USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > Services at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the First church in Cambridge, February 7- 14, 1886 > Part 4
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It had been brought into a large and fruitful place. One who was here about 1634 has left us his im- pression in words but recently given to us : -
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" Whatsoever the earth in England or France doth either nourish or produce, though it may not at this present be found in New England, yet being trans- ported or planted will thrive and grow there to more than an ordinary perfection."
This was promising so far as grain and grapes were concerned. The peril was that it might prove a land where all kinds of opinions would grow as well as all kinds of grasses. That danger was soon upon them, and was averted with a strong hand, - too strong, we may think who are enjoying what they created and defended. But the peril was great. To them it was far more serious than it can seem to us. They had become exiles for a definite purpose, and had bought at a heavy price all which they possessed. Dissension meant destruction, and they struck it down. It was a time when men wore no gloves. A man does strike hard when it is for his home and country. They had not desired a land where everybody could have his own way, but where they could have their way, which they accounted God's way. It might well be that others should believe differently, and desire other ends by other means. For all such persons the world was open ; the fair fields of Narragansett were at the south, and there were broad forests at the north. They asked but a little place, a narrow strip along the un- planted sea. Why should they not possess in quiet- ness what it had been so hard to get? There are pages in our early history which we read in sadness ; they were written in tears. But never had the early
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annals of a great people so little which must be re- gretted, so few things which grateful descendants could not readily forget. Beside the British and Continental history of their times, the record of the New England Puritans is an unsullied scroll.
They were safely here, but their work was only begun. All their manhood was needed for the task they had undertaken. William Wood wrote in 1634: " He must have more than a boy's head, and no less than a man's strength, that intends to live comforta- bly. ... All New England must be workers in some kind." They accepted their duty in a large and brave spirit. Was ever the work of colonists laid out upon so large a scale, or so rapidly carried for- ward ? They were ready to sing, as we shall sing to-night, -
" Here is Thy bounteous Table spread ; Thy Manna falls on every Field."
But they sung as they worked, not alone as they worshipped. We look to see what they did, be- yond keeping themselves alive. It is surprising to find in how much they anticipated our doings. Yet why not? We are but a little older, and they were very old. The needs of a man and of society have not greatly changed in these few years which we call so many. They were mature men who ad- dressed themselves to the problems of colonial life. They knew whatever was known. Not as appren- tices, but as masters, they laid their hand upon their work. The best things we have are our inheritance
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from them, and some things have been lost. Free churches and free towns were their creation without precedent, and their bequest without conditions. The Republic was under their roof. They guarded against the dangers of liberty by placing it in the hands of men who were qualified to use it. They believed that in a government by the people, the people must be good enough to govern. Their test does not commend itself to us. It could not be em- ployed now. If the State could endure it, the Church could not. But it was a natural thought for them. It was meant to secure a public administration which should carry out the purpose of their coming hither. They were careful into whose hands they put the power in a time when they could not afford to make a mistake. We are working at the matter now. Shall we ever get beyond their axiom that the good man is the good citizen; or their confidence that under the rule of good men there will be good laws, wisely and justly enforced ? They did not believe in the natural right of a man to vote; but they be- lieved in the natural right of a man to be good, and close upon that came the ballot.
We are spending money by millions of dollars, year by year, in the effort to make good citizens. We know that in this we cannot move too rapidly. They laid the foundation and then built the house. It was the rational way. We are trying to get the stones under the house which has already risen to the third story. It is slow work, but it must be done. They sought the purity of public and personal life.
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We call it reforming, when we seek the same result ; with them it was forming. If one could not " see a drunkard, hear an oath, or meet a beggar" in their time, they knew the worth of that which we are pain- fully striving for, and they meant to preserve it. They made great account of education. The "old Schoolmaster in Cambridge," in the "faire Grammar Schoole," gained the favor of the colonial muse, and has lived in a deserved renown.
" 'T is Corlet's pains, and Cheever's, we must own, That thou, New England, art not Scythia grown."
A stone marks the place where the first school- house stood; but the name of Corlet should be in all our schools, as it is upon one of them. The "faire Grammar Schoole " was by the side of the " Colledge " - the College. In their hearts there was but one. They set the proud name of the renowned University of England upon their forest college, and they made the college worthy of the name. Hardly shall we have dispersed from these gatherings before the college bell will ring its two hundred and fifty
strokes, and summon us within its rejoicing. Then we shall hear and tell again the story of its founding in the love of learning and the knowledge of its power. We are extending knowledge, multiplying schools ; ranging the heavens, exploring the earth, and search- ing the mind and work of man. All this they tried to do. We are proud of the pre-eminence of the University ; but if gratitude failed, justice would compel us to remember that they brought their few
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books, their shillings and silver spoons and cotton cloth, their wisdom and religion, to the setting up of a college among these scattered hamlets. It is a Puritan minister who sits among his books before the hall yonder, which treasures the name and memory of the men who, trained here in good learn- ing, gave their lives to save the country into which their villages had grown. John Harvard's College wrote upon the wall over against their names a sen- tence from the Book he read and taught, and it is his blessing on the day which sends his scholars into the world; and it cut in stone upon the front of the Law School words which guided the law- giver from whom we have the Commandments of God. These are things which last. "Time is the great enemy," one said. Time is the great friend of that which has the power to live. Cherishing and enlarging our schools, let us remember that the fathers founded them.
We are coming, very late, to consider the men whom we have dispossessed, their rights and their interests. It was the earliest care of the fathers. Before they were here, they thought out what they would do for the natives in these wilds. At once they began to teach them. The Indian College witnessed to their desire. Preaching stations and preachers, churches and books, the Indian Bible, marked the missionary design. I do not forget the darker days, the conflicts, the killings, - the efforts of the red man to repel the white, the bloody self-defence. But they never meant this. It was
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with a pure design that they sought the savages and tried to win them to better ways. One does not like to think upon the later Indian wars, Indian treaties, Indian wrongs. At last the slum- bering sense of justice has awakened. We are taking up the work of the first comers, and the right will prevail, and some restitution will result. It is well. But let us remember that they who were here so long ago meant it for good to those who were here before.
They believed in the right and in liberty. It must not be overlooked by us who have so lately contended against oppression, that there was not a slave born in Massachusetts after 1641.
I have alluded to the leading features of their en- terprise and labor. How vast their plans were, and how well were they worked out! They had lofty principles, from which they would not swerve when they became exacting. They were men, and their times were hard, - winters were long upon this coast, - but they cherished the virtues. The ten- derest affection breathes in John Winthrop's letters, and the fragrance of spikenard is in Thomas Shep- ard's memories of his Margaret. Nor did they part with this which was human and sweet when they went out into the cold and stood among the snows. A colder generation was to come after them; the narrower conditions of their birth and childhood showed themselves in the character of men born here. But the warmth of their English homes was upon the first Englishmen. They had brought the best of all
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they had, and they had brought themselves, to become larger men and women. We do not need to compare them with others or to translate them into our times. They were great, and they did grandly what they were set to do, what then most needed to be done. There is no call to canonize them; still less is there a call to criticise them. We have entered into their labor, and should know what it was.
They founded institutions; they did not believe in isolation. They built themselves into the town, though they were freemen ; and into the church, be- cause they were Christians. Every man kept his own conscience in the sight of God, but every man had regard unto his brother. They held a high idea of manhood, and they did their best to make it a real- ity. In all they purposed or hoped for, they rec- ognized the highest authority and truth. The Lord was in their mind and heart. They had his com- fort in privation, his guidance in perplexity. They knew that the strength of the hills was his, and upon his might they depended. They believed that they had his commandments and promises, and to these they gave unfaltering heed. They sought his glory and the extension of the kingdom which is an ever- lasting kingdom. The loftiest intention in the lar- gest confidence dignified their work. They felt the power of an endless life, and they wrought for the centuries, the ages. We are celebrating the found- ing of a church of Christ. What thought of man has been higher or more enduring than that? Their Newtowne has lasted, and their college and their
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church. The work of their hands has been estab- lished upon them. John Bridge looks from his gran- ite pedestal upon the two churches which boast a common lineage, and far within the college gates, and rouses John Harvard from his open book to tell him that it was a good thing to bring Thomas Shepard to the New England; and John Harvard answers, VERITAS.
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ADDRESS.
BY HON. WILLIAM E. RUSSELL, MAYOR.
MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :
I KNOW that the good city of Cambridge, that for two hundred and fifty years has walked hand in hand with this old church, through trials and suf- fering, wars and pestilence, yet always forward, is glad to be present to-day at this anniversary, bearing love to her younger sister, and the respect, reverence, and gratitude of a people deeply indebted for her long life of usefulness.
In 1636 our little town, poor, distressed, its people "straitened for want of land," with food so scarce that " many eate their bread by waight, and had little hope of the earth's fruitfullnesse," deserted by the governor, failing in the purpose of its founders, but filled with "quickening grace and lively affec- tions to this temple worke," rejoiced in the founding of this church, that brought to it prosperity and happiness, and was to be its strength and very life. "God's glory and the Church's good " bound Win- throp, Dudley, and their associates "in the word of a Christian " to embark for the Plantation of
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New England. " God's glory and the Church's good," sought by Shepard and his little band in the planting of this church, became the strong founda- tion upon which our town was builded. Others had sought to make here a fortified town, a mart of commerce, the seat of government; but they failed. Perhaps, as Mather says of the early settle- ments north of Plymouth, "these attempts being aimed no higher than the advancement of some worldly interests, a constant series of disasters con- ยท founded them, until there was a plantation erected upon the nobler designs of Christianity." Certainly it is no injustice to our first founders to say that not till this church was gathered was Newtowne permanently established.
Others to-day will tell, better than any words of mine, the story of the birth and life of the First Church of Cambridge; in the telling they cannot fail to give much of the history of our city. The late venerable pastor of this church has pictured to us, with all the rich beauty of his poetic mind, that Cambridge Church Gathering of 1636. An- other pastor has faithfully and ably written its life to the time when he came to watch over and guide it. Surely it is not for me to glean in fields where all is harvested. Rather let me express the deep debt the city owes to the church, and offer her homage and thanks to the old Puritan spirit that has always been the life of both the church and the city.
For years the church and town were one, but the church was that one. Only its members were
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freemen, and none other had any voice in town affairs. In town-meeting the affairs of the church were settled. There repairs were ordered on the meeting-house, grants of land made to the church, and votes often passed that show how carefully and naturally, while the church was the town, the town looked after the interests of the church. The old chronicles constantly speak of "the people of this church and towne." Ever the church before the town, ever the "spirituall blessings " before the "outward things." So were they true to the pur- pose of their coming, and so building stronger than they knew. As the years passed on, and the church and town waxed strong, their affairs became more separate and distinct. Yet the church was always ruling and leading the town, and the town loyally following in her footsteps. Age and separation did not lessen the influence of the church. I know full well, sir, that a father's threescore years and ten must separate him a little from the life of his son; yet I venture to say that reverence for the gray hairs and ripe years, the recollection of tender care in childhood's days, filial love and gratitude, make the threescore years and ten a more potent influence over the younger life than when the father's will was the child's action, and he direc- ted every footstep. So was it, so may it ever be, with this church and town, - the child that she nurtured and guided, and always followed with love and blessing.
Let me say a word of the great prosperity that
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came to the town upon the establishing of this church under "the holy, heavenly, sweet-affecting, and soul-ravishing Mr. Shepard." First came the College, with a grant from the General Court six times as great as had been given for protection against the Indians, - planted here because of " the enlightening and powerful ministry of Mr. Shep- ard." Then to the town, now a seat of learning, was given her present classic name. Soon sprang up, under Master Corlet, the first grammar school in New England; here Stephen Daye established the first printing-press; here was printed the first Bible printed in America; and here, under John Eliot, was begun " the first Protestant mission to the heathen in modern times." The limits of the town were extended till they reached from the Charles to the Merrimac River, a distance of over thirty miles, or a mile for every twenty cattle and every five ratable persons in 1647. The "great bridge " was built to Brighton, and other signs showed the new life the church had brought. Many of these are perhaps the "outward things " of the town's prosperity. Better for the town were the faith and the Puritan spirit that Shepard and his company planted in its people.
Restrained by tyranny of Church, oppressed by authority of State, the Puritans abandoned ease and honors at home to lead serious lives in a wilder- ness where they might found a "Church without a bishop " and a "State without a king." " I'll be upon your back," said Bishop Laud to Shepard,
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"and everlastingly disenable you." It was bishops on the backs of Puritans that gave to us this Com- monwealth and Nation. "Everlastingly disenable " Shepard ! No, but everlastingly enable him to perpetuate his name and virtues in the hearts of a God-fearing, liberty-loving people! The Puritans hated the union of Church and State; but here they founded a more perfect union, - a Church not dependent on the State or sustained by its authority, but a Church that was its very life. We care not so much to-day for the distinctive doc- trines of their faith as that they had faith, not so much for the scruples of their conscience as that for conscience' sake they dared to suffer, not so
much for their suffering as that in spite of it they never yielded. They came here, brave, deter- mined, serious men, taught in oppression's school to love liberty, firm in the faith they would have died to uphold. That was the stuff from which to make Commonwealths that were to last. In prayer and faith they founded our little town; by prayer and faith, through this church, they kept alive the Puritan spirit.
We smile at the austerity of the old Puritans, their long faces and mournful manners; but we forget that their work was no holiday pastime. They were not seeking how easiest to live, but how best to live for "God's glory and the Church's good ;" they were Church-building, nation-building, - establishing institutions to last as long as men fear God and love liberty. If such serious work
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had not made them serious men, it would utterly have failed.
What does Cambridge owe to this Puritan spirit? What does she not owe to it? I fancy that if Shepard, Dudley, Dunster, and Sir Harry Vane could revisit to-day the scene of their labor, they would marvel at the fruit it had brought forth. They would find a University whose vigor and greatness had exceeded their fondest hopes; a city whose wealth is counted in millions, where they left thousands, and whose people would seem to them in number almost as the sands of the sea. But to them these would be the." outward things." I think they would ask: "Is there here freedom of con- science to worship God? Is there tyranny of Church or oppression of State? Is there fear of God and love of liberty? As life has become to you easier to live, has character grown less sturdy ? Are men still ready to suffer for conscience' sake and die for love of country? "
What answer should we make? I would turn to the records of our town and city. I would show that in 1765, four generations after Sir Harry Vane was urging the largest liberty among the Puritans, our town was leading in the struggle that worked our independence. October 14 of that year, in town-meeting, was made the first formal protest against the memorable Stamp Act; and it was ordered to " be recorded in the Town Books, that the children yet unborn may see the desire that their ancestors had for their freedom and happi-
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ness." Then came the tax on tea, and instantly the vote of this town that "we can no longer stand idle spectators," but will join Boston in any measures "to deliver ourselves and posterity from slavery." The spirit of Shepard and Vane and Dudley was speaking through Appleton and Sted- man, Adams and Hancock. Yes, and soon under yonder elm were gathered men still ready to suffer for conscience' sake and die for love of country ; few, ragged, half armed, united in defy- ing the strongest nation of the world. Yet when Washington found in them the old Puritan spirit, he knew there was a force within his grasp that could "marshal the conscience" of his country to achieve her independence.
A short century more passes; there comes a struggle for human liberty, a call again to patriots and Puritans. And Cambridge, first in the whole nation, offers her children, under the lead of a grandson of a Revolutionary hero; and our old University, charged with being backward in these great agitations and with being forgetful of the Puritan spirit, - though her accuser is himself an answer to the charge, - sends forth her sons to die for the principles this old church has ever taught.
I have said enough. I hardly think if Shepard were with us, he would say that the prayers and faith of our pious founders had been forgotten, or that, after eight generations, we had proved untrue to the spirit of his ministry.
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This is the word the city bids me say to-day. Shepard and Mitchel, Dudley and Dunster, -all have passed away; but each, "though dead, yet speaketh."
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ADDRESS.
BY HON. OLIVER W. HOLMES, JR.
Six hundred years ago a knight went forth to fight for the cross in Palestine. He fought his bat- tles, returned, died among his friends, and his effigy, cut in alabaster or cast in bronze, was set upon his tomb in the Temple or the Abbey. Already he was greater than he had been in life. While he lived hundreds as good as he fell beneath the walls of Ascalon or sank in the sands of the desert and were forgotten. But in his monument the knight became the type of chivalry and the church militant. What was particular to him and individual had passed from sight, and the universal alone remained. Six hundred years have gone by, and his history, perhaps his very name, has been forgotten. His cause has ceased to move. The tumultuous tide in which he was an atom is still. And yet to-day he is greater than ever before. He is no longer a man, or even the type of a class of men, however great. He has become a symbol of the whole mys- terious past, - of all the dead passion of his race.
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His monument is the emblem of tradition, the text of national honor, the torch of all high aspiration through all time.
Two hundred and fifty years ago a few devout men founded the First Parish of Cambridge. While they lived, I doubt not, hundreds as good as they fell under Fairfax at Marston Moor, or under Crom- well at Naseby, or lived and died quietly in England and were forgotten. Yet if the only monuments of those founders were mythic bronzes such as stand upon the Common and the Delta, - if they were only the lichened slates in yonder churchyard, - how much greater are they now than they were in life ! Time the purifier has burned away what was particular to them and individual, and has left only the type of courage, constancy, devotion, - the au- gust figure of the Puritan.
Time still burns. Perhaps the type of the Puri- tan must pass away as that of the Crusader has done. But the founders of this parish are commem- orated, not in bronze or alabaster, but in living mon- uments. One is Harvard College. The other is mightier still. These men and their fellows planted a congregational church, from which grew a demo-
cratic state. They planted something mightier even than institutions. Whether they knew it or not, they planted the democratic spirit in the heart of man. It is to them we owe the deepest cause we have to love our country, - that instinct, that spark, that makes the American unable to meet his fellow- man otherwise than simply as a man, eye to eye,
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hand to hand, and foot to foot, wrestling naked on the sand. When the citizens of Cambridge forget that they too tread a sacred soil, that Massachusetts also has its traditions which grow more venerable and inspiring as they fade; when Harvard College is no longer dedicated to truth and America to democratic freedom ; then, perhaps, but not till then, will the blood of the martyrs be swallowed in the sand and the Puritan have lived in vain. Until that time he will grow greater even after he has vanished from our view.
The political children of Thomas Shepard we surely are. We are not all his spiritual children. New England has welcomed and still welcomes to her harbors many who are not the Puritan's de- scendants, and his descendants have learned other ways and other thoughts than those in which he lived and for which he was ready to die. I confess that my own interest in those thoughts is chiefly filial ; that it seems to me that the great currents of the world's life ran in other channels, and that the future lay in the heads of Bacon and Hobbes and Descartes rather even than in that of John Milton. I think that the somewhat isolated thread of our intellectual and spiritual life is rejoining the main stream, and that hereafter all countries more and more will draw from common springs.
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