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A few passages in the following Discourse were, on account of its length, omitted in the

delivery.

Oration.

THERE are occasions on which the employment, best calculated to be pleasing, becomes a source of anxiety; and the most flattering trust grows into a burthen. Amidst all the proud and grateful feelings, which the return of this anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every child of New England, a deep solicitude oppresses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to the men, to the day, and to the events, which we are met to commemorate. In this solicitude, no personal sentiment mingles. I should be unworthy to address you, on this occasion, could I, from the selfish desire of winning your applause, devote one of the moments of this consecrated day to any cold speculations, however ingenious or original. Gladly would I give utterance to the most familiar commonplaces,

could I be so happy in doing it, as to excite or strengthen the feelings, which belong to the time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to you those sentiments, which a hundred times have been uttered and welcomed on this anniversary; sentiments, whose truth does not change in the change of circumstances, whose power does not wear out with time. It is not by pompous epithets or lively antithesis, that the exploits of the pilgrims are to be set forth by their children. We can only do this worthily, by repeating the plain tale of their sufferings, by dwelling on the circumstances under which their memorable enterprise was executed, and by cherishing and uttering that spirit, which led them across the Ocean, and guided them to the spot where we stand.-We need no voice of artificial rhetoric to celebrate their names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. On the bare and wintry fields around us, their exploits are written in characters, which will last, and tell their tale to posterity, when brass and marble have crumbled into dust.

The occasion which has called us together is certainly one, to which no parallel exists in the history of the world. Other countries, and our own also, have their national festivals. They commemorate the birthdays of their illustrious children; they celebrate the foundation of important institutions: momentous events, victories, reformations, revolutions awaken, on their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic feelings of posterity. But we commemorate the birthday of all New England; the foundation, not of one institution, but of all the institutions, the settlements, the establishments, the communities, the societies, the improvements, comprehended within our broad and happy borders.

Were it only as an act of rare adventure; were it a trait in foreign, or ancient history; we should fix upon the achievement of our fathers, as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals of the world. Were we attracted to it, by no other principle than that sympathy we feel, in all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing —it must gain-in the contrast, with whatever history or tradition has preserved to us of the wanderings and settlements of the tribes of

man.

A continent for the first time, effectually explored; a vast ocean traversed by men, women, and children, voluntarily exiling themselves from the fairest regions of the old world; and a great nation grown up, in the space of two centuries, on the foundations so perilously laid, by this pious band:-point me to the record, to the tradition, nay to the fiction of any thing, that can enter into competition with it.It is the language not of exaggeration, but of truth and soberness to say, that there is nothing in the accounts of Phenician, of Grecian, or of Roman Colonization, that can stand in the comparison.

What new importance then does not the achievement acquire to our minds, when we consider that it was the deed of our fathers; that this grand undertaking was accomplished on the spot where we dwell; that the mighty region they explored is our native land; that the unrivalled enterprise they displayed, is not merely a fact proposed to our admiration, but is the source of our being; that their cruel hardships are the spring of our prosperity; their amazing sufferings the seed, from which our happiness has sprung; that their weary banish

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