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twenty-five miles, who have found expression in this movement and whom this movement has educated. Wendell Phillips once said to me when I wondered somewhat at the remarkable development of the power of speech on the Antislavery platform, "Yes, a great principle calling for earnest advocacy and devoted service makes men and women eloquent.” Who of us looking back over the years but will recognize how true this has been at Longwood. I need not name, indeed I could not begin to name within the time limits of this address, those whom you think of, and I think of, as having filled this place, and the grounds surrounding it, with heroic associations. The stones in yonder cemetery remind us of some of them. We can think of others whose bodies, when they had no further use for them, have been consigned to Mother Earth in many parts of this broad land. If the real men and women are conscious of what is going on in their old walks in life, we may well think of them as with us in thought and feeling to-day, one with us still in the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. For them and for us it has been the purpose of this movement to face truthward and to let nothing stand in the way of the search for truth. If I may venture to use my own words in this connection, Longwood has always been saying:

O Holy Truth, to thee

We would our homage give;
Shed thou thy light upon our way

And then our souls shall live.

Thine is a regal sway,

Yet kind beyond compare;

Thou warmest human hearts with love,

Thou answerest every prayer.

Be mine the service due

To leader such as thee;

From every bondage of the mind
Set thou my spirit free.

In thee I place my trust,
Be thou my daily food,

I look in faith to thee to find
The Beautiful, the Good.

The years have justified the faith. If anything beautiful and good has come into our lives from the influence of Longwood; if anything beautiful and good has come into the life of the world from the onward propulsion of religion of which Longwood has been a part it is because Truth without any prefixes, and without any ifs, ands or buts, has demanded and received here a persistent and unquestioning loyalty.

THE METHOD.

What now of the method pursued at Longwood? I have known the New England town meeting; I have known, as many of you have known, innumerable organizations claiming to live under the principle of self-government, but I have known nowhere such a little democracy as has been maintained here. Tried by the crucial tests this movement has stood true to the democratic ideal. During the period of which as your presiding clerk I can testify of my own knowledge; a period which covers more than one-third of our entire life, I can say that no man or woman has ever been denied the right to be heard on the subject under discussion. We have had our ten-minute rule for the very purpose of securing equal justice to all. Sometimes some have felt their patience a little tried. They have felt like finding consolation in George Herbert's lines:

"When all want sense,

God takes a text and preaches patience;" and yet, standing on this summit of the years, I can truly say we have received many noble and instructive thoughts which we would have missed had our rule been less broad and inclusive. I remember faces among our number that brightened because of their welcome here when they were rejected elsewhere. One of the choicest blessings which will ever come to this movement has been the heartfelt appreciation of some such who have been heard here in a way which said to them, "God bless you; you are men and brothers." There is nothing for which I honor Longwood more than the fact that it has educated us to listen respectfully to every honest soul; nothing for which I shall always love it more than for the beautiful

way in which I have seen it embody and live the democratic faith. Freedom, justice, toleration-these are the watchwords of advance everywhere; these have been our trinity here.

This record is the more remarkable when you remember where Longwood is. Last year I should have said within 30 miles of the worst governed city in the Union. I hope and trust that we need not say that any more. In a commonwealth whose people seem to have thrown to the winds their rights. of sovereignty, seem to have lost all confidence, if they ever had any, in the democratic faith. I hear people say elsewhere, "The Declaration of Independence is a failure." I never hear that said here. I hear people say elsewhere, "Political bosses are only our agents. We ought to be thankful to them for doing so well the work we do not wish to do ourselves." I never hear that said here. Longwood believes in the people, in human nature as Jefferson did, as Sumner did, as Lincoln did. "You can cheat some of the people all the time; you can cheat all the people some of the time; but you cannot cheat all the people all the time." We accept here the prophetic vision of the great and tried soul which uttered those words. We have put our trust, we propose still to put our trust, in the average common sense of mankind. It is this faith which has found expression in our practice, and made Longwood exceptionally true in the conduct of its meetings to the democratic principle. In that loyalty she sets an example to which in time, in the long evolution of the years, states and nations must

come.

THE TRUE MEMORIAL.

So much for the call which summoned this movement into being, for the mood in which that call was answered, for the spirit of its life, and for the methods of its expression. It is a great privilege which we enjoy to-day of gathering from near and far to keep the Golden Anniversary of such a movement. It is a great privilege to come to this spot which has been hallowed by clear-minded, high-souled, brave, devoted men and women in service of so great a cause.

"Ah me! beyond all power to name,

The worthies tried and true,

Grave men, fair women, youth and maid,
Pass by in hushed review.

Dear hearts are here, dear hearts are there,
Alike below, above;

Our friends are now in either world,

And love is sure of love."

And now, how shall we best celebrate this day? How best do justice to these fifty years of Longwood's life? How best build fitting monument to the men and women we have known here and whose touch of high thought and endeavor we still feel and revere? There is but one way to fittingly commemorate such things. It is by consecrating ourselves, and consecrating this movement through ourselves, to a future which shall be worthy its past. The battle for pure and undefiled religion; for the religion of truth, justice, love; for the religion that wants to make heaven here not only for ourselves, but for all humankind, is still on. The abolition of chattel slavery, the crusade for which, so fed the fires of indignation and enthusiasm in the early days of this movement, has brought us face to face with the problem of how to clothe the negro with an intelligent sovereignty, and how to make him co-arbiter with the white man of his own and the common weal. The abolition of the slavery of black labor has only brought us face to face with the limiting and oppressive conditions of all labor. The temperance question, as the years roll on, becomes a more and more intricate and perplexing problem, demanding persistent, courageous, scientific study. The question of the rights of woman suggests to-day a vision of pure, self-controlled living; a new sanctity of personality in marriage; intelligent consecration to the highest ideals of parenthood; a mutual respect, a mutual love, a mutual, cooperating service, such as the world has never known. The question of working out our democratic ideals in government has been growing steadily more difficult, and is knocking at our doors at this moment as never before. The question of substituting the appeal to reason for the trial by battle be

tween nations is growing to be one of the most ideal, and allinclusive of all movements for human welfare, since it is seen that the sense of justice and the desire for fair play, and the instinct of brotherly love must be universally diffused before there can be any absolutely secure and enduring peace. Most of all now the feeble gropings of the past along innumerable lines of human betterment are gradually tending toward absorption in the religion of humanity which believes that wherever found, whatever his condition, whatever his race, whatever the color of his skin "a man's a man for a' that," and entitled because of the very fact of his existence to the largest possible opportunity in which to develop the faculties which are his; the religion which believes that wealth and brains and culture and power of any kind whatsoever, are trusts with which to help the less fortunate to the freedom, and justice, and social opportunity of every description, which they themselves enjoy. The work of making the world better has not been done; to the right-minded man it is a larger work to-day than ever before. Conciliation, arbitration, co-operation in industrial life; unselfish and loyal service in political life, purity and thoughtfulness in social life, character in personal life-how the glory of such words as these is just lighting up the dawn of a better day, a day whose coming the sensitive soul divines. We cannot worthily celebrate our Golden Anniversary as we stand on the summit of the years without facing onward and upward to the higher summits yet to be scaled. Here at Longwood, if anywhere, we should feel the propulsion of the larger faith, and the ever-increasing glory of the coming time.

"The morning hangs its signal

Upon the mountain's crest,
While all the sleeping valleys
In silent darkness rest;
From peak to peak it flashes,

It laughs along the sky,

That the crowning day is coming by and by!

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