V. PATRIOTISM A CHRISTIAN DUTY. * THE FIFTH FOURTH OF JULY ORATION AT BURLINGTON COLLEGE. TWENTY-FIVE years ago, this day—I was younger then, in years, than I am now; but, by the good righthand of God upon me, not younger, by one whit, in heart or hope-I delivered the Jubilee Oration of American Independence, in the City of Hartford, by the appointment of the civil authority. I was then, as now, enlisted, hand and heart, in the good work of Christian education; and the officers and students of Washington College, of which I was the senior Professor, were a portion of my audience. I have scarcely seen the manuscript, from that day to this. But the circumstance, that we complete to-day three-quarters of a century of freedom, induced me to look after it. And I cannot better serve the purpose, which I have in hand, than by the re-production, now and here, of its opening and closing paragraphs. "This day, a half century is completed, since the 'Thirteen United States of America', by their 'unani * A. D. 1851. mous declaration,' claimed for themselves a name and a place, among the sovereign nations of the earth. You have listened to that inimitable paper, stirring your hearts within you, as with the sound of a trumpet, in which their claim was urged. And yourselves, my fel low-citizens, casting aside, for a season, the cares and duties of your daily life, and come up hither to profess anew its principles, and to rejoice in its success, are liv ing witnesses of the unparalleled result. The thirteen colonies, then, rich in nothing, but their love of liberty, and strong in nothing but their trust in God, are now become twenty-four States; the members of a Federal Republic, which, on the side of justice, may defy the world. The three millions of people, which were then thinly sprinkled along the coast, are multiplied to more than ten. The tide of their increase, rolling westward, with the course of day, has long since occupied the Alleghanies; and is now pouring its thousands out through the vast valley of the Mississippi. Upon the tree of our liberties, which the fathers of the republic, as on this day, planted with holy hands, that trembled, but not with fear, the dews and rains of fifty years have fallen. Cherished by favouring heaven, with light and warmth, and only rooted to a greater depth by winds and tempests, it stands erect among the nations: offering its grateful shadow to the oppressed of every land; and sheltering from the heat and from the storm the happy millions, who repose beneath its branches. Is it not meet, my fellow-citizens, in the remembrance of such a triumph, and in the enjoyment of such a bless ing, that with us, as with God's people in the olden time, if not the fiftieth year, at least the fiftieth anni versary, should be observed as holy? That throughout the land, liberty should be proclaimed? That the voice of the nation's jubilee should go out into the world: to the first-born of every tyrant that sitteth on the throne, a voice of fearful warning; to the oppressed of every name, in every land, a watch-word and a war-cry; to the God of our fathers, and our own God, who, in the day of battle, thundered in the van, and in the day of peace, still showers His blessings on us, as the gracious rain, the voice of thanks and praise; a nation's sacrifice of love and adoration!" We are now half-way toward another jubilee. The fifty years of freedom have, in God's forbearing Provi dence, been lengthened out, to seventy-five. And has the motive to thanksgiving failed? Has the debt of love and gratitude to God been lessened? Have we gone backward, or stood still, in the high track of freedom, glory, power? Our ten millions, in twenty-five years, have been multiplied to more than twenty-three. Our four and twenty States are thirty-one. And the shores of the Pacific are, now, what the valley of the Mississippi was, then. In arms, in arts, in wealth, in ag riculture, in commerce, in manufactures, in education, in religious privileges and opportunities, the advance far outreaches calculation. And all this, in but little more than the three score years and ten, which are the lot of human life. All this within the memory of some, who still bless us with their venerable presence, and adorn us with the lustre of their patriotism. All this, within a period which the oldest who now hears me may round into a century; and not yet come to four score years. What a tribute to the high, forecasting wisdom of the fathers of our freedom! What a trophy to the skilfulness and valour of the heroes of our Rev. olution! What a testimony to the excellence of our na tional constitution! What a crown of glory on the triumphal arch of our incomparable union! With what far deeper truth, with what far fuller fervour, may I say, to-day, what I said five and twenty years ago. "Cherish, as your choicest possession of the earth, the principles of that free and happy Constitution, under which, by the blessing of God, on your brave fa thers' sufferings and trials, it is your lot to live. They have been tried in the storm and in the calm; and have borne you triumphantly through both. Springing into existence from the strife and confusion of one war, they have been your strength and support in the dangers and trials of another; and in both have brought down victory to your banner. And they have raised you now to a height of honour, in the prosperity of peace, such as war could never win; to be the hope, the pattern, the rallying point of the world. Did the fathers of the Revolution bare their bosoms to the fight, as the forlorn hope of freedom and of man? And will you, that have so nobly realized what they dared not to dream of, stand by their priceless purchase against not VOL. IV.-17 every assault that can attempt it from without; and, far more dangerous, the internal discords, that would undermine it from within? Did the fathers of the Revolution nobly cast aside every thought of private interest; and with their country, their whole country, as the object of their toils and prayers, unite, from North to South, in one indomitable Macedonian phalanx; and, heart in heart, and shoulder against shoulder, brave the fierce onset, and hurl back its tide? And, shall we now, in the piping times of peace, permit some local interest, permit some private prejudice, permit some selfish consideration of emolument or of aggrandizement, to come between our hearts; and burst the bond, which holy hands, with many a tear, and prayer, have knit; and rend that glorious Union, which they cemented, and made sacred with their blood? No! let the traitor perish, in hot blood, whatever be his name, wherever be his home, who dares, with sacriligious hand, to separate, what God has joined together: who dares to touch, with purpose of dismemberment, one sacred stone of the old Cyclopean Arch,-conceived by giant hearts, and piled, by giant hands,—of our incomparable, and, as I believe, imperishable Union.” Thus, did I speak, a quarter of a century ago; when not a flake of snow had fallen upon my head. And now, with these white hairs, which care and suffering for the sacred cause to which my life is given, far more than have thinned and whitened for the grave, years, to be my witness, before God, I re-assert the whole, and |