practical ap- 
 plication to life it was probably the most artificial 
 and the most oppressive creed that has ever exer- 
 cised a lasting influence upon a civilized Christian 
 community. The fallen nature of man through 
 sin, the enmity of God toward the human beings 
 he had created, the responsibility of man and his 
 helplessness to free himself from the curse de- 
 nounced upon him, the damnation of infants, the 
 eternal duration of the torments of hell to which 
 the vast majority of mankind were doomed, weighed 
 with unrelieved gloom upon the soul. There was 
 nothing to break the force of the tyranny exercised 
 in the name of religion over the spirits of the men 
 and women and children in these regions. There 
 was no delivery from it. The strong were subdued, 
 the weak were crushed by it. In his Diary, under 
 date of Jan. 13, 169I, Judge Sewall makes this 
 entry concerning his little daughter Betty, a girl of 
 fourteen : — 
 
 "When I came in, past 7. at night, my wife met me in 
 the Entry, and told me Betty had surprised them. I was 
 surprised with the abruptness of the Relation. It seems 
 Betty Sewall had given some signs of dejection and sor- 
 row; but a little after diner she burst out into an amazing 
 cry, which caus'd all the family to cry too ; Her Mother 
 ask'd the reason ; she gave none ; at last said she was 
 
*9 
 
 afraid she should goc to Hell, her Sins were not pardon'd. 
 She was first wounded by my reading a Sermon of Mr. 
 Norton's about the 5- of Jan. Text Jn- 7.34, Ye shall seek 
 me and shall not find me. And those words in the Ser- 
 mon, Jn- 8. 21, Ye shall seek me and shall die in your 
 sins, ran in her mind, and terrified her greatly. And stay- 
 ing at home Jan. 12, she read out of Mr. Cotton Mather — 
 Why hath Satan filled thy heart, which increas'd her Fear. 
 Her Mother ask'd her whether she pray'd. She answer'd, 
 Yes ; but feared her prayers were not heard because her 
 Sins not pardon'd. Mr. Willard [the minister] though 
 sent for timelyer . . . came not till after I came home. 
 He discoursed with Betty who could not give a distinct 
 account, but was confused as his phrase was, and as had 
 experienced in himself. Mr. Willard pray'd excellently. 
 The Lord bring Light and Comfort out of this dark and 
 dreadful cloud, and grant that Christ's being formed in 
 my dear child, may be the issue of these painful pangs." 1 
 
 Such a domestic picture, impressive as it is, is but 
 a feeble illustration of deeper unrecorded agonies. 
 
 The gentlest preacher must deliver from the pul- 
 pit the harsh teaching of his creed. Mr. Norton is 
 reported to have been of a mild spirit, and to have 
 possessed an amiable disposition, but there is no 
 reason to suppose that he failed in orthodoxy or 
 softened the stern features of Calvinistic doctrine. 2 
 
 1 Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections. Fifth Series, v. 419. 
 
 2 Only one of his sermons during his long pastorate of thirty-seven 
 years was printed. It was an Election Sermon delivered on May 26, 170S. 
 " Such an occasion," says Hawthorne, " formed an honorable epoch in the 
 life of a New England clergyman." Sewall's entry in his Diary concerning 
 the sermon is amusing and instructive: "Midweek, May 26, 170S. Mr. Jno. 
 Norton preaches a Flattering Sermon as to the Governour." "May 27. I 
 was with a Comittee in the morn, . . . and so by God's good providence 
 absent when Mr. Corwin and Gushing were order'd to Thank Mr. Norton for 
 his sermon and desire a Copy." The sermon, printed under the title of An 
 Essay tending to promote Education, contains some praise of Governor Dud- 
 
20 
 
 The faith he held and taught made life and death 
 alike awful. It did not console, it did not cheer. 
 It alarmed, it quenched gladness, it destroyed con- 
 fidence, it all but destroyed hope ; it invigorated 
 but with the invigoration of fear. I do not draw an 
 exaggerated outline. The one book produced in the 
 seventeenth century in New England that attained 
 a real popularity was the poem called " The Day of 
 Doom " of Mr. Michael Wigglesworth, the worthy 
 pastor of the church in Maiden, who has recently 
 been described as "one of the most honored, emi- 
 nent, and useful men of the early years of Massa- 
 chusetts." " The Day of Doom " was first printed 
 in 1662, and it is stated that eighteen hundred 
 copies were sold within a single year. 1 But this 
 did not satisfy the demand. Edition after edition 
 was called for, the sixth appearing in Boston in 
 1 716. It was besides twice reprinted in England. 
 The book is of no worth as poetry ; the verse is 
 mere doggerel ; there is not a touch of poetic fancy, 
 not a gleam of imagination in it. It is a description 
 
 ley which was naturally distasteful to the Judge, who stood in manful oppo- 
 sition to Dudley's policy; but it is in other respects a creditable discourse, 
 mainly directed against the prevailing unbelief. "Our degeneracy," said the 
 preacher, "is too palpable to be denied, too gross to be excused." "The 
 longer Judgment is delayed, the heavier it will be when it cometh. It shall 
 come; it hath sometime Leaden feet, but Iron hands." 
 
 Two years afterward, March 26, 1710, Judge Sewall "went to Hingham 
 to Meeting, heard Mr. Norton from Psal. 145. 18. Setting forth the Propi- 
 tiousness of God. In the afternoon Lydia Gushing & Paul Lewis were bap- 
 tized. Din'd with Major Thaxter, Sup'd with Mr. Norton, Mrs. Norton, & 
 their sister Shepard." 
 
 1 Tyler's History of Ajnerican Literature, ii. 34. This sale, says Pro- 
 fessor Tyler, "implies the purchase of a copy by at least every thirty-fifth 
 person in New England, — an example of the commercial success of a book 
 never afterward equalled in this country." 
 
21 
 
 of the Day of Judgment in coarse, realistic strokes, 
 exhibiting the common belief concerning the moral 
 government of God, his relations to his creatures, 
 and his final judgment of them. Nothing could be 
 of greater value as an illustration of the dominant 
 superstition, as a measure of the popular culture. 
 No more cruel and detestable picture was ever 
 drawn under the pretence of exalting the justice 
 of the Almighty. The character attributed to the 
 Supreme Being is perhaps as outrageous and ex- 
 ecrable as a good man ever ascribed to the object 
 of his adoration. The work is a marvel of the per- 
 version of piety and intelligence. Superstition 
 more gross never sheltered itself under the garb of 
 Christian doctrine. And yet it was the accepted 
 expression of the prevailing creed in New England 
 at the time this Meeting-house was built. 
 
 The morality exacted by this creed could be at- 
 tained by few. In the wrestlings with sin, omnipo- 
 tence seemed often on the side of the Devil. What 
 agonies of heart, what terrors of conscience, what 
 miseries of contrition were the lot of many a pure 
 and innocent soul ! Into what hardness of heart, 
 what narrowness of sympathy, what perversion of 
 judgment, what pride of self-righteousness, were not 
 even good men in danger of falling ! To what in- 
 difference to sin, what recklessness of conduct, what 
 self-abandonment, was not many a light-hearted spirit 
 driven through inability to master a passing tempta- 
 tion ! 
 
22 
 
 It was just after Mr. Norton's settlement, about 
 two years before this Meeting-house was built, that 
 a Synod of the churches was called in Boston to 
 consider " What are the evils that have provoked 
 the Lord to bring his judgments on New England," 
 and " What is to be done, that so these evils may 
 be reformed." It was acknowledged that there was 
 degeneracy in New England, " that people had 
 begun notoriously to forget the errand into the 
 wilderness," that " the enchantments of this world 
 caused the rising generation to forget the inter- 
 ests of religion," and that consequently " that God 
 hath a controversy with his New England peo- 
 ple is undeniable, the Lord having written his dis- 
 pleasure in dismal characters against us." " It is 
 sadly evident," said the Reforming Synod, " that 
 there are visible evils manifest which without doubt 
 the Lord is provoked by." There is great decay 
 of the power of Godliness amongst many professors 
 in these churches. Pride both spiritual and in 
 apparel doth abound, even among the poorer sort 
 of people. Church fellowship and other divine in- 
 stitutions are greatly neglected. There is great 
 profaneness. There is much sabbath-breaking. 
 There is much amiss in what concerns families and 
 the government thereof. There are sinful heats 
 and hatreds, evil surmisings, backbitings, lawsuits. 
 There is much intemperance ; the heathenish and 
 idolatrous practise of health-drinking is too fre- 
 quent. There are heinous breaches of the seventh 
 
commandment, and the temptations thereunto are 
 become too common, such as immodest apparel, 
 laying out of hair, borders . . . mixed dancings, 
 light behavior, unlawful gaming, abundance of idle- 
 ness. There is much want of truth anions: men. 
 There is inordinate affection unto the world, shewn 
 in covetousness ; farms and merchandising beinsr 
 preferred before the things of God. " In this respect 
 the interest of New England seemeth to be changed. 
 We differ from other outgoings of our nation, in 
 that it was not any worldly considerations that 
 brought our fathers into this wilderness, but religion, 
 even that so they might build a sanctuary unto the 
 Lord's name, whereas now religion is made subser- 
 vient unto worldly interests." There hath been 
 opposition to the work of reformation. Sin and 
 sinners have many advocates. A public spirit is 
 greatly wanting in the most of men. And, finally, 
 there are sins against the Gospel, whereby the Lord 
 has been provoked. 1 
 
 Such in brief is the indictment brought against 
 the people by the clergy. It is evidence of the 
 strength of resistance of human nature against a 
 strict ecclesiastical system, against overstrained de- 
 mands in the name of religion. That there had 
 been a decay of the ancient piety is no doubt true, 
 but we are not to accept these charges against the 
 community as evidence of general depravity. Even 
 
 1 Mather's Magnolia, book v. part 4, is devoted to this Reforming Synod, 
 "with subsequent essays of reformation in the Churches." 
 
24 
 
 the divines of the time did not all of them consent 
 that the backsliding of the people of God in this 
 land had been so great. Cotton Mather, for ex- 
 ample, in introducing the account of this Synod in 
 his " Magnalia," declares, " the most impartial ob- 
 servers must have acknowledged that there was 
 proportionably still more of true religion, and a 
 larger number of the strictest saints in this country 
 than in any other on the face of the earth." But 
 this solemn testimony of the ministers against the 
 sins of the people had a real foundation in the ten- 
 dency of the time, adverse to the former strictness 
 of church order. The gradual relaxation of ecclesi- 
 astical severities in Massachusetts was accompanied 
 by some real as well as apparent laxity of morals. 
 Mr. Norton may have had occasion within these 
 walls to warn your ancestors and mine against 
 the sins which the Synod rebuked, and to lament 
 their lukewarmness of spirit and the lack of the 
 ancient piety. It is apt to look from the pulpit as 
 if the earth were growing darker, such is the con- 
 trast at all times between the ideal and the actual 
 conduct of life. Let us hope that he and his people 
 sometimes found in the Gospel consoling truths, 
 ministering comfort and hope, of which not the 
 degeneracy of the times nor the character of their 
 faith could deprive them. 
 
 False, oppressive, as the creed of New England 
 had been and then was, we are not to forget that it 
 nurtured precious virtues. From the rock itself 
 
2 5 
 
 sprang living waters. The creed was the produc- 
 tion of men of independent souls, of resolved pur- 
 pose, of moral integrity. It bred men of like temper. 
 It was the creed of political independents, and of 
 republican institutions. The seed of liberty lay in 
 it. The doctrine of the fall of man brought all men 
 on a level. King, priest, the noble, the rich, were 
 sinners in the eyes of the Lord no less than the 
 poor and the humble. God is no respecter of per- 
 sons was its first lesson. It was no creed of mere 
 authority to be believed because incredible. Irra- 
 tional as it was it addressed the reason no less than 
 the conscience. It required discussion and dis- 
 crimination. It opened the way to endless contro- 
 versy. The Bible, the Word of God, was its source, 
 but the reason must be appealed to for the right 
 interpretation of that Word. Many false premises 
 were taken for granted, many false conclusions 
 drawn from them. But the argument was an exer- 
 cise of the reasoning faculty. Wits were sharpened 
 in theological disputation for use in other debates. 
 Thought slowly won its freedom ; and freedom led 
 to truth. Freedom of mind is the prerequisite of 
 free institutions; Theology was close akin to poli- 
 tics. History as well as doctrine was studied in the 
 Old Testament. When, in 1683, Edward Ran- 
 dolph, the arch-enemy of Massachusetts, was de- 
 parting for England to give his aid toward vacating 
 the Charter of the Colony, the old patriot and 
 Deputy-Governor, Thomas Danforth, addressed him 
 
26 
 
 a brief letter of warning, with references to appro- 
 priate passages in Genesis, Exodus, and the Acts. 1 
 It was characteristic of the mode of thought and 
 argument of the times. The faith of the New Eng- 
 land Puritan, while debasing him before the Lord, 
 gave him virtue to stand before tyrants. 
 
 From the beginning their religion, their manner 
 of life, the wilderness which they were compelled to 
 conquer, the institutions which they established and 
 maintained, were preparing the colonists to become 
 the founders of the mightiest empire of self-governed 
 men that the world has seen. And during the 
 whole course of Colonial history, the meeting-house 
 — the house for the town-meeting as well as for the 
 worship of God — was the central hearth of light 
 and warmth for the little world of each community. 
 
 At length, in 1716, after thirty-seven years of 
 ministry, the old pastor, of whom so little is known, 
 but whose praise is in the tranquillity of his long 
 term of service, was gathered to the fathers. Some 
 time passed before his successor was chosen ; but 
 in June, 1718, a young graduate of Harvard College, 2 
 Ebenezer Gay, not yet twenty-two years old, was 
 ordained in this house, and here for almost seventy 
 years did this good man preach. He was ninety 
 years old when, on a Sunday morning, as he was 
 preparing for the usual public services of the day, 
 
 1 The letter may be found in Palfrey, History of New England, iii. 375. 
 
 2 Of the class of 17 14; a class of eleven members, of whom four were 
 natives of Hingham, one of them being a grandson of Mr. Hobart, the first 
 minister. 
 
2 7 
 
 death came to him. His pastorate, and that of his 
 predecessor, stretch over a hundred years, from the 
 dark days of the vacating of the Old Charter of 
 Massachusetts, and the tyranny of Andros, to the 
 establishment of the Independence of America and 
 the adoption of the National Constitution. Hing- 
 ham had borne her little part, not without credit, 
 through the century ; and she owes lasting gratitude 
 to these venerable teachers who, generation after 
 generation, devoted themselves to the training of 
 her sons in the service of the Lord that so they 
 might do good service to their land. 
 
 One figure stands specially notable as represen- 
 tative of Hingham during the years of the Revo- 
 lution and the foundation of the Republic, — that of 
 General Benjamin Lincoln. The Lincolns are of 
 the original stock of the town, and there is no need 
 to recount here, where the story is familiar, what 
 credit they have done to it for two hundred and 
 fifty years. In this Meeting-house, in 1733, Benja- 
 min Lincoln, son of Benjamin, was baptized by Dr. 
 Gay. He was brought up under this pulpit, and it 
 is not venturing too much to ascribe a share of his 
 qualities to the influence of the disposition and dis- 
 course of his learned, liberal, kindly, and devout 
 minister and friend. Lincoln's character bears the 
 true New England stamp. He had the virtues of 
 a simple, sturdy, self-respecting community. He 
 was the foremost man of the town, because in him 
 the best qualities of her people found fullest ex- 
 
28 
 
 pression. He was not a man of genius either in 
 field or council, but he had that saving common- 
 sense which is the intelligence of the community 
 concentrated in an individual. " I entertain a very 
 high opinion of his judgment and abilities," wrote 
 Washington at an early period of their acquaint- 
 ance. " He is an active, spirited, sensible man." 
 He was in truth all this and more. Washington 
 himself was not of purer integrity, nor of completer 
 self-possession. Neither elated by success nor de- 
 pressed by defeat, steady under either fortune, free 
 from jealousy and selfish ambition, cordial in spirit, 
 kindly in temper, he discharged faithfully and with 
 honor every duty with which he was intrusted ; and 
 devoting all his faculties to his country's cause, he 
 rendered her service that will make his name im- 
 mortal in her annals. I like to dwell on the life 
 of this honest farmer of Hingham, who rose to the 
 level of high duties on a great stage, performing 
 them simply as he would have performed those of 
 Justice of the Peace, or member of the Great and 
 General Gourt. He embodies the plain, substantial 
 excellence of the New England village, the child of 
 the meeting-house and the school, — no hero but 
 a well grown man. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Norton here interrupted himself to read the following letter, which 
 he gave to the town to be preserved in the Public Library: — 
 
 Watertown, July 29, 1775. 
 
 Gentlemen : — When I accepted a seat at the Council Board, I moved in 
 the House that a precept might go out, empowering the Town of Hingham 
 to send another member to y e General Court. The request was granted ; 
 and I here inclose to you the precept. I hope the Inhabitants of the Town 
 of Hingham & y e District of Cohassett will improve the priviledge. 
 
29 
 
 The theology of Dr. Gay was of a milder type 
 than that of his predecessor. The conditions of 
 life in the older settlements of the country, like 
 Hingham, were adverse to the literal harshness of 
 the still nominally accepted creed. Without vio- 
 lence of disruption, without intermission of devout 
 service, without recognition of any special moment 
 of change, the faith of the community became less 
 and less technically orthodox, was less rigid in ad- 
 herence to the Five Points of Calvinism, and shaped 
 itself gradually into conformity with the genial tem- 
 per of a people that was becoming strong and pros- 
 perous, less anxious and more confident in itself, 
 from decade to decade. The standards of morality 
 became more rational. Men might wear their hair 
 short or long, as it pleased them, without sin. They 
 had begun to laugh and to dance, though still with 
 some rigidity of feature and awkwardness of limb. 
 
 Altho' Gentlemen, I am removed from the House of Representatives, and 
 therefore am not considered as your particular representative in General 
 Court, yet y' will not remove from my mind the great obligations I am under 
 to the Inhabitants of the Town of Hingham & y e District of Cohasset, nor 
 will it discharge me from the duty I owe them, or lessen y e concern I have 
 to promote their best interest so far as my small ability shall enable me to 
 do it, — for I consider that it is partly owing to their favourable notice of me 
 that I have been brot into public view — I recollect with gratitude that they 
 have conferred upon me most if not all the places of honour & trust that 
 were in their power to give. 
 
 That they have kindly accepted my small services when I have been em- 
 ployed by them, & have been disposed not to exaggerate my many faults 
 & imperfections, but on y e other hand have discovered a disposition at all 
 times to draw a vail over them — to be forgetfull of or silent with regard to 
 such notice, respect & tenderness would argue want of gratitude, and crimi- 
 nal inattention or great insensibility. 
 
 I am Gentlemen with great esteem for you, y* Town & District your 
 most obliged, obedient, & Hum e Servant. 
 
 Benj. Lincoln. 
 
 To y e Gentlemen Selectmen of Hingham & Cohassett. 
 
3° 
 
 General Lincoln was a devout Christian of the 
 new type; and when in 1787 Henry Ware suc- 
 ceeded Dr. Gay in this parish, Lincoln, thirty years 
 his senior, was in sympathy with the liberal views 
 of the young minister, and a friendship grew up 
 between them, founded on mutual respect and con- 
 formity of religious opinion. 
 
 Mr. Ware was a worthy follower, in purity of 
 character, in learning, and in intelligence, of his 
 three predecessors; but when in 1805 he was called 
 to Harvard College, although he had occupied this 
 pulpit for eighteen years, his pastorate was less 
 than half as long as the shortest of the preceding 
 ministries. 
 
 In 1806 the Rev. Joseph Richardson was or- 
 dained to succeed him. Differences of religious 
 opinion, as well as personal differences, attended his 
 settlement, and a portion of the parish withdrew 
 to form a new society. In the course of years the 
 differences have disappeared, and the two societies 
 recognize their common faith and history, and take an 
 almost equal pride in the Old Meeting-house. With 
 various interruptions, occasioned by the part he took 
 in public life, as well as by ill-health, Mr. Richard- 
 son remained Minister of this parish until ten years 
 ago, when at the age of almost ninety-four, his death 
 closed a pastoral term of more than sixty-five years. 
 In 1855 the Rev. Calvin Lincoln, himself a descend- 
 ant of Peter Hobart, was settled as Associate Pastor, 
 and to-day we are gladdened by his venerable pres- 
 
 \ 
 
3i 
 
 encc, and salute in him the sixth in that line of 
 eminent and faithful servants of the people of the 
 Lord, whose record is the story and the commen- 
 dation of Hinsfham for two centuries and a half. 1 
 
 Such a record is unmatched, so far as I know, 
 in the annals of New England. There is a peculiar 
 and pleasing correspondence between the perma- 
 nence of this house and the long duration of the ser- 
 vice of each of those who have ministered within 
 it. The changes in the house itself, since it 
 was erected, typify the changes in the creed of the 
 preachers. It has been enlarged since its first con- 
 struction, as if in accord with the more comprehen- 
 sive scheme of salvation. Its inner structure has 
 more than once been made more commodious, as 
 if to typify the greater spiritual comfort of the doc- 
 trine delivered from the desk. Sixty years ago it 
 was warmed for the first time in the winter season, 
 as if a milder and more genial heat was required, as 
 the flames died away in that dismal place where, 
 according to Mr. Michael Wigglesworth, — 
 
 " God's fierce ire kindleth the fire, 
 And vengeance feeds the flame 
 With piles of wood, and brimstone flood, 
 That none can quench the same." 
 
 But as the Old Meeting-house still stands essen- 
 tially the same, so in spite of differences of form 
 
 1 A few weeks after the delivery of this address the Rev. Mr. Lincoln 
 died. He was nearly eighty-two years old, and was struck down in the per- 
 formance of the services on Sept. 8, 1881, the day appointed for prayer for 
 the recovery of President Garfield. 
 
32 
 
 and statement of belief, in spite of differences of 
 moral judgment and spiritual aim, the congrega- 
 tion gathers here from week to week with essen- 
 tially the same purpose as that which brought our 
 forefathers to this house, — namely, to be instructed 
 in the truth and to study to be good. A continu- 
 ous spiritual life runs through the centuries, and 
 here its continuity is most deeply felt, for here in 
 each generation have high ideals been quickened, 
 pure resolves animated, and all that was best in the 
 hearts and souls of the men and women of this 
 town cherished, strengthened, and confirmed. 
 
 The record of recent years is no less significant 
 of the worth of the lessons received here than that 
 of the earlier time. There are associations belong- 
 ing to this house, within the remembrance of those 
 still young among you, that shall help to confirm 
 the character of the latest generation of worshippers 
 that shall gather here. Twenty years ago many a 
 youth went out from yonder door to meet danger 
 and death with a high heart. Here America, 
 through your lips, Reverend Sir, appealed in the 
 name of religion to her sons, and did not appeal 
 in vain. Here, when the storm of war had ceased, 
 the town gathered to mourn and to honor, not only 
 her own dead sons, but him, revered, beloved of 
 the whole nation, him beyond praise, him of the 
 Hingham name, Abraham Lincoln; and here, but 
 six years ago, the town assembled once more to 
 offer its tribute of undying honor to its own great 
 
33 
 
 citizen, the man worthy to be named in the same 
 breath with Abraham Lincoln, — John Albion An- 
 drew. Such associations as these, such memories, 
 are the live coals on the altar to kindle virtuous 
 aspiration into flaming achievement. 
 
 Who shall ever enter this house hereafter in 
 times of stress, when the State calls on her children 
 for sacrifice of private interests to public service, 
 without recalling the resplendent example of An- 
 drew, and drawing inspiration from his magnani- 
 mous devotion to the cause of humanity and liberty ? 
 His was a manly nature. You remember him, — 
 the cheerful neighbor, the lover of children, the 
 friend of the poor, the comforter of those in trou- 
 ble, the man of simple tastes, the lover of nature 
 and of poetry ; with sympathies quick as light, with 
 feelings warm as a mother's heart ; ardent and im- 
 petuous in spirit, ready in counsel, prompt in deci- 
 sion ; the Puritan in the blamelessness of his life, 
 the latitudinarian in the breadth of his charity, the 
 Cavalier in the dash of his charge, the Roundhead 
 in his faith in God and in the keeping his powder 
 dry, and in every attitude and action the good citi- 
 zen, the sound, large-hearted man. You remember — 
 for was he not yours by adoption ? — how naturally 
 he grew up to the foremost place in the State ; by 
 what open and honest means he won the confi- 
 dence of the people of the Commonwealth ; how he 
 scorned subterfuge and the devious arts of trading 
 politicians ; how the people recognized in him the 
 
34 
 
 embodiment and expression of their own best sen- 
 timent and purpose. No Governor ever stood a 
 more complete representative of his State than 
 John A. Andrew stood during the years of war. 
 For the moment he and Massachusetts were one. 
 As the great heart of the generous new West beat 
 in the breast of Lincoln, so the great heart of the 
 older East answered sympathetically to it in the 
 pulses of Andrew. From the first call of the war 
 until the last he was always in the front ; and 
 when the war was over his liberal hand was the 
 first to be held out, with hearty and frank confi- 
 dence, to the enemy against whom he had fought 
 so strenuously. He gave his life to his country, 
 and in the bugle notes over his grave were heard 
 the laments of the Union, South and North, blend- 
 ing in sorrow for the friend of all mankind, — "for 
 behold the Lord had taken away the stay and the 
 staff, the mighty man and the man of war, the 
 judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and 
 the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the 
 eloquent orator." 
 
 In your Excellency's [Governor Long] interest- 
 ing sketch of the life of Governor Andrew, in the 
 volume which records the services and sacrifices of 
 the sons of Hingham for the cause of Freedom and 
 Union, you have spoken of the worth of his exam- 
 ple for future generations. It is, indeed, an example 
 for times of prosperity and peace, no less than for 
 those of adversity and war. It is the virtue of a 
 
35 
 
 great character to be of universal service, to help 
 men in ordinary as well as in exceptional occasions. 
 For the village Hampden, or the hero who reads 
 his history in a nation's eyes, follows but one and 
 the same path, the narrow path of duty, which 
 sometimes may become the path of glory, but which 
 for the most part is simply the path of every-day 
 life. This path, trodden by the common men and 
 women of every period, is the thread of light run- 
 ning unbroken through the past up to the present 
 hour. Creeds change, temptations differ, old land- 
 marks are left behind, new perils confront us, but 
 always the needle points to the North Star, and 
 always are some common men and women follow- 
 ing its guidance. And this is what unites us in 
 spiritual relationship with those ancestors of ours 
 from whom we are parted so widely in faith, in 
 knowledge, and in manners, and whose remoteness 
 from us is marked, not so much by astonishing dif- 
 ference in material circumstances, as by changes in 
 thought and belief. They will not disown us for 
 their children so long as we do our duty faithfully, 
 as they did theirs. They fought a good fight with 
 the devils of adversity and hardship ; it is for us 
 to fight with the devils of prosperity and ease. 
 The aspect of the battle has changed, but the bat- 
 tle still goes on. They have entered into rest ; we 
 are in the heat of work. May our work be not less 
 strenuous, not less deserving to endure than theirs ; 
 so that when this day shall be the past of two hun- 
 
36 
 
 dred years, and our children's children shall gather 
 here again, to seek fresh invigoration for the per- 
 formance of duty, they may find it in our exam- 
 ple as well as in that of our elders, and say as 
 we say, — 
 
 " Let the Work of our Fathers stand ! "