astir. Contributing a small share to the increasing noise, I dressed, rushed out of doors, and down the walk in the rear of the meeting house. The flames were bursting from the eastern porch. The rosy red of the morning was just coming up in the cold grey sky, when the bell began to sound its last alarm. In twenty minutes the whole town was in motion. Men, women and children, as four score years before, their fathers came to its building, came now in haste to its downfall. Household goods that for many years had reposed in unmolested quiet, were dragged from endangered dwellings, and piled in the roads and fields. Wet blankets were hung on the roofs of sheds, and pails of water spilled over all the floors. Men staggering under enormous burdens, jostled and ran against one another. in all sorts of narrow and impossible passages; clocks were carried off without respect to time; babies seized by strange mothers, and in short everything was conducted with the admirable precision and wisdom peculiar to people unused to fires. Nothing was steady in its progress, except the destroying element. Fortunately, in this usually windy region, the air was still, and the ascending flames-wreathed to the very steeple's toppresented a spectacle of the utmost sublimity. A church of molten gold glittering against the sky, there it stood. I looked in at the front door which had been torn from its hinges― above, around and below, all was fire, leaping and darting in forked tongues on the dry and combustible material. The sacred book from which so many a message had been delivered to erring man by lips now cold in death, lay upon the cushioned desk, waiting its fate, while the flames like demons were creeping stealthily up and around to destroy it. I stepped back from impending danger. Hundreds of illumined faces were turned towards the burning steeple, while groups of men, with pails and tubs of water, armed with iron bars and levers, stood about the nearest dwelling, lest its tottering length of flame should fall in that direction. In such a case, their efforts might have done little good, but a kindlier fortune interposed. blazing shaft for a moment wavering, fell inward. The That bird, emblem of all inconstancy and fickleness, yet true to one central point, through sunshine and storm bravely fronting the northern snows or the gentle gales and vernal showers of a milder clime ponderous weather cock, by height diminished to a very chick, took its last flight earthward, and with beak and head buried in the ground, seemed to bewail its "occupation gone." The bell whose silvery tones had echoed so many times over the hills and valleys of Charmingfare which so many times had sung a requiem over age and youth, now with one sad cry faintly heard amid the crash of falling timbers tolled its own, and was silent So in one poor hour perished the monu evermore. ment of our fathers' strong hands. Notice was given that morning from the burning ru ins, for members of the society to meet in the evening at the hall of Mr. Peter Eaton, to take measures for the construction of a new house of worship. There the necessary arrangements were made, a committee chosen, and in due time a house finished. It was located where it now stands, some rods south west of the old spot. In the course of time nothing will remind us of the past, save the moss grown tomb stone. "Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense breathing morn, For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knee the envied kiss to share." The houses they builded have decayed or are removed; the trees they planted, grown old and fallen before the wind. The forests which surrounded them are cut down, and when a hundred years shall have passed, what mark will tell of us? There are monuments which even towns and small communities may raise, more enduring than costliest marble. It is not alone the splendor of great actions, or the renown of battle fields within our border, which can entitle us to the just regard of posterity. We probably shall have no occasion to throw our lives into the balance of our country's fortunes, or see renewed the days of Seventy Six. Other duties not less important are to be performed. The legacy of the fathers cannot remain without interest, and if in our hands it be not so enlarged as to meet the demands of a progressive age; posterity may call us to account for the sum we hold in trust. As one in the grand association which goes to form the body politic, the office of a town is by no means unimportant or vaguely defined. Specific responsibilities rest upon it. The firm foundation laid by the early men of Candia, still remains. It has secured the enjoyment of a wise civil and religious polity. It has preserved from visionary speculation, and moral bankruptcy. Be ours the duty to enlarge and build upon that foundation. Where the struggling settler planted one month's school, we should have ten; where churches and societies were founded by toil and sacrifice, be ours the task to preserve them in their pristine vigor and purity. So living by the great golden rule, that when the passer by points to the mound that shall cov er us at last, it may not be said we have misused the birthright of American citizens. |