e (09S A PT Na A EE ‘ cpme HOME AN:D THE NATION. ; SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE Grecutite and Legislative Departments OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE MemeN TAT: Ho MCrTION, WEDNESDAY, Jan. 4, 1860. BY THOMAS D. ANDERSON, D. D. PASTOR OF DUDLEY ST. BAPTIST CHURCH, ROXBURY. Behe. LON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 2 1860. THE HOME AND THE NATLON. A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE Geeevtive and Legislative Departments OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE Pee ea Ly Woks ty CG) Tob GN... WEDNESDAY, Jan. 4, 1860. BY THOMAS D. ANDERSON, D. D. PASTOR OF DUDLEY ST. BAPTIST CHURCH, ROXBURY. BOSTON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 1860. Commontenlth of Massachusetts. Hovust oF REPRESENTATIVES, January 20, 1860. ORDERED, That three thousand copies of the Election Sermon, deliv- ered by Rev. THomas D. AnpERSON, D. D., before the Executive and the two Branches of the Legislature, on the fourth instant, be printed for the use of the Legislature. WILLIAM STOWE, Clerk. SERMON. Micau Iv. 4. BUT THEY SHALL SIT EVERY MAN UNDER HIS VINE AND UNDER HIS FIG-TREE ; AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID, FOR THE MOUTH OF THE LORD OF HOSTS HATH SPOKEN Ir. Herein is a strong confirmation of our faith that the vision of home peace will be verified on earth. Since He hath spoken, we will believe, for “ The Word of the Lord endureth forever.” With man, the action changed bespeaks the altered purpose, the outward failure tells of inward weakness, and variety of imperfection. But with God, myriads of unlike forms are but the expressions of infinite resource; the interrupted plan is but the temporary eclipse, as His full-orbed purposes pass one another in their well- ordered revolutions; and an act once done shapes an eternal thought, and stands thenceforward a perpetual prophecy of its fulfilment. Let man take heart, then. Although Eden was blighted, it once was planted on earth, and therefore it will be restored. By it we learn that at the first God laid the founda- tion of society amid the sacred associations of home. Man’s interests were not to be isolated, selfish, con- flicting, but common and all-pervading ; of one blood 6 THE HOME AND THE NATION. He constituted a human brotherhood; by like conditions He intended sympathy; harmony was designed through diversity of gifts; the infant heart, awaking in its first consciousness to the influences of love, would have learned to interpret in the light of parental affection the dispositions of all other hearts, and the family would have been the source of human government; its restraints, springing from the tenderest solicitude, would have been but the bonds of fellowship, and obedience to its gentle sway but the grateful response of a trusting nature. Just long enough to indicate the design did the Divine plan take form, then it was marred by sin. By rending the soul from its filial reverence for Jehovah, in whose likeness it was created, the fraternal tie which bound it to all who bore His image was sundered. ‘The peace denied to self by an accusing conscience could be allowed no _ other. Virtue, unimitated, won only detraction. At the more acceptable sacrifice even of a brother, envy lighted the fires of hate; and love, driven from the breast, left but her name, beneath which cloaked self- interest claimed her place and honor. Authority became imperious; the surging passions of the many must be restrained by the fiercer passions of the few; the lust of power seized on dominion; the quiet . home fades out of sight; and history blackens her pages with the maddened conflicts of kingdoms and empires, with here and there the darker or the lighter sketch of tyrant or of hero. THE HOME AND THE NATION. if All had changed but God’s eternal thought; that breathed of hope. Paradise, though lost, was a promise that the curse should end, when, “instead of the thorn, shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar, shall come up the myrtle tree,” and man shall find again a home on earth. The weeping woman fled not before her Maker’s wrath until the title of Mother, the pledge of home, was confirmed to her by the promise of the Seed. With Abraham bearing the name of Father, God establishes His covenant: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Far down the ages the same thought inspires Isaiah to sing of the Child whose announcement as ‘the government shall be upon his shoulders,’ advances the primal idea to a more distinct revelation. But when into the diadem of coronation, pressing the brows of a son of man, inspiration sets the crown jewels of Heaven, ratifying His right to be called the “ Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,’ then, not changed, but glorified, shines forth Jehovah’s original purpose. The home of earth has’ given birth to the Spiritual Kingdom of the Messiah, and henceforth is sanctified as the Divine ideal of human authority, and the only source of national sovereignty. While Christianity has ever spurned the organic form that ambition has devised for her as a livery, in which she might attend on thrones and do the 8 THE HOME AND THE NATION. bidding of kings, yet, by weaving silently, and without observation, her principles into govern- ment, — the ordinance of God,— she has sought to prepare for herself a garment wherein, her freedom not restrained, nor her progress hindered, she may minister her offices of kindness to all people. A nation thus blessed with a rule penetrated by the spirit of the Gospel is described by the Prophet in our text. It stands forth in accordance with what we have seen to be from the beginning the will of God, who “setteth the solitary in families,’ with reference to earthly dominion, founded in the affec- tions, and establishing the blessings of home. Around it breathes the air of a virtuous imdepen- dence. The fruits of his industry are enjoyed by every citizen. Driven by no regal mandate to the tasks of imperial vanity, each one dwells in his chosen habitation. A government imposing no burdens exercises an almost unfelt supremacy, beneath whose protection, and fostered by whose care, the abodes of peace every where nourish a pure and vigorous patriotism, at once a people’s spontaneous tribute of gratitude, and a nation’s pledge of power. Let it not pass unheeded, as the eye rests entranced on this image of national happiness, that it is por- trayed, not as the result of human wisdom, neither as fashioned by the resolves of senates, nor decreed , into being by a monarch’s will, but as the accom- plished design on earth of the “ Law” that “shall THE HOME AND THE NATION. 9 go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” A consummation realized only when, by the all-attracting power of Christianity, “people shall flow unto it and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Hence, what Jehovah has designed for our race, through the ministry of government regenerated and sanctified, is here made known; while His conception of the highest condition attainable by a state is given beneath the emblem chosen by inspiration. In this national incarnation, therefore, of the Messianic kingdom, we have brought forth into actual life, the Divine ideal of national prosperity. With our text, then, as furnishing the model towards which to perfect government, and around which to shape our own efforts for the true honor of our Common-. wealth, let us ever remember, A NATION’S GLORY IS HER PEOPLE'S HOMES. A theme like this may seem to some scarcely to. comport with this grave occasion; but it has not been lightly chosen. A lesson deduced from the inspired portraiture of national happiness must have for every state no trivial import. What the Divine mind has conceived worthy to stand as the evidence of the latter day glory furnishes no insignificant test to be applied to the principles and policy of 2 10 THE HOME AND THE NATION. present governments; and if in a sketch thus drawn by unerring wisdom, much has been omitted that would have been wrought into the picture by human hands, then may we be sure that human ambition has been at fault in attempting to lay the foundations of empires amid the fading splendor of earthly pomp, rather than on the simple basis of enduring truth. No less by its silence than by its utterance,—by what it significantly leaves out of view, than by what it so vividly depicts, does the passage which we have selected to guide our reflections, teach us wisdom. If we have comprehended rightly its scope, and possessing our- selves of its spirit, have construed its meaning fairly, we have here united the Home and the Nation. By which natural union, so long and so _profanely interrupted, we have the problem of society worked out according to its original design. National glory beams not from the dazzling achievements of royalty, nor the selfish intrigues of courts, but is reflected from the virtue, freedom, and peace of the people; while power no longer ‘snatches the unrequited service of the multitude to agerandize the few; but, acknowledging its source to be in the expressed will of the citizen, it spreads its genial protection over the homes where it is fostered, and meets the reverence which it thus inspires. As the honored representatives of the govern- ment of this Commonwealth, and members of the THE HOME AND THE NATION. 1h great confederacy of States, whose name, “'THE Union,” thrills every patriotic heart, fellow-citizens, our subject addresses itself to you first, in tones of encouragement. If it was a care to the Lord of Hosts to have His thought written on the page of Revelation, where its predictions through all the dreary cen- turies of the world’s misrule, were steadily point- ing to the dawning of a brigher era, it was no less a care that His Providence, in the turning and overturning of empires, in the putting down one and setting up another, in making the wrath of man to praise him, and in restraining the remainder, should thus make room for the realization of that thought among the events of history. ‘¢ Hath He said, and shall He not do it? Hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” Provi- dence is but the Divine fulfilling of the Divine promise; therefore, in finding such signal inter- positions in our behalf, such watch over our early planting, such preservation in our weakness, such direction in our counsels, such triumph in our conflicts, and such success in our attempts, we cannot doubt that the striking agreement between the prophetic language of the Hebrew Seer, and the historic description of our country’s glory, is no chance resemblance, but indicative of the pur- pose of Him “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” From a past so fraught 1 THE HOME AND THE NATION. with Providential help, through a present, whose forms are stamped with the ripening designs of Jehovah, we are encouraged to look forward to a future of glorious consummation—our nation leading the kingdoms of this world as they become “the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ,’ and acknowledging only the sway of Him who shall reign forever and ever. It is no small encouragement to feel that Micah’s picture of a happy nation may become the portrait of this land, without the change of an essential feature in the outward organism of our government. Here no fearful revolution must be invoked to break the unyielding despotism of caste. No tumultuous license must be set loose around the pillars of state to demand beneath the threat of demolition the people’s rights. No power is to be dragged away from the grasp of tyrants, which, in unaccustomed hands, may prove more dangerous still. Hoary customs impose no harsh restraints on the free movements of a vigorous enterprise. But a rule, as elastic as the bounding pulses of the people from whom it springs, shapes itself to every fresh requirement of progress, stretches without parting by the tension of difficulties, and again resumes its form, only the stronger for the strain, secures by the amplest freedom, its firmest hold on the fidelity of the governed, and marks its existence by few other monuments than the millions of homes which stud the streets of our cities, cluster in our THE HOME AND THE NATION. 13 villages, line our sea-coasts, dot our prairies, climb our hill-sides, and peep through our forest clearings, but everywhere bespeaking prosperity, welcoming the citizen to the enjoyment of earth’s richest boon— domestic peace, and laying deep the claims of a nation’s honor, in effects which may be rendered into words scarcely too strong, as follows:—“'They shall sit every man under his vine and under his’ fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid.” It is an inspiring assurance amid the labor and sacrifice incident to laying the foundations of empire, that they rest on the immutable principles of truth and righteousness; that the interests of the individual, so long neglected, are again asserted ; that private weal is the only sign of public prosperity, and that power shall never be wrested from its rightful owners to oppress, but as a sacred trust voluntarily reposed in the keeping of chosen guardians, be used for the advantage of all. Such was the confident persuasion which animated our forefathers when first seeking for themselves homes, where across the sea, and sheltered in the rude embrace of an untamed wilderness, they might escape the injustice of tyranny; and afterwards pledging to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors, to consecrate forevermore these homes of freemen to LIBERTY and unrion. And now that two hundred years have passed away since the germs of American Independence were planted on our shores, and we look upon the fruit resembling that 14 THE HOME AND THE NATION. described in the Word of God, we can but be encour- aged by the evidence furnished to believe that Govern- ment at last has begun to take form around the unchanging idea of Deity, and will be promotive in the future of the welfare of our race, as in the past its prerogatives have been usurped to crush out humanity, and deform men made in the likeness of their Creator, into the pliant tools of despotic ambition. As how- ever, instead of the fathers, there are now the children, the encouragement from what has been achieved, as well as the cheering prospect of still greater success to come, impose on them a mighty obligation. They inherit the honors of their ancestors, but inherit too, as a precious legacy, their unfinished work, and may they inherit also their wisdom to plan, their magnanimity to forbear, their generosity to sacrifice, and their power to do, without which qualities they must stand the unworthy descendants of a lost nobility, but by their exercise, claim on the scroll of history for their names an association with the great of all the past. Realizing such responsibility, as ours, fellow-citi- zens, we may willingly turn from the joy of the assur- ance which our text gives us, that our country more than any other, stands the exponent of predicted national prosperity, to study thoughtfully and practi- cally the lessons it so concisely teaches, in order that our noble and free institutions may be perfected and perpetuated, and “glory may dwell in our land.” THE HOME AND THE NATION. 15 Like a rare work of art where every separate line blends to produce the designed effect, the scripture to which you have been directed, gives to the general view only the picture of happy homes fostered by national rule. Still, as by the careful analysis of the student, the artist’s work, but recently a mere joy, now teaches. the lesson of its own perfection, so each separate phrase of this divinely uttered prediction becomes a revelation of its treasured secrets, whereby it may be fulfilled, and the heaven-drawn image be transferred from the page of prophecy to find its place among the other historic events of earth. Thus analyzed, this passage of inspiration imparts to us its elements of combination, and we learn there- from that to form its conception of a nation’s glory, it unites four qualities in their order as follows: Stability, Equality, Equity and Security, beautifully wrought into its significant emblem—the citizen’s home —and interpreted into language by the theme of our discourse. With His accustomed brevity and fullness of meaning, a word, or simple phrase, suffices the Holy Spirit to indicate His thought. In “ They shall sit,” we have national stability—“ every man,” individual equality—“ under his vine and under his fig-tree,” industrial equity—‘ and none shall make them afraid,” personal security. Under the head of instruction, a brief expansion of each of these points is all that the occasion will allow; to you, then, gentlemen, guardians of the interests of 16 THE HOME AND THE NATION. our State, shall we commit them, as indicating in the administration of public affairs the path of safety, and furnishing a test, whereby every proposed measure may be rejected or approved. National stability may be considered as the prime essential requisite of every good government. A nation’s growth is not the result of a day. Its weak- ness must be fostered, its resources developed, its con- flicting advantages harmonized. Scope must be afforded for the sincere difference of opinion, yet restraint must hold in check the wantonness of license. Its strength can be matured only through discipline. It must prove itself worthy of the fealty of the citizen, and thus afford time for the gradual spread and deepening of patriotism. But for all this, generations are needed. Consequently, unless a nation can survive its crises, wrestle with opposing wrongs, and not only triumph, but gather vigor from the strife, and control faction without any loss of loyalty, unless its dominion as it spreads over wider territory only consolidates into greater permanence, and larger popu- lation but brings to it increasing reverence ; unless, through the vicissitudes of ages, a nation has the force to free itself from what has become outgrown and useless, without exposing its vitality, and to appro- priate whatever foreign element may minister to its healthy expansion without risking its typical form ; in a word, unless through all the dangers of its pro- bation a nation can live, it lacks the one excellence THE HOME AND THE NATION. 17 that alone can command respect. It fails of its end. Whatever transitory services it performs, whatever promises it may hold out, however brilliant may be its isolated achievements; no matter what wrongs it has suppressed, or what rights it has asserted, if it cannot maintain itself, if amid its perils it dies—that gov- ernment fails. A following year may change all its prosperity into desolation; the streets of trade and commerce may become but desert passes among the ruins of the metropolis; tyranny may build her despotic throne on crushed popular liberty; and an unpeopled waste drearily stretch itself over the oblit- erated sites of once cherished homes. None too darkly have we drawn the alternative of national stability. None too prominent have we made this element of a nation’s glory. The first lesson of instruction pointed by our text is, at the present time, the most important that we can learn. On it the mighty sacrifices of the past depend for their justification; from it springs alone the bright prospects of the future. A world looks anxiously on, breathlessly counting the chances of permanence for a constitutional republic, and we are apparently placed, either by our continuance to fur- nish the answer to the prayer of the oppressed, as ‘the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,” while “ the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God,” or by our failure, to prove the exultation of despotism, as it 3 18 THE HOME AND THE NATION. madly clutches at a renewed lease of control over its disheartened prey. By all that is hallowed in memory, by all that is worthy in possession, by all that is glorious in hope, may we, as recipients of civil bless- ings incomparable in the world’s history, maintain in their unimpaired integrity our free institutions, until the stars on our country’s flag shall become the cynosure of every political firmament, and its union bands the pledged investiture of all nations, and tongues, and peoples, with the badge of brotherhood. Most favorable for permanence is our location. We are planted on fresh soil where no incrustation from the debris of decayed ages held bound the germ of free principles, or stunted its growth. No moulder- ing antiquity threw its baleful shadows over our inheritance, chilling the earnest endeavor, or mildew- ing the first fruits of our toil. While defenceless, the sea rolled its protection of waves between us and harm; and our rigorous climate and unsubdued forests had but small attractions to the ease-loving lust of dominion. ‘The immense territories embraced within our borders afford ample room for the most rapid increase of population, and the cheapness of our unsold land places within the reach of all the means of subsistence and comfort. There is demand for labor in joining our distances ; opportunity for skill in the construction of implements of industry, that we may avail ourselves of our exhaustless resources; trade and commerce are necessities to our variously condi- THE HOME AND THE NATION. 19 tioned, prosperous, and widely scattered inhabitants. In one region we have the pine and the hemlock battling with the winter storm, to be exchanged for the live-oak and the hickory flourishing under milder skies; here the autumnal -fields wave with the yellow grain, and there the cotton and rice whiten the plantation, or the cane yields its sweetness almost beneath a tropic sun. ‘The mines of one neighborhood send forth the lead, the iron, and the copper; those of another the silver and the gold, while interlacing all, run the imperishable veins of coal. Rivers rise in our mountains, and flowing thousands of miles, receiv- ing through navigable tributaries the drainage of a continent, find still on our own coasts their outlets to the sea, while everywhere, homes palpitating to the throb of kindred joys, like pulses, transmit the same vital current to the extremities, and thus bind the remotest members of the Confederacy in one organic, living Union. Grateful as we should be for the advantages of our position, and hopeful that they may contribute much to our permanence, we still should be far from pre- suming on any merely outward condition for that national stability which must be founded on the dispo- sition and character of the people. Let every influ- ence then that can throw the divine sanction around the exercise of government, be exerted on the popular mind. Let the Scriptural view that it is the ordi- nance of God, be unfolded and enforced. In its 20 THE HOME AND THE NATION. departure from right, seek not its dissolution, but its amendment. Let obedience to its laws enter into the solemn domain of conscience, never to be refused, except when compliance is plainly sin against Jehovah, and then, by suffering the penalty, if need be, sacrifice to the authority of government all but your sense of right. You thus will bear a noble testimony to invio- lable principle, and honor the majesty of law, until by the exercise of its own given prerogative you wipe out the usurpation from the statute book, and replace it with the enactments of justice and truth. Every freeman should bear in mind that he is a part of the State. His opinions, his will, his word, his act, his character show out proportionally in the grand total of government. very selfish motive, every mere parti- san effort should be spurned. He who violates his sense of right to vote himself or party a position of honor, trifles with trusts confided to him, and so far wrongs every fellow-citizen. He who bargains away his franchise, sells for a mess of pottage the noblest birth-right earth has ever bestowed. While the political speculator merits the scorn of every honest person, as one who recklessly hazards the welfare of his country. The utmost care should be taken that we disparage not our free institutions. ‘Those who fill our highest as well as subordinate offices, come direct from the people. No exclusiveness of privilege has rendered their persons sacred. Through the severe ordeal of THE HOME AND THE NATION. ri election, not only excellence and fitness were brought forward, but all were made familiar with imperfections and errors. There is therefore a temptation to under- rate the office because its incumbent is not immacu- late. An evil is barely alluded to here that, I am sure, is telling dangerously on the perpetuity of our delicate national organism. If government inspires not reverence ; if office, to a great degree, sanctifies not the person for the time being invested therewith ; if the decisions of our courts command no respect ; if the sacred halls of legislation are profaned from being the august council chamber of the people’s represented sovereignty to the ignoble conception of mere caucus rooms of interested and scheming politicians; if our chief magistrates—and because they are such—receive not the profound respect of those whose suffrages have elevated them to their posts of toil and dignity, then must we fear that not long will survive the forms from which the power to impress with love and veneration has departed. To guard against this fearful evil should be the determination and effort of every patriot. If, in the heat of a contested canvass, animosities are engendered, prejudices awakened, or even suspicions cherished, on the announcement of the result—let them die. Magnanimously declare the choice of the majority, your choice, as you would have others do to you. Thenceforward regard the successful candidate as demanding of you an unbiassed judgment of his acts, a kind construction of his motives, and a gen- 22 THE HOME AND THE NATION. erous forgetfulness of his deficiencies. If you cannot approve his course, respect his office, and patiently wait until your views may find, by the choice of a like majority, a more faithful representative. So will you secure for them, and for him, the respectful con- sideration you meted out to others. On the other hand, let the chosen incumbent of office, be he president, or governor, or legislator, or judge, on the moment of his investiture with the solemn responsi- bilities of his station, instantly cease to be a mere party man. Let every citizen, his opponent as well as his advocate, be assured of the most impartial dis- charge of all his duties. He need not give up his principles. He cannot, if honorable, cater through inconsistency to a passion for versatile popularity. He must not be expected to see through another's vision, nor judge through another’s reason; but it should be demanded of him that with no party injuries to revenge, no party subserviency to reward, no dogged prejudices to maintain, no after honors unscrupulously to crave, he will be guided in the discharge of his duties by a bond more sacred than a formal oath—a Patyriot’s love of Country, and a Chris- tian’s faith in God. Suppose there are errors to be corrected, ills to be mitigated; suppose something of imperfection still clings around our political machin- ery ; suppose in this sinful world, law has not yet been found potent enough to enforce righteousness, that all men will not be legislated into morality, and THE HOME AND THE NATION. On through our earnest labors we discover a_ tardy progress—shall we cowardly quail before our life- work, and ruthlessly, to rid ourselves of present annoyance, in the frenzy of the hour, pull down around us the fabric of our liberties, which for more than two centuries has been rearing its fair propor- tions in our land? May God forbid it! For the sake of homes the freest, the gladdest, the purest that have ever shed their light on the gloom of our world, fostered by this government, and every year repaying its care by cherishing it among the holiest associations of the heart, may our republic stand! And soon the home will spurn to hold by constraint an unwilling captive within its peaceful circle. The bond of oppression will be riven, while the trim cot of the paid laborer by the side of the more stately mansion of the proprietor, will, through the sweetest emblem of a nation’s glory, tell to the world that America’s last danger past, while time endures she stands immortal! Much more briefly we hasten on. Another element of national glory is Individual Equality. The blessing promised is alike the boon of each. “ They shall sit every man.” The prophet interposes no distinctions. It is true, the tree beneath which one man sits may be more thrifty, its fruit larger, its leaf more green; it may spring from a mellower soil, and cast its grateful shadow on a richer glebe than that beneath which another dwells, yet he suffers no loss of privilege from the different ordering of his lot by Providence. He 24 THE HOME AND THE NATION. is made secure in his every right, as is his more pow- erful neighbor, and according to his measure enjoys each freedom granted by the State. Might makes not the oppression of the weaker, right. The flagging purpose of the enfeebled is not to be destroyed by depriving them of incentive to exertion, or by impov- erishing their manhood by a gratuitously assumed guardianship of their interests. Nor is conscience to be despoiled of its authority by its decisions being submitted to human tribunals, unless they trench on others’ rights. Such is the type of this equality pre- sented to us in the suggestive phrase of Revelation. Such too is the noble response echoed by our own immortal Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal.” And sooner or later, such will be in our land its full realization. Of all the lessons of political economy, none has been more slowly learned —the selfishness of power has withstood it; avarice has sought its destruction; the drugged insensibility of the oppressed to their degradation has impeded it ; popular ignorance and superstition have dimmed its hight; but still it has advanced. God has ordained its progress, and of its universal prevalence there can be no doubt. As the idea has battled for existence and recognition, the conflicts have been bloody; and the struggles, in which the advance has been only inch by inch, painfully protracted; but truth has always gained. Now the contest narrows. The theory is already admitted; at its every success we hear a louder THE HOME AND THE NATION. 25 and more prophetic shout of joy. Its practice is still entangled, but revolutions go not backward. It may be for some of us to behold its last, its greatest triumph—as we believe, a bloodless triumph—on our own shores; not a triumph of party over party, of section over section, of race over race; but of truth over error, of principle over selfishness, of Christianity over wrong; when throughout our broad republic, every man, by an unalienable right, will enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The day of deliverance dawns. Leta calm firmness prevail over the violence of impulse. Let an earnest, a serious appreciation of difficulties, hush the vapid boast and idle threat. Let a generous sympathy attribute rather to habit, early education, and the peculiar delicacy of their position, than to any inherent corruption, the blind infatuation with which our brethren of a com- mon blood, and common inheritance, rank themselves in opposition to their own avowed sentiments of just government, to the dictates of humanity, the teachings of the gospel, and the world’s advancing sense of right. Let no opprobrious and offensive denunciation awaken a proud self-respect to decline the dictate of conscience as a servile surrender to obtrusive interference. But having no power to retreat, if we would, and if possible, less desire, from the sure position that our Constitu- tion is the charter of freedom, and not an instrument of servitude, let us abide the issue, trusting in the God of nations, and having confidence that men, whose 4 26 THE HOME AND THE NATION. fathers battled against oppression and triumphed over wrong, will not be found wanting in their country’s hour of need, as through the travail of the ages the time of her full deliverance has come. True to the emblem of our nation’s honor, let the home be sacred from the embittered strife of oppression’s last struggle against individual equality. If, in our national halls, for political purposes, the professional wrangler tones his philippic to the harsh note of disunion, all undisturbed around the family hearth-stone, where flows in kindred hearts the blood of North and South, and East and West, let patriotism flourish. Let no mission be sent out from the abodes of domestic peace against the heaven-guarded interests of fraternal homes. If, in this country, fathers or sons must be sacrificed to any cause; if slumbering families must be awakend by the midnight alarm; if, to plant the homes of the exile, you must desolate the homes of the citizen, you are plucking unripe fruit that will wither in your grasp; with frenzied haste you are attempting to abridge the appointed season of God’s maturing purpose, and your achievements must decay. The exchange of slavery for bloodshed, of civilized homes for servile elevation, the gain of the form of equality at the dictation of despotic force, marks no progress ; we have only bartered evils; but a Christian reform remains yet to be accomplished by the honorable toils, the ennobling sacrifices, the patient hope of Christian THE HOME AND THE NATION. yi philanthropy. Let, then, our homes prove indeed to be our glory, by nurturing sons who, as they people our territories, shall plant freedom throughout this continent. Let them inculcate a virtue that spurns to be bribed by ease, by wealth, by station. Let them cherish a love of country, from which will spring the patriotic legislator and ruler that shall recognize no guide but justice. And above all, let them inculcate a piety whose fervent prayer will invoke the aid of God to perfect that political equality which, under His inspiration, has been so nobly inaugurated in our land; and it will not be long until no caste shall clamor for denied rights, and our peace be no more threatened by the impe- rious demands of an institution which shames our professed love of liberty, broods like a demon spectre over every celebration of our country’s independence, saps the virtue of the household, tyrannizes over the conscience, offends God, and, not satisfied within its constitutionally confined limits, arrogates for its propagation the voice and influence of every free- man, and would torture our entire government into the support and defence of its crimes! Beyond any like extent of the earth’s surface does the soil of our Commonwealth exhibit the happy effects of the third element we have named of a nation’s glory—ZIndustrial Equity, or the night of every citizen to the result of his labor; and probably nowhere does so large a portion of the inhabitants 28 THE HOME AND THE NATION. “sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree,’ aS In our own prosperous State. From that memorable day when the Pilgrims’ feet pressed Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts’ soil has been con- secrated to Homes. The company of the “ May- flower” were not gentlemen adventurers seeking wealth, who, having rifled a new country of its gold and gems, returned to luxurious ease, leaving the shores they visited a drearier desolation. ‘They were husbands and wives, parents and _ children, bringing the treasures of their hearts with them, whereby to garnish their humble but chosen homes in the wilderness. Their almost first act was to parcel their land into lots whereon all might erect their houses, and cultivate their own grounds. They thus showed their wisdom in planning for a separate industry beneath a common sympathy. Since that beginning this State has been foremost in asserting the citizen’s right to his labor, and most munificent in her provisions in defending and establishing it. No sacrifice has been too great for her cheerfully to make when this safeguard of freemen’s homes was threatened; while in peace she has set the noble example of preparing the unprepared for its advantages, and securing its immunities in their richest grants to the greatest number. To this end, our State early formed her system of common schools, and fostered their growth, until now they are the just pride of us all. Recognizing THE HOME AND THE NATION. 29 the principle that labor is remunerative in propor- tion as it is intelligent, she was not satisfied that her sons should enjoy what ill-conditioned toil should wring out for them, but sought to give them the advantages of an education, that their toil might be a hundred-fold productive. Ignorance—the bane of society—has never been allowed here to blight industry. Into our schools enter alike our whole population; their minds are put into connection with all the living forces of the world; trained to think, they intelligently plan their tasks; elevated with the hope of higher position, for which their education has prepared them, they waste no energy ; availing themselves of the advantages of knowledge, they possess themselves of the secrets of success in their calling; providently husbanding their resources, the comforts of competence are soon theirs. A well-employed leisure creates the demand for farther improvement; the gratification of a regu- lated taste refines the character, and the cultivated pleasures of home lighten the toil and enhance the repose of a virtuous life. In the unnumbered dwellings of content scattered through our cities, our villages, and over our carefully tilled fields, have we the evidence of the wisdom and the reward of the efforts of our Commonwealth, in securing to every man the fruits of his industry, and developing his full power to do, through the incomparable 30 THE HOME AND THE NATION. advantages of that glory of Massachusetts—her com- mon schools. A higher life-force, however, than mere education, has always exerted among us that influence, which, more than any other, develops all the faculties of man. Here a piety that has been the formative mould of character has lived and flourished. Its prayers have reverently invoked the blessing of the Almighty. Its example has restrained the license of sin. Its directory—the inspired Word of God— was the sure foundation from which our liberties sprung, and the Divine model of our earliest cast of government ; whose precepts form the code of our jurisprudence; on whose hallowed pages the solemn appeal of the oath of office is administered, and as it contains the sum of all wisdom, it lies on the desk of every school-house, the unapproachable model of all instruction, to be displaced never, so long as Massachusetts acknowledges a God to honor, or possesses a right arm to lift in its defence. Its Gospel, preached in our pulpits, and accompanied by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, regen- erates the character, restraining its lusts, and prom- ises “them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.’ This piety controls the passions, sup- presses wrong desires, and promotes every virtue, showing that “godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of THE HOME AND THE NATION. 31 that which is to come.” By these mighty life-forces of Education and Religion, both cherished by our State, the enjoyment of each citizen in the fruits of his toil has reached a height hitherto unattained by any people. Nor do we seek a change. Let the Meeting-house still stand between the School-house and the Town-house, opening its portals on either side, pronouncing its benedictions on the State’s fostering care of the School, and sanctifying the culture of the School to the noble uses of the State, and so blending the influences of Piety, Education, and Patriotism over the diverse interests of all, as to secure to each the full enjoyment of the fruits of his own efforts, and, in the contentment of homes thus formed, derive from the citizens’ gratitude their united maintenance of our free institutions. All honor to the Commonwealth, that, beneath equitable laws, by the invoked aid of Learning and Chris- tianity, selects her merchant princes from the plough, her men of science from the forecastle, her senators from the bench, and her governors from the machine shop—not to reward them with additional honor, but herself to be enriched by their virtues; to be taught by their wisdom; to be represented by their counsels, and beneath their administrations to obtain a yet nobler record on the truthful scroll of history. As my time is already exhausted, I merely allude to the last element constituting a nation’s glory, that seeks its chief illustration in the homes of her people og THE HOME AND THE NATION. —Personal Security. “And none shall make them afraid.” Nor is there need of more than a mere allusion. We have no suggestion to offer. So long have we rested in quiet homes, beneath the egis of our country’s protection, that we have almost lost the sense of fear. And while we continue to look to God for “the wisdom that is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy,” and in its exercise to mete out to others their just rights, demanding only the same for ourselves, there are none to make us afraid. If before we had tasted of independence, when farther aggressions threatened the very existence of our homes, a citizen soldiery sprang from their imperilled hearth-stones, and through the horrors of an eight years’ war, fainted not, neither was weary until the vanquished enemy left these shores, thenceforward consecrated to freedom—then more certainly, should our peace be invaded now by hostile legions, are we assured by the gallant corps before me that the same source will yield a like defence. Heroism died not with Hancock; sublime self-sacri- fice was not martyred when Warren fell; the stirring appeals of eloquence left echoes for other tones when Ames’s voice. was hushed ; the monuments of Lexing- ton and Concord record not the epitaph of true bravery ; nor does Bunkev’s lofty shaft rise over buried glory. If needed, all will come again. God grant THE HOME AND THE NATION. 33 that only on more peaceful fields their prowess shall be marshalled. There is a light emanating from our subject, shed on certain evils which still lurk among us, that developes their enormity, and teaches the necessity of their suppression, by every lawful and effective means. If the glory of a nation is her people’s homes, what- ever tends to diminish domestic happiness, and blight the joys of the fireside, dishonors the State, drains her resources, and weakens her support. To guard against its dangers is not only the privilege, but the sacred duty of every community. Hence, if Intemperance besots the intelligence, indurates the heart, unnerves the will, demoralizes the conscience, and embrutes the man, unfitting the father to be the guardian of his household, and thé son to yield his measure of support ; if it impoverishes the means of living, desolates the inheritance, and destroys the home; if instead of increasing the products of industry, it imposes an unjust burden on the virtuous laborer; if its exam- ple is vicious, its contagion fatal; if in its pestilential vapor morality dies, and vice and crime riot, then must that State be sadly indifferent to a tarnished escutcheon if she uses not the utmost diligence to eradicate the evil. One failure, or a thousand should not exhaust her patient efforts for its destruction, nor cause her to desist from trying every expedient until 5 34 THE HOME AND THE NATION. the demon is driven forever from her borders, and allowed to pollute no more the sanctuary of home. As surely as the honest toil of six days of the week is needed to plant within and around our dwellings the comforts of a physical existence, so surely is the rest of a seventh required for the devel- — opment and strengthening of spiritual life. With- out the divinely appointed interruption of labor by the repose of the Sabbath, man will fail to attain the full measure of his perfected manhood. The spir- itual clement will be dwarfed, the finer sentiments of the soul will lose their tone, the high aims of immor- tality, will be made subservient to the animal wants of the present, sense will triumph over faith, the affections which strike their roots deeply only in the religious nature, will decay, and the noble impulses gathered from the refreshing communion with Heaven, cease to inspire with lofty purpose, with virtuous enterprise and holy service, the wearied and overburdened breast. Yes, without the Sabbath men may rear a shelter under which nightly, in the oblivion of sleep, they lose the sense of fatigue; they may spread a board whereat they satisfy the craving of an animal appetite; they may lessen inconvenience, and make more toler- able the monotonous drudgery of unabated labor ; but without a Sabbath they can never enjoy a home— bright transcript of Eden, on whose holy occupants dawned first the hallowed day, and emblem of the man- THE HOME AND THE NATION. 85 sion in the Father’s house when life’s brief pilgrimage is past. If to cherish “ whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,” should be a care to the State, and if the mightiest influences affecting its weal spring from its homes, then does its own prosperity, nay, its security even, demand of it publicly to hallow the Sabbath, and guard against its ever being driven from its constant ministrations of mercy, as it seeks to mitigate the curse, and breathe over cot and palace alike its sweet evangel of rest. Even through the dreary gloom of Pauperism, our subject shoots a solitary ray of light, guided by which its noisome intricacies may be threaded, and the vexed problem of its relief be solved. Break not up the home; let benevolence spread her resources in rendering the hovel a more comfortable abode ; work on the tie of love, if not quite sundered ; awake, if you can reach low enough, the sense of responsibility dormant within the soul; change the cellar or the attic for a home; call back to his manhood by early recollections, if possible, or by future promises, the brutalized father; help the first effort, despair not over a score of falls. Poverty will never be lessened, and scarcely relieved by the showy provision of almshouses. In them may be temporary alleviation, but always at the cost of self-reliance, and therefore at the cost of hope for future amendment. If this evil is ever extir- 36 THE HOME AND THE NATION. pated, it will be, we are convinced, by the personal ministry of love through the divinely appointed instrumentality of homes. But I forbear: praying that through the succession of coming generations, our Commonwealth, rich in the affections of her noble sons, strong through her virtues, with the impediments to her progress over- come, rejoicing in a liberty founded on justice, enlight- ened by knowledge, refined by taste, and regenerated by Christianity, may present in her peaceful homes the brightest evidence of her glory, and stand the model of other States in the realization of the divine prophecy, “They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” — And now, will his Excellency the Governor, not in studied forms of empty adulation, exacted by imperial courts as the homage of an obsequious clergy, but in the manly and spontaneous utterances of the heart, accept the congratulations of the occasion. Sir, in the names of those happy homes over which you preside, and whose representative to-day, I am proud to con- sider myself, I offer to you the honorable testimonial of their cordial respect. By their intelligent suffrages you have been called thrice to the chief magistracy of this Commonwealth. In this third elevation to the post of dignity and trust, you have the evidence of the THE HOME AND THE NATION. or generous confidence reposed in your integrity, and the reward of the services you have so faithfully performed. May the blessings invoked around the family altars of a grateful people, rest on your continued adminis- tration, and when the cares of public office are grace- fully laid aside, follow you into retirement, where, amid the quiet and refined pleasures of your own fireside, you may be our exemplar to illustrate the private virtues of the citizen, as you have been our choice to emulate the distinguished excellences of the illustrious men who have preceded you in the high position you so honorably fill. To his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, the honor- able Council, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, we also respectfully tender the expressions of our confidence. You have come up fresh from your homes on which the divine munifi- cence has poured out at the opening of this new year the tokens of continued prosperity. So far as they can be committed to human hands, gentlemen, they are reposed as a holy trust in your watchful guardian- ship. We feel no fear. But as our duty is, we will pray that He that giveth liberally wisdom, may guide your counsels, lead you to right decisions, and promote your efforts to advance this ancient State to yet greater renown and honor. Your term of office les within a year big with consequences to our beloved country. May it be marked by the triumph of a calm, conser- vative, resolute spirit of devotion to the constitutional 38 THHE HOME AND THE NATION. principles of national freedom over the excited pas- sions of sectional violence, that seek to debase into a perpetual lease of bondage the glorious birthright of American freemen. The clock of time prepares to strike another hour in our country’s history. We joyfully anticipate the peal as the knell of oppression, the prophetic chime of universal liberty. : 4 a spain 5 ut elit | rah acc yl >