II.

AMERICA AND GREAT BRITAIN.

*THE SECOND FOURTH OF JULY ADDRESS AT BURLINGTON COLLEGE.

THE great gift of God to man is peace. The angels sang it, when they brought from heaven the welcome message of a Saviour born: "Glory be to God on high, and, on earth, peace." And, when the Saviour was about to go again to heaven, His legacy to His disciples, and, through them, to us, was still the same: "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give unto you." The gifts of God to man are sacred trusts. They are not his alone. He holds them for his kind; and must account for them to God. Of nothing is this truer, than of peace. Peace is a sacred thing. It is the halcyon weather of the heart; when all the virtues brood, and all the charities are teeming with a warmer and more genial life. The Sabbath-morning of Creation was not serener in its solemn hush; nor Plato's loveliest dream, the Music of the Spheres, more exquisite in harmony. Perfect, in patriotism, as in piety, was that prayer of Royal David, for the people, and the country of his love: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!" And, love

* A. D. 1848.

liest of the strains of prayer, and fittest for an angel's voice, is that, which we have left out from our fathers' Liturgy, "Give peace, in our time, O Lord; because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, O God!" I have not forgotten, that the great public document,* which has just been read before us, as the manner of this celebration is, was the solemn prelude of a long and arduous war, between two nations; who, in the sight of God, stood as a mother and her child. Nor, that, in thirty years, they were again engaged in war. Nor, that, since then, the danger, once and again, has been most imminent, that they must bathe themselves in blood. It is rather because these things have been so, that I have spoken thus. Because, as one that has to do with young and tender minds, I would be careful for their first impressions. Because, in settling, as the usage of this College, to be kept, I trust, to "the last syllable of recorded time," the ob servance of this birth-day of our nation, I would disa vow, now and forever, for myself, for you, my friends, and for these children, the faintest shadow of a thought, that it involves the slightest remnant of a hostile feeling, toward that great nation, from whose womb we sprung, and at whose bursting breasts, our fathers all were nursed. That, so far from that, a fit and proper use of this, our nation's holiday, is the renewal of the vows of love, which brothers owe to brothers. That, having fought our way to man's estate, and won the

* The Declaration of Independence had been read by Cornelius E. Swope, A. B., an Assistant Classical Teacher.

VOL. IV.-15

prize, for which we fought, and made it glorious before men and angels, we can well afford to shake hands, and be friends; and none the less, but some the more, that we have quarrelled twice and fought it out.* That, having tried the issues of the fight, and tasted all its woes, our thoughts are turned to peace; as God's great gift to us, and our great trust for man. That, so God help us, we will fight no more; and, least of all, with our own brethren of the blood; but, will set forth to all mankind, as truths, which freemen only feel, that, the two nations of the world, who know what freedom is, and how to use it, are too great to fight; that, neither can require of either, what the other should not give; that, where we cannot quite agree, we can agree to disagree; that, we have common duties, to perform; a common trust, for human kind, to execute; a common source, from which our hearts all fill their cisterns, with the same red blood; a common language, which our mother's voice first made familiar to our ears in lullabies; in which we wooed and won our wives; in which our children lisped and prattled nature's loveliest melodies to all our hearts; a common stock of learning and of letters, such as all the world beside has not to show; and, best and dearest of them all, a common Church, a common altar, and the common prayers. Not, that the acts and efforts of our patriot fathers shall be disa vowed, or disregarded. Not, that the trials and the toils, the struggles and the sacrifices, of the men of seventy-six, can ever cease to be our heritage and glory.

* Iræ amantium, amoris redintegratio.

Not, that the memory of Lexington and Bunker Hill, of Monmouth, Princeton, Trenton, ever can grow pale. But, that, things done are finished; that by-gones should be by-gones; that a fight, fought through, is done; that the only justifiable end of war, is true and lasting peace; that life was made for love; that nations have a mission and a trust; that Great Britain and America are set, for the two hemispheres, to be the fuglemen of freedom, and the standard-bearers of the Cross.

These obvious and most enviable truths, God, by His gracious providence, is making real in our time. The ready heart and open hand, which poured the golden treasures of our garners on the hearths of starving Ireland, with an eagerness, which gain has never prompted, an impetuosity which commerce never felt, touched all the tenderest places in the British heart; and, when the threatened demonstration of the Chartists, but the other day, "frighted the isle from its propriety," the pulseless stillness, in which an anxious nation waited, on our Western strand, to hear the issue, and the manly burst of joyful gladness which welled up to God, to own His mercy, to the nation, and the Church, in which our fathers worshipped and were nurtured, have stirred the truest and the deepest pulses of the heart of England; and knit her to us, with a bond of cordial, and I trust, imperishable love. We may well rejoice, that these things are. The world is stirred, and tossed, and agitated, like a seething caldron. An hour upturns a throne. Another, and the new republic

is the crater of a new volcano. Another, and perhaps a throne is cast up, with its fierce and fiery flood. No man can say, this day, what nation on the Continent of Europe is not involved in civil war. No man can say, what government is not the creature and the prey of a mad mob. No man can say, what instincts of nature are desecrated, what charities of life are trampled under foot, what holiest places are profaned. It seems the trial-hour of Europe; and it may be, of the world. In human view, the salient points of hope, for Truth and Freedom, and for Christianity as charged with both and indispensable to their existence, are, now, America and England. If God keep us at peace, hold us erect in our position with the nations, and make us faithful to our trust for man, the issue, with His blessing, is an issue full of hope. A new order of things may be established, on a better basis, and to better purposes. Freedom secured by Law. Order enforced by Love. Patriotism purified by Religion. The World subjected to the Cross. Time made the foretaste of immortality. That it may be so, let us unite be so, our prayers. That it may let us combine our ef forts. Let us devote the day to thoughts and offices of love. Let us devote our lives to acts and influences of peace. And, for ourselves, and for our brothers of the blood, and in the faith, let the one strife hereafter ever be, which shall do most to realize the angel's hymn, and bring heaven down to earth: "Glory be to God on high, and on earth, peace, good-will to men!"

A Poet and a Painter of our own, a Poet and