USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > An address, delivered at Northampton, Mass. : on the evening of October 29, 1854, in commemoration of the close of the second century since the settlement of the town > Part 4
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brought heresy and disobedience and sects into the world, and print- ing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both." The Nonotuck planters' prayer was very dif- ferent from this.
One other institution ought not to be overlooked, also existing in all the villages of New England,-that of the self-government of towns by their own free votes and the election of such few officers, as were necessary to carry into effect their purposes and resolves. This made the people the friends of law and the supporters of a free re- public.
AN ACT OF LIBERALITY BY OUR LATER FATHERS.
That our fathers in this village nearly a hundred years ago, not- withstanding the narrowness of their fortunes, were not destitute of an enlarged and liberal spirit, nor deficient in the love of what is beau- tiful and in the judgment of a good taste is proved by one very united act of theirs, for which 'recorded honors' may well gather around their names. I will not repeat their numerous names, for you may all know them already, or may easily find them. Many of you bear them. But the act, to which I allude, I will explain. They had reached that period in the social progress of this village, when the hard strug- gle for subsistence began to be alleviated and they were able to give some little attention to the embellishment and adornment of their dwel- lings and grounds, and the improvement of their common home. They widened the streets : they saw, that it would add much to the beauty of this village in all future time and would benefit the whole county of Hampshire, if a certain private estate in the very centre of the town, at the junction of the four streets, was purchased for the public, the house removed, and the grounds thrown open, to be forever an unen- closed green, excepting that a court house for the county might be there erected. They therefore liberally contributed of their hard earn- ings and for a considerable sum made the purchase, and presented the lot to the inhabitants of the county as a site for a court house and for ' a green or common,' and for no other purpose whatever. Could they have foreseen what a very elegant and splendid row of buildings would be constructed by private enterprise and taste on one of the sides of the proposed green,-buildings showing forth their beautiful proportions after the lapse of a hundred years,-they would have found
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a new satisfaction in the manner,-in which they evinced their pub - lic spirit, and generous character, and love of the beautiful. Nor can I doubt, that when another hundred years has taken its flight,-and an unsightly, intruding structure by a returning sense of justice and honor, and in obedience to a recent and existing order of the County Commissioners, has been displaced,-when elegant rows of buildings shall be on all sides of the public square, and the county court house shall look down towards the morning sun upon its own unobstructed beautiful green,-there will then be a just appreciation of the noble spirit of the donors, -the benefactors of the town and the county.
WHAT, IF NOW LIVING, THE FATHIERS WOULD SEE.
One could almost wish, that our fathers were permitted to revisit, at this time, the place of their abode, and to contrast the past with the present ;- their log houses, standing among the stumps of forest trees, with the present mansions of comfort and beauty ;- their rude encampment with a village of taste and elegance, comprising not only private dwellings, but numerous temples, consecrated to law, to jus- tice, to education, to health, to the wants of refinement, to the arts of life, and to the worship of God ;- their rare moving and slow-moving private post,-making them acquainted, at long intervals, with the more populous regions, whence they had emigrated,-with the rapid- ity, and regularity, and frequency of our public mails, and especially with that wonderful, mysterious, lightning dialect, in which we can converse in a moment with a friend at a thousand miles' distance ;- their rough, home-spun and home-woven garments, the product of great domestic toil, with our elegant webs for clothing, which are produced by hundreds of wheels and hundreds of shuttles, moved with- out hands or feet by the force of water or of steam ;- their saddles and pillions and ox-carts or ox-sleds for travelling with our multitudinous, divers-fashioned carriages of ease and luxury ;- their very cramped and imperfect aids to educational labors with our abundant supply of all the discoveries, inventions, and appliances, which now quicken the progress of children and youth in the path-way of knowledge ;- and, finally, their limited means of spiritual improvement,-though they had all, that was essential,-the Bible and the preacher, -- with our innumerable means and aids of religious instruction and incitement in religious books, and tracts, and journals, ever new and adapted to every age and every condition and shape of life.
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WHAT THE FATHERS MIGHT EXPECT OF US.
In the view of these and other changes, improvements, and advances our fathers might well say, that surely their children must be far wiser and better, more upright, just, virtuous, holy, and happy, than they were while laying the rude foundations of such new and polished soci- ety. But would they find the children thus surpassing the fathers ? Would they find a deeper sense of justice, a sterner integrity, a more effective charity, a purer, simpler piety,-a more cheerful resignation in trouble, a humbler walk with God, a holier life, a more triumphant death? Would they find here a village of purer morals, undefiled with the grossness of intemperance, unstigmatized with night-thefts and great crimes ? Would they find the people industrious, but not sinfully greedy of filthy lucre .-- ' ready to distribute, willing to com- municate ;' -- abundant in noble acts of charity and true beneficence in correspondence with their increased means of doing good ;- not bound down to the earth by the influence of worldly prosperity and wealth, but living with their affections placed on the things above ; lay- ing up for themselves 'incorruptible treasures ;'-and by their fervent, importunate, and unceasing prayers seeking the advancement of that holy and blessed kingdom of Christ, with which is associated all their happiness ?
I say not what they would find, could they walk again in these streets, in which were the last steps of their earthly pilgrimage. I put not these questions by way of reproach ; but as such, as we are all bound to put to ourselves, for " of them, to whom much is given, much will be required."
With such ancestors, as God has given us, -- with the lustre of their upright and holy examples shining in our path-way, -- with an inheri- tance they have left us of almost unapproached commingled beauty and magnificence, -- with invaluable institutions, the germs of which they put into the ground, and which are now in full-spread expansion and fruitfulness, -- let us all feel the pressure of these good influences, calling us " to glory and virtue."
THE PATH TO HEAVEN.
If we would learn the way to the eternal mansions, we have only to follow the same guidance, by which they were conducted,-the guidance of Him, who came down from heaven to tabernacle in hu-
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man flesh, and who is " the way, the truth, and the life ; "-who was himself, in his own sufferings, a sacrifice for the sins of men, and who in his memorable prayer just before his betrayal uttered these words, -" And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." In this teaching let us confide,-in its simple meaning, unclouded by the theories of phi- losophy, whether ancient or modern,-in its full extent, as implying the knowledge of the heart as well as of the understanding, all the lioly emotions springing from our relation to God and to his Son, our Savior,-and a spirit of entire and cheerful obedience to the com- mandments of Him, whom God hath constituted King on his holy hill of Zion.
FINAL TEACHING OF OUR HISTORY.
The review we have taken of the history of Northampton ought not to fail to bring to us-in reference to our moral being-one most im- portant lesson, else the historic survey of a multitude of interesting facts will be lost labor,-idle, worthless employment of time and thought. Where, for the greater part, are the generations of the last two hundred years ?- the hundreds and the thousands of our ances- tors or friends, who once lived in this sweet valley of our abode, and looked upon its majestic river, and lifted their eyes to the dark and noble mountain ranges around, and above them to the glorious sun in the blue sky, or to the silver moon and resplendent stars of the night? They are not here ; they are gone! Their eyes are closed and their bodies sleep in our thick-shaded cemetery ; and we are from day to day to follow them to the narrow house, appointed for all the living ;- not at a known and foreseen period,-not in any discernible order,-not by the operation of conspicuous causes,-not at a defi- nite age nor after a definite course of earthly experiences, nor after a certain number of solemn monitions ;- but perhaps at a moment, when * we think not,-suddenly,-promiscuously,-in childhood, youth, man- hood, or old age, as it may be,-by a sudden blow as of lightning glancing from the cloud, or by the steady inroads of a lingering dis- ease, a stern enemy, pressing upon us until his aim is accomplished, -blasting our dearest joys,-disrupting the ties of strongest affection, despoiling us of our wealth, treading down our honors, bearing us away from our beloved home,and shutting us up in a narrow pit in the ground.
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Such is our fate, such is our doom, as taught by the review of the past in respect to the men, who have lived here before us. Then ought we not to see, and to know, and to feel, that the busy toils of the earth in planting the seed and gathering in the harvest,-in the diligent hand- ling of matter by mechanical skill,-in the sorting, and exchange, and sale of the products of nature and of art,-in the analysis of the parti- cles of the earth or in probing the highiroads of the stars in the heavens, -in the search of science and cultivating the refinements of literature, -in disentangling the complexity of statutes and vindicating the su- premacy of law,-in guiding wisely the heavy, crushing car of war, and in shaping aright the courses of national policy,-in making new inroads into the fields of discovery and invention, and in multiplying the books, under which the earth groans ;- ought we not to feel, that all these and all other pursuits of this world are "VANITY ?" But then each of the men, women, and children, whose bodies sleep in our well-peopled cemetery, and each of the sons of Nonotuck, whose bodies sleep elsewhere, had another nature besides the body; and that nature, that spiritual nature is not here, was not shut up in the close coffin, and lies not in the narrow pit .- And where is it ? Whither has the spirit gone ? If the Bible is true,-if its ample teaching, . which I have studied for three-score years, is plain and palpable ; then it is not true-as some misguided men allege-that the future, in re- spect to all human beings, is a sea for the voyagers, unruffled by any storm, not exposed to the perils of any collision, and where no ship- wreck can possibly be known; but, on the contrary, the future brings punishment to the guilty as well as eternal good to the righteous ; for the Judge himself has taught us, that he will say in the great day of scrutiny, when all men, with new-formed bodies, shall stand before him,-" Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," to them, who shall be for their wickedness on his left hand,-but to the holy and just on his right hand-" Come, ye bles- sed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
With this certain alternative before us,-compelled to the convic- tion,-as there is no hint of any other probationary state,-that we must be placed, and may be soon, among one or the other of the two classes, who are to be assembled in the judgment,-with what an ir- resistible force ought the claims of religion to come upon our souls ? I do not say, the claims of a denomination, of a sect, of a faction, of a company ; but the claims of our broad and common Christianity,-
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that we love God with all the heart and worship him in the beauty of holiness ;- that we exercise faith in his crucified Son, the Redeemer, the sacrifice for the sins of men, the light of the world, the resurrec- tion and the life ;- that we love our brethren, as we love ourselves ;-- that we repent and believe,-turn from sin and practice righteous- ness ;-- that we "live soberly, righteously, and godly in this presenist world,"-" looking for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."
If this lesson does not come to us from the history of the past,-of how little comparative value must be its teachings concerning worldly prudence, economy, and industry,-which, standing alone, are but the perishable virtues of the earth, -- quitting us at the very moment, when we need the peace of a Godward trust, the joys of a heavenly hope, the triumphs of an exulting faith ?
If there is any place in New England, where the power of true, sweet, loving, heavenly religion has been experienced in New Eng- land's past generations ; - that place, I am convinced, is Northampton, under the crystal, heaven-derived teachings of Stoddard and Edwards and their successors in the ministry, accompanied by the Divine spirit, bringing those teachings to the heart ;- proved to be efficacious by the transformation of pride to humility, of worldliness to charity, of impurity to holiness, of hatred to love,-of profaneness to fervent de- votion,-of all wickedness to every Christian virtue. And these changes have occurred, age after age, under circumstances to impress upon the world the interposition of the power of God,-sometimes most sudden, wonderful, and overwhelming,-as though to annihilate the philosophy, which speaks of the unfolding by culture of man's natural goodness, and to shame the reason, which denies the possibility of a sudden turning about from sin to God.
I know from our history, that allowances must be made for unin- tentional exaggeration,-that imperfection betrays itself,-that some- times the road of folly is taken after a choice of the path of wisdom,- that self-deceit and hypocrisy are intermingled with truth and piety. But, after all deductions, a great sum of goodness remains. I have seen with mine own eyes in this place, more than half a century ago, the piety, then beaming forth in an ancient of fourscore years,-who had lived in the friendship of Edwards,-as clear and radiant as the sun in heaven ;- and I have seen here in recent times the same piety commingled with the charity, which said to a poor aged Indian sister, the last of the race-' Thy home shall be with me, as long as I live !'
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And what has been, may it not be again? And will it not be, when Christian professors awake from their slumbers, and pour out the strong breathings of a heavenly charity into the ears of God ?
In what way can we better honor the memory of our pious and ex- cellent ancestors in this valley of delight, than by catching the noble spirit, by which they were animated,-by proving that we inherit as well their character, as their estates,-by maintaining and strength- ening the institutions, which they commenced and founded,-and by the cheerful service of the same omnipotent Preserver and Benefac- tor, whom they worshipped here in the wilderness, and by cherishing the hopes of the same gospel, which enabled them to depart from this, their earthly abode, in the triumphs of Christian faith to ascend to their everlasting home in the heavens ?
We cannot trace our descent from what is called noble blood on the other side of the ocean,-and we have no connexion with
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power :"
we sprung not from a race of princely warriors, who divided among themselves the territories of a conquered country, creating great, and wealthy, proud families on the bondage and degradation of the people, whose toil furnishes the food of their pride and luxury and criminal self-indulgence. But we had ancestors, who were among the true nobles of the earth,-the sons of God, " a royal priesthood, a peculiar people ;"-men, who made great sacrifices for truth and for duty and for the glory of their Maker ;- men unknown to fame, yet who at- tained to true and high honor, for
"This is true giory and renown, when God, Looking on th' earth, with approbation marks The just man."
Just men indeed were our fathers in the intercourse of the earth, and, in a higher sense, just men with God by reason of their faith in his crucificd Son. What thanks, then, do we owe to God for such an ancestry,-for such examples,-for such lights and guides in the path- way of duty,-for the fruits of their industry, temperance, and econ- omy,-for the institutions, which they founded,-for the pure and un- corrupted gospel, which they transmitted,-and that, through them, " our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places and we have a goodly heritage ? "
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FORWARD LOOK TO THE THIRD CENTURY.
At this anniversary we can hardly avoid glancing a thought forward to the return of another century of years, when the third grand period since the settlement of Nonotuck will be closed. It will be nothing to us, for not one of us will be here ;- nothing to us, except as our present toils and influence may have a bearing on the character and welfare of the thousands, who may then live in this village. I believe in progress-in the certain advancement of the human family towards the ultimate good destined for the race of man ; not founded on a certain supposed natural law of improvement by science, and art, and culture in successive ages, but a progress, resting on God's purpose and promise, by means of his own divine truth revealed from heaven and brought with new power to the understanding and heart. After much study I may be permitted to say, that I have no doubt, the Scriptures speak of a long and disastrous sway in this world of an impious and tyrannical power, described as 'forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain' from lawful meats, -as ' sitting like a god' in God's temple, and exacting from men a new idolatry and subjecting them to a most grievous bondage :- nor can I doubt, af- ter tracing the history of this prominent and well-known power, that the days of its existence are well nigh ended, so that perhaps in less than two centuries the annihilating blow will be struck. But whether or not this conclusion be right, the event, when it comes, will be brought about by the progress of God's truth, by its strong radiance poured upon the public mind, and its sweet and holy influence felt in the hearts of men. In this way will the dark errors of the earth be scattered, as the gloomy shadows of the night are dispersed by the rising sun.
When the pure truth of heaven shall gain its destined sway here below, then shall the power of a besotted idolatry be overthrown amongst the nations ;- then shall the impious rule of the Roman des- potism, which has for many ages controlled a corrupted church, come to an end, and there will remain none of the marvellous absurdities, by which the intellect of man has been overwhelmed,-as that a piece of bread is through the prayer of a priest transmuted into God,-or that a cross and an image of wood or silver are fit objects of religious worship,-or that a dead woman is to be worshipped as the mother of God and the queen of heaven, the patroness of men. Then amidst the wreck of the innumerable illusions of the earth there will remain no fragments of the systems of error; none of a horrible atheism ;- none of the pantheistic scheme, which converts all the objects of na-
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ture into parts of God ;- none of the invented theories, which conflict with the attributes and revealed character of the divine being ;- none of the long-prevalent and wide spread Mahomedan imposture ;- none of the teachings of a proud rationalism, which rejects the divine reve- lation, nor of any anti-christian scheme whatever, which denies, that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh in order to expiate sin by his death on the cross :- and then will the multiplied forms of strange de- lusion and amazing stupidity in our own enlightened country vanish away, and there will remain no followers of the various sects, which from time to time have their origin in imposture, or fanaticism, or the failure of the powers of reason ;- no followers of a bewildered north- ern philosopher, claiming to be a prophet without any miraculous power as the indispensable seal and proof of his mission ;- no follow- ers of our American profligate and tyrannical prophets, who have gathered a great company of licentious and pitiable dupes and shut them up helplessly, as in a pound, near the great salt lake, our sea of Sodom, in the western wilderness ;- no followers of a pretended spir- itualism, signalized by rapping on tables or overturning them and by idle and ridiculous communications from the new oracles ;- no fol- lowers of the soothing theory, which would annihilate, for the sake of the peace of sinful men, the threatenings and sanctions of the di- vine law ;- and surely, here will be no followers of the inhuman scheme, embraced by the supporters of the 'domestic institution,' so called in our country, that because a stern and cruel despotism and slavery have existed on the earth by the permission and under the providence of God, therefore, in the judgment of God, slavery is right and by his will is to be perpetual ;- as though the chains on the bo- dies and minds of three millions of human beings will not fall off, as soon as the precept of Christ is regarded by intelligent, noble-minded, benevolent men, the masters of slaves in our Southern States,-" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets."
None of these and other schemes, theories, systems, hostile to God's truth, we may be confident, will remain. We know by the teaching of our Lord and Master, that men are to be " sanctified by the truth." In this way will our descendants, at the end of another hundred years, be a wiser, better, holier generation, than the present, if the influence of God's pure truth shall be continued and extended amongst us. For this end let us toil, while we can ;- for this let us incessantly pray .- Let us think, whether our hopes of bringing great benefit to our de-
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scendants, who may live a hundred years hence, ought to rest on the shifting phases of political parties, which long ago were described as " the madness of the many for the benefit of a few ; "-or on the wider diffusion of mere earthly science, or the cultivation of a refined literature, or the inventions of genius, and the advance of the arts of life,-since all these things, we know, may co-exist with deep relig- ious ignorance and the lowest depravity of morals. We may have academies and institutes of science and art ;- we may have innumer- able amusing and interesting lectures, concerts, and exhibitions ;- we may have huge repositories of books and paintings and sculptures ;- but, apart from God's truth and God's method of training men for vir- tue and for heaven, they will not light up the hopes of the future. Let us support, then, and strengthen and enlarge all the institutions for the advancement of heavenly truth,-for the training of the young in the paths of true goodness,-for the teaching and encouragement of the mature in life and of the old in their onward, upward course. Then may we hope, when another century shall come round, not only shall the glorious sun shine forth upon this valley, still more beauti- ful, than it is now, but the Sun of Righteousnes will shine upon a vil- lage of enlightened, wise, pure, and holy men. Yon mountain of beauty and majesty will still lift up its head in the morning sky ;- but it will look down upon our children better, happier than we! Yon broad river will still flow on; but it will flow by a populous town, washed and purified from a debasing ignorance, from strange idolatrous delusion and impiety, from besotting intemperance, from the defilement of all criminal indulgences, from a narrow selfishness and pride, and from all injustice and dishonor. At that time, on that anniversary, let us hope and pray, that all the people by the reception of the truth and by the obedience of faith may be "a HOLY PEOPLE unto God."
Blessed will be the day, which is in sure prospect, when all the peo- ple of the earth shall become wise and holy.
" O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true,- Scenes of accomplish'd bliss ! which who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refresh'd with foretaste of the joy ? Rivers of gladness water all the earth, And clothe all climes with beauly. ** * One song employs all nations; and all cry,
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