\ F 68 .H76 Copy 2 xm Wtwflt'^mlitt^: A SERMON PKKAIIIED IN THE CONGREGATIONAL TABERNACLE, JERSEY CfTY, N. J. ON TIIK SABBATH BEFORE FOREFATHERS' DAY, DECEMBER 17, 1865. Z/3^^^ .lOIlN MILTON HOLMES, Pastor of the Chuech. ^Icu) ;I)orfi: THJHALS & WHITING, 37 PARK HOW. 1 866. lilnsi impk-§!itlJ«irg: A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CONGREGATIOML TABKRNACLE, JERSEY CITY, N. J., ON THE SABBATH BEFORE FOREFATHERS' DAY, DECEMBER It, 1865. JOHN MILTON HOLMES, Pastor of the Church. ^\m fiorfi: TIBBALS .t WinTL\<;. 37 PARK ROW 1 8G6. ccp y ^ The occasion of the discourse, which is now published at the request of the Church, is sufficiently indicated by the following resolution, adopted by the National Council at Boston, June 24, 1865. Resolved, That the Council recommend to the American Congregational Union, with- out arresting or delaying the special efforts now in progress, or ready to be put forth in behalf of the churches needing aid for the erection of houses of worship, to call for a simultaneous collection, December 17, the Sabbath preceding Forefathers' Day, when every Congregational church, large or small, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, shall con- tribute what it can toward the $200,000 for church building. Let the good work be finished in a day, and give the proper punctuation to this meeting." By invitation of a considerable number of New Englanders connected with the Presbyterian church in Montclair, N. J. — not without the cordial courtesy of the pastor, Rev. ]Mr. Millard — the sermon was repeated in that place on the evening of the same Sabbath. PSALM XLVIII. ]2-i:i "Walk about Zion, and go round about her; teli, the towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks; consider' her pal- aces, that ye may tell it to the generathin following." That genial and true-hearted messenger of the English Churches to the Boston Council, the Eev. Dr. Raleigh, pre- sented, upon his return to the mother-land, this fair picture of New England, from the summit of Mt. Holyoke : " I stood one day on a hill-top near Northampton, commanding a vast and various view, one of the finest of the kind in the whole world. We had crept up slowly— a gentleman of Northampton and myself— for it was a hot Summer day, through the leafy woods, now admiring the beauty of the foliage and now talking of the past and the present of En- gland and America, wlien all at once we emerged from the umbrage and stood upon the hill-top. There came to my lips in a moment some lines of Thompson's Seasons, which had l)een in my memory since boyhood, and which I had always thought rather mythical, considered as the descrip- tion of an actual scene : " 'Heaveus! wliat a g:ooill_v iirospect spreads around. Of liills and dales and woods and lawns and spires, And glUterinfj towns and jjilded streams, till all The streteliiii": landsca])!' into smoke decays.' "Thirty Chm'ch-spires are visible from that hill-top to a practised eye, every one of them the spire of a parish Church, and every one of them Independent." ' Marp-inal nnte, — " T^aisc up, Till-: riijiKi.M ri;.Mi'M:-iirii.i)[;(.>se urniiii^ed by Craniiici" luul tVom the first l)eeu consid- ered by u large body of Protestants as a scheme tor ser\iiig two uuisters, — as uu attempt to unite tlie worsliip of the Lord witl» tiie worshij* of liaal." — MtiCHulay, i., 4."), et srr/. THE PILliKIM TEMPLK-RUILDERS. 11 i'ort, between those who coukl conscientiously conform to the ritual of the English establishment and those who jire- ferred the primitive simplicity of tlie Reformed Churches around them. And here at Frankfort, in the year J 5-54, the more scrupulous and inflexible of the reformers were tirst called Puritans by their adversaries.^ The Puritans remained as yet within the bosom of the English Church, and shrank from any thought of separation. But after the accession of Elizabeth (155S), who was iu belief more a Papist than a Protestant, and in temper a true daughter of Henry VIII., the breach between tlie Pu- ritans and the Establishment was effected by the Queen herself.'-^ When in the lower House of Convocation the questions were discussed of the observ^ance of Saints' days, of the use of the cope and surplice, of kneeling at the com- munion, of the sign of the cross in baptism, and matters of kindred moment, it appeared that that body was almost equally divided, the reformers losing the day by only a single vote out of a hundred and seventeen.^ But the Queen 'Bacon's Hist. Discourses, p. 7; Palfrey, Hist. New England, i., 118; Neal, Hist. Puritans, i., 68. Within ten years the name was iu common use iu England. Hopkins adopts the later date. Hist. Puritans, i., 232. ■^ Except Archbishop Parker .... and Cox, Bishoj) of Ely .... all the most eminent churclnnen, such as Sewell, Grindal, Sandys, Newell, were in favor of leaving off the surplice and what were called the Poj)ish ceremonies. Whether their objections are to be deemed narrow and frivolous, or other- wise, it is incousisteut with veracity to dissemble that the Qinen alone was the cause of retaining those observances to which the great separation from the Auglicau establishment is ascribed. — Hallani, Conxt. Hist. Eng., i., 188. ^ Neal, i., 89. The Puritans at this time com])Osed the majority of the En- glish jieople. " I conceive," sa^'s one of the most; accurate and impartial of his- torians, " the Church of England party — that is, the party averse to any species of ecclesiastical change — to have been the least numerous of the three (Catholic, Church of England, Puritan,) duriug this reign; still excepting, as I have said, the neutrals, who commonly make a numerical majority and are count- ed along with the dominant religion. The Puritans, or at least those who rather favored them, had a majority among the Protestant gentry during the Queen's days. It is agreed on all lumds, and is quite manifest, that they predominated in the House of Commons. But that House was composed, as it has ever been, of the principal landed proprietors, and as much represented the general wish of the community, when it denuuided a farther reform in reliirious matters, as mi mmv utbrr snttjccts. One would imagine, liy tlie 12 THE I'lI.CKI.M TKMl'LK-Iiril.DKKS. looked upon the rights of conscience just us slie regarded the enterprises of comniercial speculation. Of botli she claimed the monopoly, and all must l)e ordered in ac- cordance with her imperious will. Therefore it was she issued her imperial edict that no worship should be tolerated outside of the Established Chui-ch, and that all who did worship should observe every jot aiid tittle of the royal ceremonial under penalty of ruinous fines, imprisonment, and death.^ Then arose in the minds of the Puritans the Pauline spirit of independence, and they said : In these matters of conscience we give to this woman " no place by subjection, — no, not for an hour." They not only opposed the com])ulsorv imposition of vain and superstitious observances, and the doctrine of passive obedience to royal caprice in matters of religion, but they held that they themselves were guilty in the sight of God by remaining in communion with a church which avowed such pernicious doctrines and practices. Since the English Church could not be reformed it ujust be aban- doned. They heard the great voice of the Apocalypse sounding athwart the heavens, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of lu;r plagues." These w^ere the Puritans of the Puritans, "the dissidents of dissent," who demand(;d nothing less than the entire free- dom of conscience, and a complete separation from all ob- servances opposed to the purity and sim}»licity of the gospel of Christ. With these convictions a handful of "godly Christians" manner in which some express themselves, that the discontented were a siiiall faction, who, by some unaccountahle means, in despite of the goverumeut and the nation, formed a mnjurity of all Parliaments under Elizabeth and her two successors.'' — Hallani, Const. Hist., i., 5i57. ' Two ministers of tlie gospel were hanged for circulating l?rown's tract on the Liherty of the Pulpit. " Both the prisoners diod by their principles; for tiioiigli Dr. Still, the archbishop's chaplain, and others travelled (trav- ailed) and conferred with them, yet at the very hour of their death they re- mained immovable; they were both sound in the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, mid nf unldi inished lices.'" — Xeiil. i., l.")4. TTIE riLfJRIM TEMPLE-BUILDERS. 13 in the north of England, in the vilhige of Scrooby, under the lead of John Robinson and William Brewster, in the year IG0(),^ organized themselves into an independent church after the pattern of the Scriptures. Being led by the light of God's word to see that the " beggarly ceremonies" were monuments of idolatry, and that " the lordly power of the prelates ought not to be submitted to," they determined, to use their own words, " to shake of this yoake of anti- Christian bondage, and as y*^ Lord's free people joyn them- selves by a covenant of y'' Lord, into a church estate, in y® felowship of y'' gospell, to walke in all his wayes, made known or to be made known to them according to their best endeaours, ivluitsoever it should cost tJiem.''^^ But this Church could not live in England. By the dig- nitaries who then presided over the Establishment it was regarded with less favor than a den of dicers or coiners, and it speedily bi'ought down upon its head the full measure of brutal vengeance from the authorities. The scattered flock fled to the sea-side, where a vessel was in waiting to carry them to Holland. ]jut while the ship was loading, when a portion of the emigrants were already on board, a ])and of horsemen made their appearance on the beach, and dragged oft' to the magistrates a large number of helpless women and children. " Pitiful it was," says an eye-witness,'^ " to see the heavy case of these poor women in distress. What weeping and crying on every side!" With great difliculty and through much misery the weeping band at last rejoined their husbands and fathers, and so at last the Pilgrim Church succeeded in finding a refuge in the city of Amsterdam. But, like the wandering dove, they found no place to rest. Erom Amsterdam they removed to Leyden, and there for ten years "their continual labors with other crosses and sorrows left them in danger to scatter or sink." ' For the verification of this date, see Palfrey, i., 134, Note. - Bradford's Plinioth Phiutation, ([noted by Dexter, Coiigref^ationalisni, p. 58. •' Bradford. Sec I'alfrcv, i., i:?H. 14 Tirp: I'lLCKIM IKMI'LK-r.III.DERS, They felt that in a lijieiirn coiuitrv there was danger of forgetting the language and the name (»!' tiieir heloved father- land. They fonnd themselves unabh* to give their chi-ldren an education .such as they had themselves received, and they were grieved at the irreligionof the Dutch, especially in the profanation of the Sabbath.^ It might be that in the un- iidiabited regions of the New Worhl they could find a prom- ised land for themselves and their ])osterity. Accordinglv, they broke up their associations with the ])eople, who loved them and esteemed them.- The pastor Robinson who re- mained behind with a portion of the flock gave them a solemn farewell charge." They feasted at the pastor's lioiise, ' Three main reasons are given by Winsiow (Briefe Narration) for their leaving Holland. 1. "They were like to lose their language and their name of English." 2. " How little good they did or were like to do to the Dutch in reforming the Sabbath." i?. " How unable there to give such education to their children as they had themselves received." - " The magistrates testified, ' These English have lived among us now these twelve years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation come against any of them.' " — Bradford, 20. " The merchant.? of Amsterdam presented a memorial to the Prince of Orange to encourage Robinson's company to emi- grate to the Dutch settlements in America." — Brodhead, Hist. New York, i., 125. Many of the Dutch joined the Pilgrim Church. See Winsloic, I>5. •' The farewell counsel of liobiusou breathes such a noble, and for that age wonderful, spirit of mingled liberty and charity, that I cannot njfrain from quoting Winslow's Narration at length: " We are now ere long to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord had ap- pointed it or not, he charged us before God and his blessed angels to follow him no farther than he followed Christ, and if God should reveal anything to \is by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth by his ministi-y ; for he was very coniident tlie Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his Holy Word. He took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition ot tlie Keformed Churches who were come to a period in religion, and would no further go than the iustrumeuts of their Reformation. As, for exaUiple, the Lutherans ; they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw, for whatever part of God's will He had farther imparted and revealed unto Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And .so al.so saith he. You see the Calvinists; they stick where he left them — a misery much to be lamented — for tlu>ugh they were precious shining lights in their times, yet God hath not revealed his whole will unto them, and were they now living, saith he, they would be as ready and willing to embrace farther light than that they had received. Here also he put us in mind of our Church covenant, at least tlmt jiart of it whereby THK I'lLOKIM TEArPLE-BFTT.DKRS. lo then, having been refreshed after tlieir tears by the singing of psalms, the}^ embarked upon the peiilous voyage, and in the fulness of the time the Mayflower anchored in the bay of Massachusetts, and the Pilgrims landed upon Plymouth Rock. Wliat, now, was the nature of this Pilgrim Church, des- tined to exert so mighty an influence in all time to come ? Its cardinal principle of polity was that the particular Church is an equal brotherhood of believers, amenable to no head but Christ. Our fathers held that every such Church is independent of any outward jurisdiction or control, whether of popes, kings, bishops, or of any ecclesiastical authority; that it is competent to constitute and maintain its own oiganization, to elect its own pastor and other officers, to execute its own discipline, to determine its own mode of worship, to direct its own internal affairs, and that, for the proper discharge of th<^se Christian functions, it is responsible to Christ alone.^ When the Pilgrims sent their messengers from Leyden to London, in the vain hope of obtaining a chai'ter for their colony, the councilors asked, "Who shall be your minister?" To the great astonishment of the council, the envoys an- swered, " The power of making them is in the Church." This is the language of Robinson : " The Lord Jesus is the king of His Church alone, upon whose shoulders the govern- ment is, and unto wiiom all power is given in heaven and earth.." And Higginson of Salem, a town partly colonized from PIvmouth, declares, " This was f)ur cause in coming we promise and covenant with God and one another, to receive whatsoever lio^lit or truth sliall be made known to ns from his written word; hut withal exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth, and well to examine and compare it, and weig-h it with other Scriptures of truth before we received it. For, saith he, it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such antichristian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once." ^ See a full array of authorities in that invaluable book, Dexter's Congre- {ratioualism, p. 4;i, note. See, also, the resume of Jiradshaw's Puritanism, in Neiil, i.. •24^'. 10 TlIK PILORIM TEMPLE-HUILDERS. here, that Christ alone niiy;ht be ackiiuwlt'dired bv lis as iho only Head, Lord, and Lawgiver." Were this the place for such an argument, it might be clearly shown that this free constitution of the Church is in strict conformity with the teaching of the Scriptures, which our tathei's took for their iiifallil>le "uide. ]*)ut omittinu; these considerations, we proceed to ask, What were the fruits of this Pilgrim Church, and what its iuHuence upon the spiritual destiny of New England ? More especially, How did it fulfill the proper functions of a Church of Christ in defending the truth, in promoting piety, and in bringing men to the reception of the gospel as it is in Jesus? Two centuries ;ind a half have roHcd away, and the muse of histor}' stands ready with her answer. Nowhere in all the world — not even among the children ol" the covenanters, in the green vales of Scotland — are the inhabitants charac- terized by such sobriety, frugality, industry, and purity. No- where is God's word so read and honored. Nowhere, when that Sabbath comes on which the Pilgrims rested, does the church-bell, with its sweet evangel, call forth so many wor- shippers to the temples of the Lord. Nowhere sinee the Pentecost have been experienced with greater power those gracious visitations of the Spirit, whose most memorable type is the "Great Awakening" described by the peli of Edwards. Nowhere is so large a proportion of the entire population gathered into the Churches of Christ. And if we proceed to ask, A\'hat have these Churches done beyond themselves for the welfare of mankind, we are still ready with the answer. New England has been fore- most in the inauguration of those great benevolent and religious institutions which now girdle the world with their benignant charities. Do you honor that noble Society which aims to send the Bible, without note or conmient, to every famih' in the land, and whicli, -aWw translating the word of God into unnund)ered lanuiiaiies, is now seiidini:: it from the presses of America to the hundred millions who speak the Arabic V Remember that bei'ore the existence of the metropolitan institution, a ]5ible Society had been al- « TIIK PTI.(!l{m TKMPLE-BriLDEnS. 17 ready foniiod in ]\rassachusetts and another in Connecti- cut/ Do you look with favor upon that Home Missionary Society whicli lias planted the gospel in almost every county of the boundless West "/ That, too, was organized by the New England Churches ; and tlie General Court of Massa- chusetts, two centuries earlier, was the first Missionary Society in the annals of Protestant Christendom." Are you interested in the work of Sabbath Schools ? In 1781, the same year in which Robert Raikes began his apos- tolic work in England, the children were gathered for religious instruction on Sunday noons, under the branching- elms in the village of Washington, Connecticut.'" But a hundred years l:»efore Raikes was born, the Sabbath School was in successful operation in the Pilgrim Church at Plymouth.^ Do you regard the Temperance Reformation as intimately connected with tht^ interests of religion '! Massachusetts and Connecticut are rivals for the honor of its birth.'' Have j^ou ' Amer. Cyclop., art., " Bible Societies." The American Bible Society was I'ormed iu 1816, throuoh the instrumentality of Hon. Elias Bondinot of New Jersey. The Massachusetts Society was formed in 18U9. Under the aus- pices of Eliot the famous Indian Bible, the lirst Bible printed in America, was issued at Cambridge in in():i, having been three years in press. - The Home Missionary Society formed in 1826 was in reality only a consol- idation of the New Eughmd Au.xiliaries. " In thirty years from the arrival of the Pilgrims, tive Churches had expanded into more than forty, and were actually supporting fifty-tive ministers." " Home Missions were pushed with such vigor, that cases are related of the erection of meeting-houses ' whore the entire population of the place could sit together on the sills at the raising.'" — Rev. H. B. Hooker, in Report Howe Missionary Soriffy, 1864. " The General Court of Massachusetts was thus (1646) the first Mission- ary Society in the history of Protestant Christendom." — Halfrey, ii., 189. ■' Rev. Dr. Hawes, in Contrib. to Eccles. Hist, of Conn., p. 191. ■• As early as 1680 the Plymouth Church passed a vote in these words: "That the deacons be re(iuested to assist the minister in teaching the chil- dren during the intermission on the Sabbath." Rev. T. Robbins, D. D., in his address at W^illiams' College, says that he has seen an authentic account of a Sunday School at Plymouth, in 1669. — Cong. Qtiar. Jan., ISbo, p. 2\. " Both Massachusetts and Connecticut may well contend for precedence in the Temperance movement." — Dr. J. Marsh. Dr. Porter's famous sermon on "The Fatal Effects of Ardent Spirits," 18 Till-: liLCIJIM TKMri.K-IUII.DKKS. ever thoiiglit with wondt-r on that Aiiicricaii Board of Conmiissioners for Foreign Missions, which has dotted every continent with Christian institutions, which has elevated savage tribes from the lowest depths of pagan barbarism to the dignity of Christian nations, and which, making the coral islands of the Pacific its stepping-stones, has gone lorth to the spiritual concpiest of the habitable globe "/ It was originated in the study of a descendant of the Pilgrims, not far fioni tlie rock on which they landed fis a mission Church.^ Thus, then, that ancestral Church in the wilderness, con- taining within it such wondrous germs of power, is invested for us with a mysterious and transcendent glory. It needs no warrant from a persecuting bishop to constitute it more a Church of Christ than what it is. Those heroic saints cel- ebrating their first Sabbath in tlie New Enijland snows, are truer successors of the apostles than any created l)y the imposition of an earthly hand. Their strain of wor- ship, ringing amid the pines, shall never cease to vibrat<' through the heavens till it melt away in tlie blast of the resurrection. xVnd that rude sanctuary, hewn of logs, on whose top the three cannon were planted at the Indians, is a grander and more sacred temple than any minster or ca- thedral with its broad aisles and sumptuous altars, its lofty arches resounding with the organ's diapason, and its storied windows, where the forms of saints and angels keep solemn ward over the dust of kings who sleep below. II. Xo sooner had the Pilgrims constituted their Church and built its house of worship, than they founded the Frek School, to be the tower of education. A governor of Virginia is recorded to have uttered his whicli giive tlic first iiii])ulsi' to tlie Tcinjioiaiu'c uioveiufut in Coniiecticiii, was preached iu the winter of IHOfi. The Miissaclmsetts .Soeiety for the Suppression of luteniperaiice was organized in I'^i:?. ' At Audover, 18UU. Tiie Board received its orgauizntion from tlie Gen- eral Association of the Congregational Churches of Massachusetts, at Brad- ford, '^'.Itli Jmic. IHId. THE PII.OKIAF Ti::\IPLE-lU-ILr)ET?S. 19 thanksgiving to God that in that commonwealth there were no printing presses nor free schools.^ John Eliot, tlie apostle to the Indians, in a prayer before the General (Jourt of Massachnsetts, in 1645, thus reversed the desire of Berkeley: "Lord! for schools everywhere among us ! That our schools may flourish. That every member of this As- sembly may go home and procure a good school to be en- couraged in the town where he lives. That before we die we may be so happy as to se<* a good school in every plan- tation in the country.""^ The spirit of the prayer of Eliot was earl}^ framed into appropriate legislation. "In nothing," says De Tocqueville, "is the original character of American civilization shown more clearly than in the mandates relating to education.""' One of the earliest of these laws contained th(; tbllowing provision : " To the end that all learning may not l)e buried in the graves of our forefathei's, ordered that every township, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all the children to read and write, and \^diere any town shall increase to the nuujber of one hundred families, they shall set up a grannnar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university."'* Another or- dinance provided that in every town the selectmen should use all vigilance to insure that every householder teach, by himself or others, their children and apprentices so much learning as should enable them to read the English tongue and obtain a knowledge of the laws."' If, for any reason, the parent neglected to instruct his offspring, he was subjected to a fine, and the children were educated under the direction ' Sir Wm. Berkeley-, iu 167(1, iu reply to the inquiries addressed to liiiu by the Lords of IMautatious, says, " 1 tliank God there are no free schools nor printing, aud I hope we shall not liavc them these hundred years, tor learn- ing- has brought disobedience, and iieresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both I ' — Uinning's Laws of I'irginiti, Appendix. - Morris. Cliristian Life, &v., of the United States, p. 7;{. ■' Demoeracy iu America, i., oL ^ Colonial I>a\v.s. n>47. Hancroft. i., 4")^. ■"' I'alfrev. i.. Hi. 20 Tfir: i'ii,(;ki.m 'ii;Mi'rj:-i;i r[,i»[:r{s. of tlie town authorities.^ " In tliose nieasurcs," sa3's Pjancroft, "especially in the laws estahlishiiig couimoii schools, lies the secret of the success and . ^ Mollis, Cluisiiiiii Lite, Siv., ol' tlie llnitcJ Slatos, ji. 7 4. THE PILGRIM TEMrLE-BUILDERS. 21 paratus. At Easthampton, at Exeter, at Andover, and a score of other towns, tlie poorest boy ma}^ obtain the prepa- ration for the university, which in other lands is attainable only by the sons of the wealthy and the noble. And that college at Cambridge, which began with flagons and trenchers in the woods, no larger than a district school, to-day sends forth its ambassadors of science to a distant empire,^ holding the majestic Amazon in its bosom, to be welcomed by the sovereign as royal guests, and sped on their way in ships of war and state, to record the wondrous history of creation in the circling ages ere man himself was born. Or if you will have the result of the wisdom of the fathers in more tangible statistics, the proportion of white adults over twenty years of age, unable to read and write, is, in the commonwealth of Berkeley, one to every twelve ; in New Jersey it is one to every fifty-eight ; in Massachusetts it is one to every one hundred and sixty-six. In States less subject to the influx of foreign ignorance, the census is still more favoi^able. In Vermont the proportion is one to every four hundred and seventy-three; and in Connecticut, one to every five hundred and sixty-eight ! ^ One of the favored sons of New England, having wan- dered back to the land of his ancestors, and having, first of all Americans, been presented with the freedom of the city of London, remembered his native town and the little school- house in which he laid the foundation of all his fortune. He sent the old town of Danvers twenty-five thousand dol- 1 The recent expedition of Prof. Agassiz to Brazil. '•^ Census of 1850. If I have said no more of Connecticut and other New England States, it is not because they do not deserve it, but because of the limits of the occasion. In its magnificent provision for popular educa- tion, Connecticut has long led the world. One of its " Bliie Laws " provided that, " The Selectmen, on finding children ignorant, may take them away from their parents and put them into better hands, at the expense of their parents." And Yale College (chartered 1701), which, of all the seats of learning in the land, has done most " Cliristo et ecclesuc/^ would have been founded half a century earliorbut for the fear of weakening the sister institution in Massachusetts Bay. Within nine years from the landing of Davenport the lot was reserved for the future college. The zeal for learning among the New Haven colonists was excelled only by their magnanimity. 22 TTIE I'TLCHIM TEMI'LE-Brif^DERS. lars to establish a library, and then rwciity-livc thousand dollars to build a literary institute ; and when his niuuiticent tlouations were converted into these fair tcMiiples of learning, and Mr. Peabody himself came to attend the celebration, the people stretched across the street a banner bearing this sentiment of the illustrious donor: ''Education, the debt which the inesent oivts the future.'''' That royal benefactor learned his lesson of the Pilgrims. All the way from Plymouth Rock to the last school-house fashioned by New England emigrants, towards the setting sun, extends the glorious legend, " Edi cation', the debt WHICH THE PRESENT OWES THE FUTFKE." Our fathers acknowledged the mighty debt, and lu'cause they paid it, and paid it so completely. New England sits enthroned and mighty on her native hills; her granite rocks transformed to fruitful gardens; her rivers, whirling their million spindles, changed to streams of gold ; her white-winged ships darting- straight as ocean birds to every haven, through every clime; her proclamations to thanksgiving ringing from ten thousand Sabbath-bells; her inviolate love of freedom sanctified by reverence for law; the eternal monument of the wisdom and sacrifice, the faith and the hope of the Pilgrims, justifying of all the challenge of her greatest orator in vindication of her first-born State, " There is New England. There is her history; the woild knows it by heart." in. We are to speak now of the third great institution which our lathers founded — The Free Common WEAi/rn, to be the tower of Law. Many of you have seen the picture hanging in the parlor connected with this place of worship, called the "Signing ol" the Compact." It is of no juore than oi'dinary merit as a work of art; and yet how sui-passingly grand are the asso- ciations which it awakens. By the light descending through the hatchway of the Mayflower we discover the features of the founders of the nation. There, pen in hand, is the wise and saintly Bradford, wh(» in advancing age studied most of all the Hebrew, "because he would see with his own eyes the TTFE PIL0RT:\I TE:\rPLE-BITTL])ETJS. 20 oracles of Grod iu their native beauty." There is the gen- erous Winslow, the future historian of the colony, and Car- ver, soon to be its governor, and, alas, too soon its martyr. There is Miles Standish, the Great-heart of the Pilgrimage, clad in armor and leaning on his sword. There, too, is Brewster, "seasoned with the seeds of grace and virtue," stretching forth his hand to heaven. Every thought of that goodly company is obviously intent upon the document which lies spread out upon the table. It is the constitution of a free and Christian conjmonwealth, and is in these mem- orable words : " In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having undertaken for the glory of God and advance- ment of the Christian faith and honor of our king and coun- try a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnh' and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and com- bine ourselves together into a civil bod}'^ })olitic, for our bet- ter ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most con- venient for the general good of the colony. Unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." ^ Here, then, in the cabin of the Mayflower, we see dis- tinctly recognized, for the first time in the progress of liberty, tiie fundamental principle of the right of the people to self- government. Henceforth the light breaks in upon the dark ages of humanity. Not in royal charters, nor in the enact- ments of a proud and privileged aristocracy, but in njan as man — in every man created in the image of God — inheres the right to provide for his own libei'ties as a citizen and his own untrannueled worshij) as a member of the body of Christ. Here in this immortal instrument is the record of a consecration and a coronation, by which all mankind are ' l?!U)ci(.fr. i., 300. 24: THI-: riL(;RrA[ TEMl'LE-UriLDKRS. exalted to be kiuij.s and priests unto Gotl ; liere is the pri- mordial germ ol that victorious eiDpire which now spans the continent after our last solemn struggle for free institutions, as the rainbow smiles upon the retreating storm.^ Under this sell-made charter the Pilgrims elected their governor and all necessary officers of justice; enacted all laws and executed them ; and did, in general, all that jH-r- tains to the welfare of a free and independent couniioiiwealth. Similar constitutions were framed by the sctth'rs in ^lassa- chusetts Bay and in the other New England colonies. It has not escaped the notice of the clearest foreign writer upon " Democracy in America," that the New Eng- land township is the unit from which all our national insti- tutions have been multiplied. "The independence of the township," says De Tocqueville, " was the nucleus round which the local interests, passions, rights, and duties col- lected and clung. It gave scope to the activity of a real political life, thoroughly democratic and republican. The colonies still recognized the supremacy of the mother coun- try. ]\Ionarchy was still the law of the State, but the re- public was already established in every township."^ When, in a subsecjuent generation, the elder Adams was meditating upon the proper mechanism of a federal union, which should bind together the thirteen colonies in harmony and liberty for the common good, he found the New England township ready as the model of the State, which, while independent in its own affairs, should be subordinate to the general gov- ernment in all those central powers and functions which belons: to our existence as a nation ; and the town meeting itself, in which every citizen of every rank directly partici- pates in the responsibilities of government — electing muni- cipal officers, and enacting munici[)al laws — has been the normal school in which millions of the teachers of our freedom have themselves been taught. '"As the Pilgrims lauded, their institutions wcro already perfected. Democratic liberty aud independent Christian worship at once existed in America." — Bancroft, i., 313. - De Tocqueville, i., 50. THE PILGRIM TEMPLE-BUILDERS. 25 Two principles tire especially conspicuous in these insti- tutions of the Pilgrims : one, their true estimate of the dig- nity of man; the other, their reverence for law. They had learned in the Word of God that all men were created of one blood, to dwell upon the face of the whole earth. As God was the father of all, so Christ was the saviour of all, without respect to rank or race. Heretofore there had been rights for rulers, rights for priests, rights for nobles, rights for favored guilds and corporations, rights for men, — but no rights of man. The nations had heretofore been constructed on the model of Nebuchadnezzar's image, — the head was of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the thighs of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet of clay. The Puritan iconoclast smote down the image with the stone of justice, and in its stead set up a living man. A signal illustration of this truly Christian estimate of humanity is afforded in the shrewd an- swer of Cotton to several w^ell-disposed English lords, who made some overtures for emigration on condition that their hereditary rank should be recognized by the laws: "Where God blesseth any branch of any noble or generous family with a spirit and gifts fit for government, it would be a taking of God's name in vain to put such a talent under a bushel, and a sin against the honor of magistracy to neglect such in our public elections. But if God should not delight to furnish some of their posterity with gifts fit for magistracy, we should ex- pose them rather to ^Jrejudice and reproach, and the common- wealth with them, than exalt them to lionor, if we should call them forth whom God doth not to public authority." ^ And so it was that we never had any English lords in America, but instead of them New England men. In accordance with this view of the intrinsic nobility of man was their judgment concerning human slavery. In the fundamental code of the colony, adopted in December, lG4i, we find this memorable declaration : " There never shall be any bond-slavery, villanage, or captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives in just wars, and such strangers as wil- ' Pdltrov, i., :?'.>( I. 20 Tin: I'lMililM rKMl'LK-IUir.DKKS. llnghj sell tlit'iiisc'lvrs, or an; sold unto us, and tliest' shall have all the liberties and Christian usages wliich the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons doth morally require." ^ In other words, according to the awful meaning which we have learned to attach to the term, there could be no slavery at all. The service of a negro "stran- ger" was based upon a contract for a term of years, to which the servant was a consenting party. He was in pos- session of the same immunities as tln^ white apprentice who was indentured for his passage money. At the expiration of his apprenticeship, the servant was not to be sent away empty. When thus enfranchised the negro enjoyed all the rights of citizenship. He was called njutn to beai- arms in the militia, was an ecpial witness in courts of justice, could inherit, hold, and devise property, and, if a inendjer of the Church, might even exercise the right of sidfrage, from which his former master, if a non-connnunicant, would be de- l)arred. Whatever may have been the violations of the law, no person was ever born into legal slaver}^ in any of the New England States."^ When, a little later, two ]\rassachu setts men, one of them a member of the Church in Boston, attempted to engage in that odious traffic in mankind which the southern colonists found so profitable, the criminals were arrested, as soon as they landed, as offenders against the law of God and the law of the country, and, "after advice with the elders, the reprt>- sentatives of the people, bearing witness against th«! heinous crime of man-stealing, ordered the negroes to be restored, at the public charge, to their native country, with a letter ex- pressing the indignation of the Gcuieral Court at their wrongs."'' Even in that benighted age, when oppression in 1 Pancroft, i., 4J8. ■^ For ii suinuiary of proof see Palfroy, ii., :5(l. Tlie Coiiiiec-tic-ut law was copied from tlie Massachusetts Body of Liherties. Tlic New Haveu Code was siuiilar, being based upon tlie Scriptures. Khode Island had an express statute "that uo black uiankiud nor white" should be forced, "by covenant, bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assigns longer than ten years." ■' liancroft, i., 17J. THE PU.(!HIi\r TEMPLE-miLDKliS. 27 its varied Ibnns was all but uuiv^ersal, when great cities and kings were rivals in the slave-trade, and when even so good a man as William Penn lived and died a slaveholder, one voice was heard a full century before the time, "the voice as of one crying in the wilderness," preparing the way in those mighty revolutions of opinion which have culminated in the destruction of the slave-trade, in the proclamation of emanci- pation, and now in that Constitutional Amendaient, which sums up four gigantic years of sacrifice in one golden line of law, whose sound has gone forth into all the world. It is the voice of New England. And anv New Englander who, living in these " foremost files of time," nevertheless loves oppression, who defends that organic and organific sin which dishonors God b}^ dehumanizing man, or who denies to any of the enfranchised race the essential prerogatives of man- hood, is recreant to his birthright and shames the memory of his fathers. All thai is good of him is underground. The other great element of tlie Puritan freedom was reverence for law. The first settlers of New England came not hither to evade authority, for the liberty of doing what was good in each man's eyes. They looked upon society as of divine establishment, and upon law as the divine mandate. Nowheie was there a more law-abiding communitv. No- wdiere was the sword of justice so nuich a teiTor to evil doers. Governor Winthrop, amid the acclamations of his electors, declared, with fine discrimination, " Liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot exist without it, and it is a liberty onlij to that which is Just and good and honest. This Liberty you are to stand tor, with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives if need be. What- soever crosseth tliis is not authority, but a distem])er thereof." ' The Liberty which AVinthrop praises is the Liberty which is consistent with the general welfare of mankind — the Liberty which is regulated by righteous laws and insti- tutions — the Liberty for which his descendant in the seventh I BiniiTuft, i.. 43l>. 2S THK riijiiii.M Ti:MrLK-i5rrij)EK«. generation, Theodore Winthrop, obediently stood, " with the hazard not only of his goods, 1)nt of his life," and fell upon the Virginian ]>attle-field. That other lii)erty, which he condennis as crossing this, is that lawless violence which despised the constitution, and strove to destroy the noblest heritage of man to gratify the impulse of a mad ambition. He is warning us against the distemper of secession and the guilt of treason to humanity. These principles and these institutions New England, in- trenched within JH.'r tower of law, has always been (|ni(;k and strong to guard. Liberty was more than a princi[»h' ; it was a passion. Any sacrifice of wealth or comfort, or of dearest earthly ties, might be made without a mumiur ; but if one iota of her libertv were endancrered, she drew her sword and stood defiant. When her prosperity us a free colony had excited the jealousy and vv^rath of Charles I., and a commission was appointed in 1():U to regulate her politics and establisli laws for the government of Church and State, her spi)"it was thoroughly aroused. It was rumored that a royal governor was on the way. Then, poor as were the infant settlements, they raised six hundred pounds to fortify the harbors, and the ministers, convened in Boston, declared unanimously, " we ought to defend our lawful possessions if we are able," adding, with a Yankee shrewdness, "if not able to avoid and protract." ^ But Charles soon had other work to attend to beside subduing the colonies, for the Puritan called Cromwell was marshalling the stern Ironsides who never lost a battle. So, in the Providence of God, the little New England colony, max'niue gcnfis i/icini/ihiila, forgotten amid the stormy events which were shaking England and all Europe, had time to grow, and nmture her institutions and consolidates her strength, so that henceforth no tyranny on earth could overthrow then). Little did George the Third understand the character of the New England institutions and the spirit of the peoj^le, ' Hdiicnift, i.. -4(17. niE IMLCIMM TKMPLK-IU'ILDKl.'S. 29 wlieu he endeavored to wrest away their iuniieiiiorial birth- right and deprive them ot" tlie right of se'lf-government by the might of an armed soldiery. They hesitated, they re- monstrated, they petitioned ; but when the decisive moment came, the}^ hesitated not. They took down the ohl musket from its resting-place, and, hasting from the parting kiss of heroic wives and mothers, marched through the night to Lexington. And on that Apiil morning which succeeded, the "embattled farmers" stood upon the green, undaunted by the foe. They fired the signal gun of Independence, and from that moment they rested not, through seven long years of blood, till the starry flag unfurled at (.'ambridge was the symbol of a free and sovereign people. And there was another April morning, dark and sad, which we all remember, when southern traitors threatened to quench half the stars in the blue heaven of freedom — a solemn nioi-ning, when the foe had boasted that ere May their perjured hosts should take possession of the capitol — a desperate morning, when the breathless nation was waiting for the tramp of its defenders ; then it was, by a coincidence so striking that it seemed a special ordering of Providence, the anniversaiy of Lexington found the New England men all ready for the conflict. They left the field unplowed, the store untiMided ; the}' forgot the wedding and th«; funeral, as in the olden time ; they could hear nothing but the voice of Freedom sunmioning them to hnish what the Pilgrims had begun. Other patriots were not delin((uent in hasting at the call ; but, to the end of time, to New England will be- long the glory of being first in preparation, first in response, first in that immortal roll of martyrs who, at Baltimore and Shiloh and (Gettysburg and Richmond, above the clouds at Chattanooga, and in the rigging of the ships at jMobile, hurled tliemselves against secession ; the first of that great sacrifice of three hundred thousand slain, by whose death the nation lives, and not only lives, but s/uill live, with every fetter shivered and every taint of treason burnt out with battle-lightning, "pure as flu- naked heav»'ns," and established on PIviiinuth IJock. 30 TIIK I'lLCKIM TK^rrLE-RIIl^DERS. These, tlien, are the institutions of New England — the free Church, the free sch(jol, and rlic free connnonwealth. These are the stronir towers, the lofty hulwarks of the Zion which the I'ilgrims builded for the generations following, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth. With gratitude and filial reverence, we go back to the sacrificial years in which, like the ancient temple-builders, they la- bored in the work, " half of them holding the; spears from the rising of the morning till the; stars appeared." And when the towers of fre(Hl()m's sanctuary at last shoot up above the forests of the wihlerness, we seem to hear the [)salm of dedication in the resounding stave of the old version of Sternhold and Hopkins : "Go walke about all Syou hill, yoa roiirul about licr go, And tell the towres that thereupon are buikled in a roe ; And niarke you well her bulwarks all, behold her towres there. That ye may tell thereof to them that after shall be here ; For this God is our God, foreverniore is Hee; Yea, and unto the Death also, our gnidcr shall Tie be." These are the New England institutions. Are they worth preserving ? Ar^i tlieij ivorth extendrng ? Generation after generation had passed away above the dreamless sleep of the Pilgrims. Sixteen hundred became eighteen hundred, and the snows of December were changed to the flowers and new-mown grass of June, when the de- scendants of the Plymouth colonists, having just emerged victorious from a dread Rebellion, gathered from all the land the delegates of three thousand Pilgrim (Uim-ches, to consid(^r what next duty was di'iuanded of them by tlieir country and their Saviour. It was nothing less than the establishment of free and Christian institutions throughout all that conti- nent which their fathers had consecrated to Christ. They went in reverent pilgrimage to the graves of the forefathers. They stood on P)urial Hill, and there, with the rolling ocean which had Ixh'ii ploughed by the ]\Iaytlower before them, with the mouldering dust of the saints beneath them, and the cloudless canopy of heaven above them — on such an THE PILGRHI TEMPLE-BUILDERS. .']! altar, in such a sbrine, on such a day — they registered their vow to be true to the faith of the fathers. With such an inspiration they said upon the morrow, Let these Pilgrim Churches, small and great, seeing what God has laid upon them, in next December, when the rolling- year shall bring around the 'Sabbath that leads on the anni- versary of the Mayflower, let all these scattered sons of New England, as if gathered at a thanksgiving feast, lift up a psalm of thankfulness together for the memory of the fathers and their work, and let them make a monumental oflering which shall establish the Churches of the Puritans as the towers and bulwarks of the land. Brethren, the time has come ! Not the council only, but the Pilgrims ; not the Pilgrims only, but the God of the Pilgrims, is calling for our full measure of devotion. As I look around me, I am reminded that I speak to many who, according to tlie flesh, cannot deduce their lineage from the Pilgrim stock, and who might almost think that they had no share in the great inheritance. We are gathered here from all c{uarters of the land — sons of New Jersey first moulded by Conuecticut Puritans ; sons of New York, a portion of whose territory was once included within the limits of New England ; and some have followed free- dom's westward star in the track of the Mayflower across the rolling ocean. But Plymouth Rock is not a stone. It is a principle. The line of descent is not blood in the veins, but freedom in the heart. If ye have the fathers' iaith, then are ye heirs according to the promise. As mendjei-s of this Church of Christ, attesting the Pilgrim faith and establisned upon the Pilgrim polity, dedicated, as I trust, to those grand objects of civil and religious liberty for which the Pilgrinjs left their native land, we all have a right by the heraldry of heaven, to claim them as our peculiar ancestry, to rejoice in the priceless inheritance which they have bequeathed us, and as we follow Ilobinson and Winthrop and Carver and Bradford in their ascendinii; flight from the toil and victory of earth to exclaim with filial gratitude, and pride, and love, 32 Tin: iML(iKiM Ti:Mi*ij;-i!rii,i>i;Hs. "MyFatlicr! my Father ! the diariotis ol' Israel and the horstMiieii thereof" ! " Soti-s oi" the Pil!j;riiii.s, ai'e yon ready, then, for action ? Do you have at heart the moral desolation olthe nation debauched by slavery and blasted by war ? How shall we better show our love to Jesus than by imitatinu' those who voyaged hither not for their own sake but for the advancement of the kingdom of" Christ / Where in all the world is the field whiter for the harvest than among the enfranchised popula- tion of both races at the South '! And how can we do a higher service for the Master than by laying the foundations of Christian Churches, honoring God and loving man, in the centres of all those mighty empires of the people which lie in the pathway of the sun from the surges of the Atlantic to the murnuu" of the streams that wash the Pacific's golden strand? Plant there New England Churches and you shall have New England CluMstians. Now, in this formative, this transitional period is the proper moment for establishing them. This winter da}'^ is the moral spring-time in which to scatter all our seed. And are you true to 3'our country — anxious to adopt such measures as shall best secure the nation from such awful perils as tliose through which it has just struggled? Do you think that if the South had been pi'rmeated with New England institutions we should ever have had to tremble for the ark of God, and follow in the sad procession to bewail 300,000 dead ? If the streams of New England influence had flowed southward as they did westward, would not the South have been as loyal as the great heart of the West ? And now that the armies of the Rebellion are disbanded, and the Rebellion itself still lives in tlit; souls of the southern people, exasperating them against tin; freedmen on the one hand and against the hated " Yankees " on the other, what better garrison can you find than a New England (Mnirch, and what better standing army than the members of that Church, softening the asperities of war with (Mn"istian kind- ness, teaching men their duty to their fcllow-nien, and bow- THE PILGRIM TEMl'LE-HUILDEHS. 33 ing down together before the coinnioii Father, whose gifts are liberty and peace ? Not only, tiieu, as lovers of New England, but as lovers of onr whole country, barring up tin; pathway to any future destruction ; yes, as a thank-offering to the God of our fathers for sparing the nation which they founded, we are called to build these institutions in the West and South. Never did so memorable a day usher so sublime an enterprise as this simultaneous ofiering of three thousand Pilgrim Churches to establish the faith and freedom of their ancestors over a territory so vast that, although aiming to be contemporaneous, when we shall have finished our memo- rial service the New Englanders of the Pacific shall not have yet begun. As I think upon the magnitude of such an un- dertaking, I almost tremble lest the children shall not prove themselves worthy of the old stock — lest, engrossed in their own comforts and successes, they shrink from the sacrifice which is demanded. Yet I feel an inspiration in me that tlie work shall all be finished. This snow is an omen of victory.^ As if God had sent it to be a messenger, it leads us back to that first forefathers' day, when, amid wild men and wild beasts in the unbroken wilderness, not fathers only, but mothers also, were exposed to the storms of winter, and had not where to lay their heads. The air is full of voices. Every memorial flake that drops its whiteness around our beautifid taber- nacle and our luxurious dwellings, bids us with more elo- quence than human lips can master, to imitate, according to our poor fashion, the sacrifice of those immortal men who, while laying the foundations for posterity amid hardships that call for tears, said with such touching pathos : " When we are in our graves, it will be all one whether we have died on beds of down or locks of straw." Yes ! ye immortal heroes, or rather saints in light, we will remember you this day. We will look with pride and 1 The snow was falling dnrinor the delivery of the discourse. •■}4 THE PILORIM TKMl'LK-IU'ILDEKS. thankfulness upon this Zion which ye builded for the eoniin£r ages. W(! will mark well your ghjrious bulwarks, and tell all your granite towers. We will huihl up your spiritual palaces, and in monumental sanctuaries peqietuate your fame to the generation tbllowing. And this mighty nation which by Faith ye saw afar, coming up out of great tribulation with its robes all washed in blood, shall be leavened with your life, consecrated to that Christ to whom ye gave it on the rock, and girded with the omnipotence of justice, shall be established in your faith and freedom, "Till the waves of the Bay where the Mayflower lay Shall foam and freeze no more." APPENDIX. |lfdnvatiou of ^aith AFFIRMED BY THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES, ON BURIAL HILL, AT PLYMOUTH, JUNE 22, 1805. Standing by the rock wliei'e the Pilgrims set foot upon these shores, upon the spot where they worshipped God, and among the graves of the early generations, we, Elders and Messengers of the Congregational Churches of the United States, in National Council assembled — like them, acknowledging no rule of faith but the Word of God — do now declare our adherence to the faith and order of the apostolic and primitive churches held by our fathers, and substantially as embodied in the confessions and platforms which our Synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or re-affirmed. We declare that the ex- perience of the nearly two and a half centuries which have elapsed since the memorable day when our sires founded here a Christian Commonwealth, with all the development of new forms of error since their times, has only deep- ened our confidence in the faith and polity of those fathers. We bless God for the inheritance of these doctrines. We invoke the help of the Divine Redeemer, that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he will enable us to transmit them in purity to our children. In the times that are before us as a nation — times at once of duty and of danger — we rest all our hope in the gospel of the Son of God. It was the grand peculiarity of our Puritan fathers, that they held this gospel, not merely as the ground of their personal salvation, but as declaring the worth of man by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God ; and therefore api^lied its principles to elevate society, to regulate education, to civilize hu- manity, to purify law, to reform the church and the state, and to assert and defend liberty ; in short, to mould and redeem, by its all-transforming energy, everything that l>elongs to man in his individual and social relations. It was the fiiith of our fathers, that gave us this free land in which we dwell. It is by this faith only that we can transmit to our children a free and happy, because a (Christian, conmion wealth. We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational system, that it exalts that which is more above that which is less important, and, by the simplicity of its organization, facilitates, in communities where the popu- lation is limited, the union of all true believers in one Christian church ; and that the division of such connnunities into several weak and jealous societies, holding the same conmion faith, is a sin against the unity of the b(Kly of Christ, and at once the shamo and scandal of Cluist(>ndom. ;3G APPENDIX. We rejoice tluit, tliroufih the influenee of our free system of apostolic- order, we can hold fellowsliip witli all wlio acknowledge Christ, and act elli- ciently in the work of restoring unity to the divided church, and of bringing back harmony and peace among all " who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sin- cerity." 'J'hus recognizing the unity of the church of Christ in all the world, and knowing that we are but one branch of Christ's jjcople. while adhering to our peculiar faith and order, we extend to all l)elievei-s tlie hand of Christian lellowship upon the basis of those great fundamental truths in which all Christians should agree. With them we confess our faith in God — the h'ather, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; in Jesus Christ, the incarnate AVord, who is exalted to be our Redeemer and King; and in the Holy Comfoi'ter, who is present in the church to regenerate and sanctify tlie soul. With the whole Church, we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of our race, and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished by the life and expiatory death of Christ that believers in Him are justified before God. receive the remission of sins, and through the presence and grace of the Holy Comforter, are delivered from the power of sin, and perfected in holiness. We believe also in tlie organized and visible Church, in the ministry of the word, in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, in the resur- rection of the body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which are eternal life and everlasting punishment. We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given through prophets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the resurrection, of his Son, our Divine Redeemer — a testimony preserved for the Church in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which were composed by holy men as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Affirming now our belief that those who thus hold " one faith, one Lord, one baptism," together constitute the one catholic Church, the several house- liolds of which, though called by different names, are the one body of Christ, and that these memliers of his body are sacredly bound to keep " the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," we declare that we will co-operate with all who hold these truths. With them we will carry the gospel into every part of this land, and with them we will go into all the world, and " preach the gospel to every creature." May He to whom " all power is given in heaven and earth" fulfill the promise which is all our ho^ie : " Lo, I am with yon alwav, even to tlu' end of the world." Amen. APPENDIX. 37 gurbl fiir. June. 18K5. Morning on tlie pines of Plymouth Breakcth with a song of June, Cloudless morning cahnly climbing To the pomp of perfect noon. Far away the peaceful waters, Drowsing in the dreamy bay, Scarcely stir the island shadows Where of old the Mayflower lay. At our feet the starry daisies. Springing from the Pilgrims' dust, Turning death itself to glory, F'itly tell the I'ilgrims' trust. They in storms of dark December, Scions of a martyr stock, Praised the Lord for all His mercies, Kneeling there upon the rock. Praised Him while the blast was roaring. While the surges smote the strand ; Praised Him while their hearts were yearning With their love for fatherland. In the wilds of death they wrestled. Seeking what by faith they saw ; ' Little matter what they died on — Beds of down or locks of straw." Little recked they pain or peril. Ocean wave or scalfold block. They who bore the name of Pilgrim, They who built upon the rock. For afar they caught a vision — Morning merging into noon, Snow-wreaths melting into blossoms. Dark December changed to June. 38 APPENDIX. Now at length that day has broken, When, with garments rolled in blood, Lo ! a free, victorious nation Lifts itststainless hands to God. Then with eyes still wet with weeping, But with hearts heroic still, Came the children of the Pilgrims, For an hour on Burial Hill. There is queenly ]\[assachusett,s. With her fair New p]ngland train ; There the heirs of El Dorado, AVinding fi-om the western main. There a thousand Pilgrim churches, From the continent's expanse : There the scattered flocks descended From the slaughtered saints of France. There the kindred hearts of England, Beating as in days of yore, Twine tlie speech of Vane and Milton Round the name the fathers bore. Thus defiled the long procession Past the rock and past the waves. Onward up the lull of I'lymouth, Till it reached the ancient graves. Then the solemn Declaration Swelled upon the sunmier air. Bringing saintly shapes so near us That we bowc'd our heads in prayer. Till with every hand uplifted, Every knee upon the sod. Every heart in consecration Cave itself anew to God. Praising Him for all the fathers Wrought for God and wrought l\>v man, Asking Him for grace to finish What the Pikrini sires betran. J. .M. li. LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 014 069 262 1 $ \