USA > Maryland > Frederick County > Emmitsburg > Discourse delivered at the commemoration of the landing of the pilgrims of Maryland : celebrated May 11, 1846, at Mt. St. Mary's, near Emmitsburg, Md. > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/discoursedeliver00mcsh_0
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02263 6234
Gc 975.2 M87D McSHERRY, JAMES, 1819-1869. DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE COMMEMORATION OF THE . . .
-
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED AT THE
OVES-1986
COMMEMORATION OF THE LANDING
OF THE
PILGRIMS OF MARYLAND,
CELEBRATED MAY 11, 1946, AT MT. ST. MARY'S, NEAR EMMITSBURG, MD,
BY JAMES M'SHERRY. ESQ., of Frederick.
EMMITSBURG : PRINTED AT THE " STAR OFFICE. 1846.
---...
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
3 1-2
Mt. 'St. Mary's College, May 11th 1846.
DEAR SIR,
The Students of Mt. St. Mary's College, sensible of the high hononr reflect- ed upon them by your very eloquent Address, beg leave to tender to you, through us, their warmest thanks, and respectfully to solicit a copy for publication.
We remain,
very respectfully, your obedient servants, JAEES E. GOWEN, JOHN CLEMSON, LAURENCE M'CLOSKEY, WILLIAM SCOTT, JOHN M. TIERNAN, ALEXIS O. BAUGHER,
Committee.
JAMES M'SHERRY, ESQ,
1
5
DISCOURSE.
PERMIT me to thank you for the proof of the kind remembrance in which you have held me, by selecting me to perform, on this day, a solemn duty which we owe to the carly Fathers of Maryland. The consciousness, that so many others might have been chosen from the Alumni of our common Alma Mater, better qualified to fulfil your ex- pectations, upon this occasion, and to do justice to the theme, renders me doubly grateful for the honor which you have thus conferred upon me. But for me, the pleasure of this day does not rest here. Before me and around me I see faces dear and familiar to me, upon whose features the warm smiles of other days have not grown cold in the pas- sing of the years which havy separated us. Around each well remem- bered form, memories are lingering which will not soon fade away- which grateful recollection can never cease to cherish. Yet, if I find much that is unchanged, much more do I find that is changed. Among those hundreds of happy College faces now turned up towards me, there are none of those, with whom upon such an occasion as this, I was wont to take my place. Some there are here still, but they fill other seats, and wear a different garb. They' have devoted them- selves to a high and noble purpose. But amid these changes, the spi- rit of the old Mountain is unchanged. It is perennial in its life, like the evergreens that wreath yon overhanging summit. Whatever be the changes around, it changes not : and its warmest effusions are poured forth, now as of old, upon the proud memories which every American should cherish ; and this day, most of all, in commemora- tion of that great event which Marylanders should graven ou their
6
heart of hearts. Truly, this is a school of patriotism. The warm souled youth, glowing wtih classic pictures of ancient Republicanism,- fresh from the contemplation of the virtues of the old Greck and Ro- man, comes to the men of later day with a spirit capable of apprecia- ting the good and noble, whilst his expanded view takes not in the de- fects that dim the lustre of their fame. The hero of carly impressions will ever be the greatest hero in the spirit's worship : reason may struggle in vain ; but he sits like a despot enthroned in the heart, and reason herself must yield. Then it is necessary that these youthful impressions should be caught from truly noble objects, that with the growth and strength of this empire over thought, truly noble models may ever spring up to the mind's eye for imitation-may gather pow- er, and become a principle of good. And yet this is too often neglect- ed : indiscriminate praise is sometimes heaped upon him, who in truth . merits censure, but who carries with him, and around him as a mantle enwrapping him, the poetry of victory, of power, of genius, conceal- ing the dark reality of bloodshed, tyranny, and crime : and this rash praise plants in some young and gentle breast the seed which wil' grow up into moral misconceptions, and result in shame and degra- dation. The young heart thus left to select its own hero-its own model of greatness, may falsely choose, and, instead of reaping bene- fit from the study of the past, may bring upon itself irreparable evil- In a country like ours, it is necessary, for the welfare of the commu- nity, that proper feelings and principles with regard, to true greatness should be implanted in the breast of every citizen, in order that he may be prepared to perform that share in the preservation and perpet- uation of our institutions which may be allotted him. It is well that he should have been taught to look back upon the past, not with a blind reverence, but with just discrimination, culling out that which is good and setting aside that which is evil, and drawing his lessons from
,
--- -
both, to aid him in his course through life : that he should make the experience of all former ages his own, that he should appropriate its lights-and be even able to obtain from the inexhaustible storehouse of its treasures a portion of its rich and sterling contents.
I know no better mode of enforcing upon the future the good les- - sons derived from the great events of the past, than the observance of their solemn memorials, in the present. Among every people there have been days of cherished memories-festivals consecrated to glory, perhaps in after ages sullied, but not forgotten-the proud Dies festi of freemen-and of bondsmen, the secret Saturnalia of the soul. The free and prosperous celebrated the great events of their past, because each recollection called up was a renewal of their glory and an incen- tive to further triumph-a payment of the guerdon which the mighty of other days had won, and a lure to the present and the future. It the midst of trial and adversity, men have ever found comfort in the reminiscences of past glory, and kept alive the fire of patriotism, when the bonds of tyranny were upon them, by the cultivation of those olden memories, and have thus made that spark flame forth at length into the conflagration which destroyed the tyrant. It was the memo- ry of the first Brutus that nerved the arm of the second. The glory of the avenger of Lucretia prepared the heart of the slayer of Cæsar. Oh ! how noble it is to behold a great people bowing down in solemn vene. ration before that which is heroic and worshipful in the past-turning aside, for a moment. from their impetuous onward course, to bear back to the departed the offering of their homage and their love. And yet more noble and more admirable is the spectacle of a fallen nation, look- ing sadly upon the halo which still lingers round their past, clinging with the tenacity of life to the endeared recollections which have be- come to them the melancholy glory of the present, which, like the sun that has set, still cast a parting tinge of purple upon the clouds that
1
-------
:
: :
8
overhang their land-of the sons of Juda, the wanderers of many ceni- turies, gazing fondly back upon that Temple which shall never again, for them, rear one stone upon another-in the midst of opprobrium and persecution sublimely patient in the sustaining memories of the past-of the strong hearted Pole rising up from the death-throes of slavery, bursting asunder his triple chain,& rushing into hopeless battle with the name of Kosciusko upon his lips-of the sons of Erin, mindful of five hundred years of bloodshed and tyranny, gathering by countless thousands in peaceful array, and marching in holy pilgrimage to the places that were made sacred in the olden glory of her past-to the Hill of Tara, to the Field of Ossory, to the shores of Clontarf.
That people cannot long remain enthralled, whose hearts are filled with high and noble recollections, who are proud to render homage to. the great of the past, who cling with unyielding tenacity to the depart- ed grandeur of their fathers. The hopes of their future will not ali van- ish into air --- their dreams cannot all be unsubstantial. The hero of the past will tend to form and develope the hero of the present and the fu- ture. The past becomes something of the ideal of this people : it par- takes of the imaginative, and fancy throws its glowing lights around its distant forms, clothes them with her own rich costumes, and gives them the fair proportions of etherial beauty. This contemplation at length becomes productive-it fixes in the mind a model of the high and noble-a measure of the mighty by which is tried the thought and act of the aspiring-which shapes his course, marks out the end he must attain-the work he must do. It has been thus, oftentimes, that from out the great mass of mind of a fallen people, has been made to spring forth prominent one mind, glowing with generous thoughts and exalted impulses, devoting itself to the great work of regeneration, like the victim of sacrifices separated out from its fellows, and assuming all their wrongs upon itself for expiation. It is this that makes it politie
9
as well as just to set apart from the present some day which shall be given to the memory of the past : for it is by this that the spark of pa- triotism is kept alive, is fed, is raised into a burning flame, which shall consume, when need be, all grosser thoughts and sentiments, and in- terest, upon the altar of one's country. It is thus that liberty is to be perpetuated, and, when lost, to be regained.
Then to that past it is well to turn, looking with sympathising eye upon its faults. for even they are full of lessons ; and glorying in what- ever of good it may have accomplished, as so much added to the treasury of human riches. And here in these Halls of learning, at the foot of this mountain which has already become sacred and classic ground, is the fit scene, and this assemblage, some of whom are destined to be the statesmen of the future, is the fit audience, in which to recur back to other days, and draw lessons of wisdom from their experience. Truly has this scene been famed for its patriotic celebrations-its spi- ritual revisitings of the tombs of the mighty dead. Long may the mountain College continue to place before those who are springing up under her care, true models of greatness, by these solemn commem orations.
In this new world, the view of our past is limited within narrow bounds : but it is a glorious one-few ages have passed, counting by centuries, but marking the flow of time by facts and deeds, the course of our past is full and honourable. And in this land, none can spread out a brighter retrospect, than we of Maryland. It is right that we should glory in it. We owe it to the past, for it is the claim of grati- tude ; we owe it to the present, for the present is ever but the precur- sor and guide of the future, marking out its destiny ; and we owe it to the future, that it too may learn to cherish that past glory, and work out its lessons where we leave them unwrought, in patient firmness of pur- pose.
10
'The history of our past -- the carly days of Maryland-presents two pictures-teaches two great lessons, full of instruction to the present and all future time-the heavenly beauty of freedom of conscience, the deformity of bigotry and intolerance. And perhaps more necessary at this day than at any other, is it to draw, from that fund of wisdom and experience, grave lessons to restrain the fury of controversy, and to guide the spirit of religious zeal into its truc and legitimate channels. Intolerance springs from two sources. Sometimes, it is the perver- sion of a noble feeling-a firm belief in the necessity of a certain faith for salvation, and an carnest desire that all men should embrace that path which leads to heaven. This zeal, proper and right in itself, in narrow minds, becomes morbid-it finds that reason resists arguments -- that persuasion is used in vain, then overleaping the boundaries of legitimate propagandism, and hurried off by excited feelings, by cha - grin, by disappointment, it snatches up the weapons of con- straint, of legal disabilities, of fines and penalties, and, in its madness, prisons, the sword, the faggot, death. It is by the will that God is served-the homage of the heart alone is acceptable to him. The fume of the unwilling offering is no incense before his throne, but, like the sacrifice of Cain, will call down his curse rather than his bless- ing. Only by the heart can he be adored, and therefore it is folly or madness for any man or set of men, be they known by whatever name they may, to think to do God good service by bringing to this altar or to that creed the unholy lip-worship of the spirit that yields to the irresistible arguments of constraint. But this folly and this madness most often springs from more polluted sources, from ambition, from avarice, from pride, from self-love, from the whole catalogue of evil passions that corrupt the heart of man.
This great doctrine of religious freedom-of the full and unrestrain. ed rights of conscience is the first great lesson taught us by the event
i
-------
--------
11
which we this day celebrate. Never before in this world had there bcen so noble, and so fair and lovely an example of the heavenly beauty of equality of rights and privileges, and never has there been so proximate and so marked a contrast of the horrors of bigotry and intolerance, with that beauteous picture. Like the golden age of the poets, this golden age of ours was followed by the age of brass and the age of iron. This age of happiness and prosperity, when the virtues reigned supreme, passed and another came with other men and other ruling principles : and Astræa once more winged her melanchy flight from earth to heaven. Hope still lingered with the persecuted until the dawning of a brighter day-until the return of Marylanders to the principles of their fathers.
It has been said that the Catholics of Maryland dared not be other- wise than tolerant : that with a protestant king at home, and a protest- ant people in England, the Catholics of Maryland would have found it a dangerous experiment to practise intolerance .* How futile this ob- jection is, needs but a moment's thought to prove : yet it is a sad re- flection that it comes from the lips of a Marylander-that it is the hand of a Marylander that seeks to dim the lustre of the founders of Mary- land. Alas ! that there could be found so false a son, of such narrow soul, whom bigotry could influence to detract from the honour of the dead. By the terms of the charter, it has been contended, the rights of the established church of England are protected. Let this be granted, and it does not affect the glory of the toleration of Maryland : for that toleration did not rest there, but threw its genial light over those
*It has been stated that there were but few Catholics in Maryland, and that in a short time they were outnumbered by the Protestants. This is not so : for a half century, says Graham, they held the government with unexampled moderation. Burnaby, in his Travel in N. A., says : " The established religion is that of the Church of England, but there are. as many Catholics as Protestants." This gentle- man visited Maryland in 1760-just one hundred and twenty eight years after the settlement. The Catholic population is now about one hundred thousand souls.
i 1 i
-
,
12
who had been persecuted by that church. There were countless denom. ¡nations of " Dissenters," and if the proprietary and the legislature of the colony had passed disabling laws in regard to them, there was not power in the Crown to prevent their enforcement, for they would have been strictly in conformity with the laws of England ; and the king, by the terms of the charter, had deprived himself of all share in legis- lation. all interference in the administration of the government. But it may safely be doubted whether even the church of England was protected especially, by the terms of the Charter, for to have secured to it all the rights and privileges which it possessed in England, would have been to disfranchise all others. Then the power of intolerance existed at least to a certain extent, even supposing the English church to have been protected, & a legal interference to prevent its exercise was impossible. Could it have been exercised with safety ? It is only necessary to quote a single fact to prove that it might have been exer- cised without any interference upon the part of the king or of the Parliament. The Puritans of the North were not dearer to the church of England and the king, than the Catholics. Indeed, the testimony of history is, that Charles looked with more fear and hatred upon the Independents, than upon those who adhered to the ancient church : whilst the established church was branded by the Puritans, especially about this era. as " Popish." And yet the Puritans of New England disfranchised even the members of the established church, and the hand of the British king was never stretched forth to arrest the spirit of intolerance. At the same moment, the members of the established church in Virginia were meting out a like measure of injustice to the Puritans, who ventured within their borders. Indeed, but little did king, or Parliament. or people, hecd the state of the colonies. They were not rich enough to plunder, and not strong enough to be worth enslaving. Besides, there was in England too much mat ter to orci
i
py men's minds, in that upheaving of the popular ocean, whose rising' surges were beginning to be heard upon the troubled atmosphere. Could not then the early settlers of Maryland have, been intolerant, if such had been their pleasure, with the same facility, and the same pre- eminent success, as that which characterized the intolerance of the North ? But George Calvert had seen the baleful effects of this evil spirit, he had passed within its Upas shade, and had come forth with a chastened heart and a soul enriched with the rarest gems gathered from experience. These lessons he taught to his children .- They ap- peared in every act of his life; and in dying he bequeathed them to his son, as the most precious legacy-and that son carried into effect the sublime ideas which that Father had originated. Like the mantle of the prophet, who was lifted up from earth to Heaven, the free and noble spirit of George Calvert descended upon Cecilius and his peo- ple. In the administration of that son, worthy of such a father, ever was that spirit manifested .- In the laws which the freemen of Mary- land adopted, long did it glow with life and beauty : and when the 1 charge came not to him nor to his, nor to them nor theirs,-were the shame and the disgrace : but to the recipients of the hospitality which George Calvert and his son, and their Catholic followers, had provided for the persecuted of every creed and clime.
But whilst claiming for the founders of Maryland the full honour of Maryland toleration, let me bestow upon the English king the credit which is due him. Far be it from me to depreciate the honourable share which he holds of the glory of that great instrument, the Magna Charta of early Maryland ; but as far be it from me to play the flatterer to British tendencies, and snatch from the brow of our ances- tors the wreath of unfading laurel which history and the verdict of suc- ceeding ages have placed there, to throw it as a redeeming glory around the blood-stained circlet, which, like a jewelled fetter, robs three nations
14
of their freedom. James, the first, patron of Lord Baltimore, had ma- ny reasons for being lenient to the Catholics. They had rallied around his beautiful, but ill-fated mother, Mary Queen of Scotts, in all her trials and difficulties ; they clung to her when others turned back and fled : they remained firm, when others proved traitors ; they were faithful and true, to the block and the scaffold. They welcomed him to England. In later years, their strength was thrown into the scale to aid him against the growing power of the Puritans : yet in spite of all this, the longest portion of his reign was stained with their blood, and darkened by their oppression : and it was not until his feelings & his avarice were enlisted in the famous Spanish match, that to secure favorable issue to his proposals he granted a 'connivance,' at least, to the Catholics. Wilson tells us, in a tone of marked regret, that through the entreaties of Gondemar, the Spanish ambassador, he re- leased from the various prisons four thousand priests and laymen, who had been incarcerated for the practice of their religion. The Archi- bishop of Canterbury wrote and the Parliament protested against such steps towards a ' connivance,' but the necessity of the king's policy, perhaps an increasing liberality of opinion on his part, induced him to persevere. Again in 1624 the Parliament protested, and petitioned for a more rigourous execution of the laws against the Catholics ; and the king's hopes of the Spanish match having failed, and the nego- tiation being broken off, he replies in a less tolerant tone, and promises to ,pnt those laws in force. I shall not refer at all to the tenor of those laws, nor shall I advert to the manner in which they were executed. Would to heaven that the memory of them and of all such, made by men professing any creed or doctrine of Christianity, were buried in oblivion, that the stain which they have left upon the past were obliterated for ever, and that henceforth there should be no chain upon conscience but the chain of duty-no obligation upon the soul
--
15
but the law of God. I shall not pause to weigh these facts, this in- tolerance of that age and people, with the intolerance of other nation's professing other creeds-let them lie in the same unholy resting-places, as things accursed and shunned by all good men. But I do recall this testimony which history bears to the spirit of that age, in order that we may understand fully and fairly, from the circumstances which surrounded its springing into existence the genius of the charter of Maryland, and in order that the glory of her toleration may rest where it is justly deserved. James did not fultil his promise to the satisfac- tion of his Parliament, and they again took measures to secure the re- sult which they desired. In 1625, the king died, and Charles ascend- ed the throne. The mind of this Prince was more liberal than that of his father-his intercourse with the Courts of Madrid and Versailles, at each of which he had sought a royal bride, had tended to soften his feeling towards the Catholics. But lenient as may have been his dis- position, such were the importunities of his Parliament, that he was compelled to issue proclamation after proclamation against recusants, so that while capital punishment became rare, having been discontinu- ed during the pendency of the Spanish negotiation in the five last years of the preceding reign, the fines and penalties, compositions and disa- bilities, still weighed heavily upon the members of the proscribed communion. «
It was at this period, and under these patrons, that Lord Baltimore formed his design of erecting an empire in the wilds of the west. He had been engaged in the colonization of Virginia-interested in that of Newfoundland, and had obtained a charter for the province of Avalon in that Island, in 1623. At the time that he obtained the charter of Avalon, Calvert was one of the king's principal Secretaries, having been appointed in 1616, as Wilson says, but according to others, in 1617 or 1619. He had represented in Parliament, first, Yorkshire,
--
1
$6
and afterwards the University of Oxford. During his political course, he had faithfully performed his duty to the king, and James was well known to be unbounded in his favour to those who assisted him in his necessities. Throughout all the Spanish negotiation, he had been the steady supporter of the king, and the friend of the match ; and we find James writing to him, in 1621, to come to his aid, in the storm which his harshness to the House of Commons had raised in that body, and to " take off the edge of the sharp expressions used in his letter to them." Hitherto, Calvert had been a Protestant-in 1624, he became a Catholic, and resigned his Secretaryship, which he could no longer hold with a safe conscience. Yet, mindful of his services, and moved by his candour, the king continued him in his favour until his death in the year following. Subsequent to his resignation, Cal- vert visited his province Avalon several times .- Upon one occasion, in the war which broke out between the English and the French, in 1627, he repelled an invasion of the enemy, and with two ships, man- ned at his own expense, defeated three of their men of war, took sixty prisoners, and relieved and protected the fishing interest of the Eng- lish upon that coast. It was perhaps prior to this event that he had removed his family to Avalon to settle there. He remained but two years, and finding the climate unsuited for his purpose, turned to- wards a more southern land. In 1628, he visited Virginia, but from the asperity of his reception, he discovered that it was impossible for him to settle in that colony, and he probably on that occasion explor- ed the shores of the Chesapeake, within the present limits of our State, for a proper situation for a colony. The third charter of Virgi- nia, whose boundaries undoubtedly included the territory subsequently granted to Calvert, had been cancelled by a legal judgment of a compe lent tribunal, &the colony with the jurisdiction over its settled and un settled domain had reverted to the hands of the Crown. This had occur-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.