A Discourse, Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820. In Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England. ...

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Wells and Lilly, 1825 - Massachusetts - 70 pages

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Page 47 - Young man, there is America — which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Page 74 - Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.
Page 58 - Universal suffrage, for example, could not long exist in a community where there was great inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged in such case, either in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such right of suffrage would ere long divide the property.
Page 70 - I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.
Page 75 - ... transmitted from our fathers in just estimation ; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty ; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men.
Page 12 - ... the rush of adverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, the pursuit, and the victory ; but by their effect in advancing or retarding human knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing despotism, in extending or destroying human happiness. When the...
Page 9 - We have come to this Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; our sympathy in their sufferings; our gratitude for their labors; our admiration of their virtues; our veneration for their piety; and our attachment to those principles of civil and religious liberty, which they encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, the violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to establish.
Page 69 - If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or influence, any participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer.
Page 33 - Who would wish that his country's existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the power of going back to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin obscured in the darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for other emblazoning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was with intelligence, her first breath the inspiration of liberty, her first principle the truth of divine religion?
Page 10 - ... houseless, but for a mother's arms, couchless, but for a mother's breast, till our own blood almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carver and of Bradford ; the decisive and soldier-like air and manner of Standish ; the devout Brewster ; the enterprising Allerton ; the general firmness and thoughtfulness of the whole band ; their conscious joy for dangers escaped ; their deep solicitude about dangers to come ; their trust in Heaven; their high religious faith, full of confidence and anticipation...

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