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scribable beauty haunting the old man still, if in youth and vigor his soul was conversant with truth; and even when the chill of night is upon him, his eye seems to rest upon the glories for a while departed, or looks off into the stars, and reads in them his destiny with a gladness as quiet and as holy as their light. When our little day is folded up in shadows, the darkness must be deep indeed which does not reveal eternity by the rays of light that reach us from afar; but the soul that can rise above the clouds of earth, can always behold the infinity of heaven, and perhaps every rightly taught man, before God takes him, ascends to a Pisgah of his own, from whence to look farewell to the wilderness he has passed in the leadings of Jehovah's right hand, and to catch a glimpse of the promised land lying in the everlasting orient before him."

It is well known that on July 4th, 1826, this great man, after a useful life found a peaceful death, breathing a blessing on the country which he had so eminently served, and exclaiming to the last, "independence for ever!"

Justice Story, another mighty name since inscribed by death high in the Pantheon of American renown, in allusion to Mr. Adams' departure from life, well said: "That voice of more than Roman eloquence, which urged and sustained the Declaration of Independence, that voice, whose first and whose last accents were for his country, is indeed mute. It will never again rise in defence of the weak against popular excitement, and vindicate the majesty of law and justice. It will never awaken a nation to arms to assert its liberties. It will never again instruct the public councils by its wisdom.

It will never again utter its most oracular thoughts in philosophical retirement." That great and pure spirit has departed, gone as a sunbeam to revisit its native skies-gone, as this mortal to put on immortality.

"Ne'er to the chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation, came a nobler guest;
Nor ne'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PATRIOTIC PIETY OF '76.

THE original chart of American Liberty was drawn and signed in the cabin of the Mayflower. It was a civil compact, based on republican principles and sanctioned by religious faith. Such men as Carver, Bradford, Brewster, and Winslow, blessed our nation in its cradle, and patriotic teachers of religion have ever fostered its growth. At an early day, the acute and subtle Cotton, the erudite and energetic Hooker, and their associates, replenished the beacon-fires of learning, patriotism, and piety along our "rock-bound coast." Not a little did these men of God contribute to produce that state of things which prospectively seemed propitious, and in view of which they greatly rejoiced. In 1644, Cotton wrote to his, friends in Holland, "The order of the churches and the commonwealth is now so settled in New England by common consent, that it brings to mind the new heaven and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." Hooker was an apostolic hero, whose eye, voice, soul, gesture, and whole form were animated with the vital energy of primitive zeal. He was full of public spirit and active charity, serenely trusting in Providence with "a glorious peace of soul;" and,

"though persecutions and banishments had awaited him as one wave follows another," he adhered to the cause of advancing civilization without wavering, and looked for its ultimate triumph without a doubt. His cotemporaries placed him "in the first rank of men,” and praised him as "the one rich pearl, with which Europe more than repaid America for the treasures from her coast."

But such is the selfish tendency of our corrupt nature, that even the best men are inclined to consolidate power in themselves for the fortification of their favorite creeds. Some of the leading Puritans early strove to check the democratic tendency of colonial institutions. On the election day, in May, 1634, Cotton preached to the assembled citizens against rotation in office. But the instinctive sense of political rights in the masses prevailed; the electors, now increased to three hundred and eighty, were bent on exercising their absolute power; they reversed the decision of the pulpit, elected a new governor and deputy, of congenial sentiments, and thus, to use their own language, "the people established a reformation of such things as they judged to be amiss in the government." The dictation of popular rights by aristocratic cliques was annihilated by popular discussion. "The freemen of every town in the Bay were busy in inquiring into their liberties and privileges." The principle of representative democracy was recognized and established as perfectly two centuries ago, as it is to-day.

But there were two other elements not yet clearly defined and popularly enjoyed-universal suffrage and

free toleration of religious sentiments. Who shall be the herald and type of these to the world? Let the best of American historians present him to your judgment and admiration. Says Bancroft, in the first volume of his History, "Roger Williams' mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from English persecution; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate understanding; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had revolved the nature of intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the sanctity of conscience. This was the great tenet, which, with all its consequences, he defended, as he first trod the shores of New England; and in his extreme old age it was the last pulsation of his heart. He was the first person in modern Christendom to assert, in its plenitude, the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, and in its defence he was the harbinger of Milton, the precursor and superior of Jeremy Taylor."

Dr. Robertson, in his History of America, says, "Roger Williams' spirit differed from that of the Puritans of Massachusetts; it was mild and tolerating; and having himself to reject established opinions, he endeavored to secure the same liberty to other men, by maintaining that the exercise of private judgment was a natural and sacred right; that the civil magistrate has no compulsive jurisdiction in the concerns of religion; that the punishment of any person on account of his

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