USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield > More chronicles of a pioneer school, from 1792 to 1833, being added history on the Litchfield Female Academy kept by Miss Sarah Pierce and her nephew, John Pierce Brace > Part 19
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How readily then will your employment lead to cheerfulness & content, "to peace within and harmony to all around" How readily will it lead you to the service & worship of that being who has made you to differ : how fervid must be that service, how exalted that worship! The devotion that you pay is offered on the altar of an humble heart, in the vast Temple of nature that surrounds you. Every breeze that
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exhales the moisture of your fields, every brook that brings its treasures to your feet, every shower that fertilizes your springing grass, every sun beam that falls upon your ripening corn, the changing but useful vicissitudes of the seasons; the verdure of the forest around you, and the everlasting hills that raise heads to heaven, must show you that their great creator is ever near you, & bring to your hearts the obli- gations that you owe him.
ADDRESS -JUNE 1825. BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF CONNECTICUT
It is always very amusing to witness a collection of men of the same profession. Most of them come together with mingled sentiments of pride & humility - pride at the feeling of strength which numbers and respectability always give, and humility at being lost in the crowd of talents & dignities around them. It is of service to all professions to have occasional meetings of their body from various parts - they become acquainted with each others views and prejudices & they can assist in strengthening the one and softening the other - they learn their own numerical efficiency - they discover their own individual capacities, their defects & their relative merits & they become better acquainted with the world and its manners. To no profession are such meetings more useful than to the ministers of religion. The situation in which a small parish priest is placed, is even if he be a man of talents, one of no small difficulty to himself. Most ministers go out into their profession, with, I will not say, too high ideas of its importance but too high notions of the importance in which they are to be held in the world. Hence they are too apt to value "the earthen vessel" in which it is contained, as much as the treasure itself, & to expect from the world a peculiar deference as minister, which they would not have as man. This opinion is fostered often by the situation in which they are placed. In a small parish apart from the business & bustle of the world surrounded often by none but inferiors in talents & education, being accustomed to feel this superiority and exercise it daily, they soon think they are naturally instead of relatively important, & they soon expect where ever they go, the same almost apostolic reverence they experience at home they look abroad for the same hat-in-hand deference, the same breathless attention of hard favoured old men & snuffy old women as among their own people & they wonder at the want of the usual exclamation, "what a wonderful man, what a sarch- ing sermon!" To such men & many such are in the ministry, meetings of their body are peculiarly useful. They soon find what their proper
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elevation in the scale of existence is not only in their own profession, but in the world, & if such assemblies are held in large places, they soon see, that, even, in those who value religion most, the minister is but a man, a frail & erring man, to be respected for his talents, his piety, his usefulness, but not for his station alone - to be treated with kind- ness as a man devoting his life to the benefit of his fellow men, to be treated with respect as one "who ministers & serves the altar," but still to be approached with the freedom to be reasoned with, with the boldness; & if necessary, to be opposed with the openness, that be- cometh one man to use to another in this land of liberty.
To the desultory observer of human nature like myself, such assem- blies afford many topics of amusement & speculation. I had a fine opportunity of exercising that fondness for examining the faces of human kind that I so much admire.
In some piety seemed to predominate over the pride of the moment; in others, the "pride of the corps" was the then prevailing feeling. As the appointed ministers took their turns in the various exercises, it was curious to see the effect upon those who are never hearers, but always speakers. Some, even of the finest minds were extracting good from the tedious haranger & the laboured sermons; others of less governed minds & more volatile tempers were looking as if they thought, "I could do better."
The physiognomist had a grand opportunity to put in test the principles of his science. The profession of his subject & what their characters ought to be were fully before him, & he had but little left to conjecture. In some the strongly marked lines of a mind " serious, in a serious cause," were abundantly evident. A man, who is habitu- ally a christian, who lives daily "on the bread of life," & whose only thought is so to break it to others as to invite them to the feast, cannot but have their features regulated by the same causes that govern their lives & look the holiness they live. The peculiar character of the preaching of each individual, the particular school of divinity in which he was educated, the peculiar style of delivery he had imi- tated, could almost always be gathered from the countenance. There were the pale cheek, the deep sunken grey eye, the over hanging shaggy eyebrow the upright but furrowed forehead of the metaphysical divine: One who in school, was attentive; in college was the deep mathemati- cian & who in divinity searches into the hidden & complex doctrines of the Bible with a cool calm investigation unaccompanied by elegance or vehemence. There were the high white pointed forehead, the well outlined arched eyebrow, the dark, smooth hair, the large prominent dark eye, the Roman nose, broad at its juncture with the eyebrow, the slow movement of the white hand, the rounded lip, the measured gait, of the elegant divine, of the finished rhetorician, of the orator
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of art - one whose slow & solemn intonations, whose artificially con- structed periods whose regular oration like sermons, show him to be a master of the rhetorical art, a scholar in his closet, a gentleman in society, a polished preacher in the desk. There were the quick and vivid glance of the rapid eye, the close pressed, firm lip, the embrowned brow & cheek, the impressive tone, the forcible gesture, the powerful & earnest expression of the orator of nature, one who disregards the elegancies of refinement, the meretricious aids of the rhetorical art, who, looking at the simple unadorned grandeur of the subject alone, gives the naked unornamented truth, with the vehemence, the power & the solemnity of nature.
In many, as might be expected, no definite character could be per- ceived: they might have been merchants or farmers & no one, in another place, from their countenances alone could have traced their employment. Such men are undoubtedly useful in the church - there are many societies where their deficiencies in talents, in character, in refinement & in knowledge of the world will never be noticed & where to the simple & uneducated people around them, they can show the path of life & by their humble example teach them to walk therein. It is, however, to be lamented that some men in the zeal of their fer- vent piety mistake their own wishes to do good, for what they term, a call to the ministry, & tho' they do not "lay sacrilegious hands upon the ark" they offer to the service of the Lord "the torn & maimed" of their own crude conceptions & narrow intellects. We are an edu- cated & well informed nation, & the sabbath is not only calculated to make us better but wiser, to improve our reasoning faculties while it mends our hearts.
Some few among them looked as if they had mistaken their pro- fession & the gay & laughing eye the full & florid cheek, the fat and swollen short neck, & the tightly curled hair showed as much self indulgence as piety & tho' frequently associated with the external marks of eloquence, they were inconsistent with the fervidness, vehe- mence & strength so important in preaching. Two faces, I shall never forget, one of a tall young man, with a sharp restless black eye, a high forehead, a smooth brow, prominent but handsome thin lips & a deeply indented chin. The quick glances of those sharp eyes their sudden fixture on one point as if in entire absence of mind, their occasional wanderings slowly around with the lids wide open, the pupil dilated & the eye brow expanded, the occasional & rapid contraction of the muscles between the eye brows to form that scowl that indicated pain or uneasiness; the occasional pressure of the lips as if the heart beat irregularly, mark him to me as a man suffering under some mental agitation, as one carrying the stamp of incipient insanity in his face. The other will accompany me forever were I to see him in China at
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the temple of Fohi; were I to see him clad in the robes of state in the palace of the Czars, or in the habiliments of war dealing death & destruction instead of dispensing the bread of life. I should immedi- ately say there is the minister I saw at the general association at Litchfield in June 1825. He was more than six feet high - with that unformed length of limb that shows strength & awkwardness. His face was very long & covered with a sallow skin of an uniform coloring; his forehead was high & stretched far up under his long & scanty black locks, & the sallow skin drawn over it looked as if it were never intended for its covering but belonged to a shorter face. His hair was very strait, long & black & came in long locks over his brow & his baldness & occasionally fell over his pale & sunken cheeks. His chin was of unusual length & extended far down from his lip without a curve or a wrinkle; His frontal bone jutted out but was clothed with a meagre eyebrow & his eye of a grayish blue, bespoke considerable penetration & strength of intellect. To complete the side view of his face over that sallow sunken cheek there passed a huge black whisker, perfectly uncurled, each hair pointing down, so that it looked like a lock from his head fastened by his ear. In general, a black whisker gives an air of fierceness to the face, but then it must be curled & the hairs be horizontal, but his whisker gave so ludicrous an expression to his countenance with its perpendicular uncurled hair, that it is absolutely impossible to tell what was the general character of the man.
But one more observation & I have finished this long article. The reflection struck me strangely of their stations & employments, & how how after a few more waning years, the humblest, the most de- spised among them would be more honoured than the Caesars & Alexanders of the earth. The statesmen, the warriors & the scholars of the world looked alone at human applause & "verily they have had their reward" while that of this body shall glow brighter & more satisfactory while eternity lasts.
ADDRESS -JULY 4TH 1826
You are now assembled, fellow citizens, to celebrate the birthday of freedom in your native land, to look back upon 50 years of exampled prosperity and happiness.
Many are the advantages resulting from these annual assemblies in our land; they point us back to what we were when toiling in the prison house of bondage; they show us what we now are, after half a century of trial.
The object of these celebrations is not, as many of the timid imagine to keep up in the heart the hatred of one nation. The declaration of
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our Independence, as it is now read to us, will not rouse us against the oppressor of the last century, but against oppression in this & while this declaration sounds in their ears, this people will not submit to the domination of the artful demagogue on the one hand, or fall beneath the sword of conquest on the other. If we remember from year to year that our ancestors amidst the horrors of war & the gloom of poverty, pledged their lives, their fortunes & their sacred honor, that freedom should be perpetuated among us, are we in danger of proving degenerate? Can Americans again bow to a titled aristocracy after having met in a perfect equality around the festive board, that is everywhere spread on this day? Can Americans again submit themselves to military domination & political slavery, after hearing as they, everywhere will this day, what half a century of freedom has wrought out for them. It is impossible. He who tyrannizes over these states, must first raze from the mind the memory of the past; must blot out from the page of history, the record of the last 50 years, must say to this people, ye shall not year after year, meet in the temple of liberty to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.
In these, our annual attempts however, to preserve the spirit of liberty among us, let us not keep alive the sense of the injuries which fifty years ago, we received from the English nation. It cannot be necessary for freemen, after half a century of political existence to remember and revenge the injuries inflicted on them in their infancy. Injuries that were then met and revenged. In the great work of en- lightening the world, of disseminating the principles of liberty, of education & of religion, we need the assistance of a nation possessing as England does, so many of the principles of freedom in her institu- tions: let our maxim, then, be, towards her as to others, "enemies in war; in peace friends" let us not sully the recollections of this half century jubilee by reproaches of an enemy that we have overcome: there is sufficient splendour, in the blaze of our country's glory to occupy our admiration without mingling in its brightness the long smothered smoke of prejudice and revenge.
By the arbitrary customs of the world there are certain periods in existence when as if by general consent it stops in its career to revert to the past. At one of these periods in the history of our country, we now stand. Fifty years have elapsed since that instrument which has now been read was first published to the world, & according to universal custom, the freemen of this land are now, every where as- sembled to trace the improvements and to recall to memory the events of the last 50 years.
Our first emotion in this retrospect, should be gratitude to that power who gave strength in battle & wisdom in council to our ancestors & who through the vicissitudes, revolutions of half a century, has
ETUEN
THE HOLY FAMILY RETURNING FROM EGYPT
Done in water color and embroidery in silk floss and chenille. The halo and the angel's wings are gold. Made by Esther Lyman, while she was a pupil seventeen years old at Miss Sarah Pierce's School. The frame has a black mat, and printed on the glass in gold is "E. Lyman fecit Litchfield 1802." Esther Lyman was the daughter of David and Sarah Comstock Lyman, of Middlefield, Connecticut. She married Reuben Brush, 1808, and died in 1816
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brought us to this day in prosperity; your government is still stand- ing in its primitive purity, and is still executed in its original equity. While nation, has been dashed against nation, & while the blood & flames of revolution have become familiar to the world, you have been comparatively free from war. Your land has it is true, once witnessed its terrors; but, however different may have been your opinion respecting the justness of its origin or the correctness of its management, yet the reputation it has given us in Europe, & the effect it will have in preserving us from insult abroad, will lead us all to rejoice in its existence, as proving ultimately a national blessing.
The extent of our Commerce, the creation of our manufactures, the increase of our agriculture, the progress of the arts and sciences are topics of self-gratulation, this day: the creation of our canals the application of the principles of steam, & the facilities of intercourse are among the improvements of the past half century. How different the aspect of the country amid the gloom, the poverty, and the dis- tress of 1776.
We, who are now young, who see around us the monuments of the greatness and the power of this nation, who view only the existing affects of the mighty enterprise of our citizens, can hardly realize what this nation was, when in 1776 it declared itself an independent republic. Starting into existence, with an enlightened population and with the freest institutions, it could at once fling away the trammels that shakled Europe in improvement and arrive at the perfection of manhood almost in its infancy. Bound down by no prescriptive customs, chained down by no hereditary aristocracy, governed by no titled and pen- sioned priesthood, its progress in improvement has been unexampled in its extent & prosperity. Situated then as we are on the banks of this mighty river, which now bears on its bosom the improvements of ages, we cannot realize that but a short time since it was feeble rivulet struggling for its existence thro the rock & the forest of Savage violence & dashing away in its career, the mounds of foreign tyranny. Seeing this nation as we now do in the Herculean strength of its manhood, we know little of the trembling of the infant Hercules in its cradle when it strangled the serpents of oppression and tyranny.
Viewing as we now do, the extent of its resources, the power of its wealth, the increase of its inhabitants and the manliness and vigour of its government, we can know nothing of the trembling of knee & sinking of heart, which the patriots of the revolution felt when they launched their little boat on the edge of the mighty cataract and pro- pelled it with broken oars against the stream. It was a hazardous experiment without money, without credit, with no navy, with no regular troops, to rush into battle with a power, whose commerce covered the seas, whose navy knew no defeat, whose army has supplied
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the strength & the sinew of many an European victory. but our ancestors felt their wrongs & they knew their rights & trusting in the God of battles they dared the Conflict and conquered. But there are some, who now hear my voice, who can realize this great change: men, whose heads are now beginning to be whitened with the frosts of age, who, tho' in tender childhood then, can well remember the agitation & the uncertainty of that eventful period. Yes; there are some now here whose father's anxiety and whose mother's sufferings are still fresh in their memories; who can well remember the tear shed over the unsucessful struggle & who joined their infant voices in the loud shout of triumph that sounded throughout the land. To such men, this fifty years retrospect must bring nought but pleasure. The progress of the country has been identified in their very existence: " they have grown with its growth, & strengthened with its strength". It is to their industry it owes its wealth, to their perseverence it ascribes its rank among nations, to their talents & character it attrib- utes the commerce, the manufactures, the education, the respecta- bility, & the religion it possesses. Such men can sink contentedly into the evening of life leaving their country's freedom and prosperity the best legacy to their children.
But there is yet another class still more interested in this retro- spect: the actors in that arduous struggle, the few survivors of a band that now sleep in this soil they defended.
Soldier of '76 if any such now hear my voice. Could you have seen when you fled before the pursuing enemy, over the plains of Jersey, or, when, after the hard fought day of Germantown, you sullenly retired before the victorious foe; or, when, without clothes, without food, without money or credit, you marked the frozen soil of Valley Forge with the blood of your naked feet; could you have foreseen what you view this day; could you have felt that your country, even in your life time, would become the first nation of the world in freedom and intelligence & the fifth in power and resources, would you not have persevered.
Fellow citizens! they saw none of those glories, & yet, amid a gloom, darker than a midnight of storms, they did persevere: with nothing but the resolution gathered from despair; with nothing but the de- termination to die freemen, rather than live slaves; they did persevere - and for what? for the poor & pitiful reward at their death, of a paragraph in a newspaper corner, "another revolutionary soldier, has fallen," driven to the grave, perhaps by the pressure of poverty, which this rich & powerful republic refused to relieve.
In looking back upon these changes that 50 years have seen, it becomes us to enquire, by what cause they have been produced, & why the tide of revolution, in this country, has brought to us nought
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but honour & happiness, when, to so many nations, it has proved an overflowing scourge. The cause of the freedom of our institutions and consequently of the prosperity of our nation, is owing under the blessing of heaven to the character of our education. To be free, a nation must not only be exempt from noxious laws; must not only be allowed to elect its own rulers; but must have the security which the intelligence of every member of its community will give, that good rulers will be always elected. An ignorant peasantry can never know the character of the candidates that are presented to them therefore may be easily misled by an artful demagogue or dazzled by the splendour of a military adventure. The only security of liberty consists in the intelligence of the people & the flood of light which your schools, your seminaries & your presses are continually pouring upon your people, will be of more service to the preservation of your liberties, than all that paper constitutions can afford, or bayonets perform. The light of your revolution flashed in purity & brilliancy over Europe & kindled a corresponding brightness, there, but the flame was not fed like yours, & has left that continent in worse than its former darkness. The nations of Europe cannot profit by freedom, without the light of education, & a republic form'd in their dark domain, will soon crumble beneath the weight of its ill constructed powers, or be pushed to the ground by the violence of some military tyrant. France saw our revolution; her armies caught the infection of liberty here, & spread it in their native land; but they could not bring with them the intelligence and virtue of our country, & her revolution, which began in principle, was consummated in blood & terminated in a military despotism: not because the French did not love liberty, nor desire it, but because the electors had not sufficient knowledge to choose proper representatives or unity of action, enough to hold them accountable for abuse of power. Enlighten the world, & it will become free. The artificial distinctions of European society the blood besmeared fabric of European tyranny can no more exist where universal education and virtue prevail, than the snow wreathed on the brow of the cataract can live an instant before its impetuosity. France has tried it & has failed. Spain had a dream, a feverish dream of freedom & is now wakefully and voluntarily riveting the chain of her monarchy and her priesthood.
Italy had heard of revolution, had read of liberty & thought that freedom from Christian tyranny would make her the Italy of antiq- uity: But Italy was unenlightened & the surges of revolution beat in vain against the mounds of Austrian despotism and the billows have again settled into the stagnation of ignorance & servitude. We hope better things of Greece. We hope to see her rescued from an almost demoniacal tyranny; to see her rise from the tomb of ages &
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become enlightened as well as free. But Greece has much to learn: the settled principles of self government are almost unknown & must be acquired. The freedom of her people must be founded on their character; or Greece but changes her master from despotism to anarchy. We have been as the North star to the Republics of South America, tossed as they have been on the ocean of revolution & even now, when the noise of war has hardly ceased its echoes among the Andes they are instituting schools & flinging the light of education over the darkness of minds, long shrouded by Spanish despotism & Catholic intolerance.
Can we, then, in our retrospect this day be too grateful to the virtue, the sobriety & the religion of our ancestors, who not only gave us freedom, but placed into our hands the means of preserving it. Are you then disposed young men to sneer at the rigid morality of your Puritan ancestors? It is to them, you owe the bright prospect that every where meets your eyes this day. Are you disposed to loosen the obligations of that morality as bonds too grievous to be borne? You are flinging from your hands the power of preserving and per- petuating that freedom you this day enjoy. Your liberties, fellow citizens are now secure & before the demagogue at your doors, or the despot from abroad, can destroy them, they must break your printing presses burn up your school houses, & drive education from your land & even then, to perpetuate their chains, they must extirpate to a man, the present generation, & wait until another generation shall arise in ignorance and vice.
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