friends from his arms, the patriots of America could scarcely keep their charter out of his grasp. While the former were wielding a resolute majority in parliament, under the lead of the boldest spirits that ever lived, combining with Scotland, and subduing Ireland, and striking terror into the continental governments, the latter were forming a frail union of the New England colonies, for immediate defence, against a savage foe. While the "Lord General Cromwell," (who seems to have picked up this modest title among the spoils of the routed aristocracy,) in the superb flattery of Milton,

"Guided by faith, and matchless fortitude,

To peace and truth his glorious way had ploughed,
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud

Had reared God's trophies,"

our truly excellent and incorruptible Winthrop was compelled to descend from the chair of state, and submit to an impeachment.

And what was the comparative success? There were, to say the least, as many excesses committed in England as in Massachusetts Bay. There was as much intolerance on the part of men just escaped from persecution; as much bigotry on the part of those who had themselves suffered for conscience' sake; as much unreasonable austerity; as much sour temper; as much bad taste; as much for charity to forgive, and as much for humanity to deplore. The temper, in fact, in the two commonwealths was much the same, and some of the leading spirits played a part in both. And to what effect? On the other side of the Atlantic the whole experiment ended in a miserable failure. The commonwealth became successively oppressive, hateful, contemptible; a greater burden than the despotism on whose ruins it was raised. The people of England, after sacrifices incalculable of property and life, after a struggle of thirty years' duration, allowed the general, who happened to have the greatest number of troops at his command, to bring back the old system-king, lords, and church with as little ceremony as he would employ in issuing the orders of the day. After asking, for thirty years,

What is the will of the Lord concerning his people? What is it becoming a pure church to do? What does the cause of liberty demand in the day of its regeneration? there was but one cry in England - What does General Monk think? What will General Monk do? Will he bring back the king with conditions, or without? And General Monk concluded to bring him back without.

On this side of the Atlantic, and in about the same period, the work which our fathers took in hand was, in the main, successfully done. They came to found a republican colony. They founded it. They came to establish a free church. They established what they called a free church, and transmitted to us what we call a free church. In accomplishing this, which they did anticipate, they brought also to pass what they did not so distinctly foresee, what could not, in the nature of things, in its detail and circumstance, be anticipated, the foundation of a great, prosperous, and growing republic. We have not been just to these men.

I am dis

posed to do all justice to the memory of each succeeding generation. I admire the indomitable perseverance with which the contest for principle was kept up under the second charter. I reverence, this side idolatry, the wisdom and fortitude of the revolutionary and constitutional leaders, but I believe we ought to go back beyond them all for the real framers of the commonwealth. I believe that its foundation stones, like those of the Capitol of Rome, lie deep and solid, out of sight, at the bottom of the walls, Cyclopean work, the work of the Pilgrims, with nothing below them but the rock of ages. I will not quarrel with their rough corners or uneven sides; above all, I will not change them for the wood, hay, and stubble of modern builders.

But it is more than time, fellow-citizens, that I should draw to a close. These venerable foundations of our republic were laid, on the very spot where we stand, by the fathers of Massachusetts. Here, before they were able to erect a suitable place for worship, they were wont, beneath the branches of a spreading tree, to commend their wants, their sufferings, and their hopes to Him that dwelleth not in houses

made with hands; here they erected their first habitations; here they gathered their first church; here they made their first graves.

now

Yes, on the very spot where we are assembled, crowned with this spacious church, surrounded by the comfortable abodes of a dense population, there were, during the first season after the landing of Winthrop, fewer dwellings for the living than graves for the dead. It seemed the will of Providence that our fathers should be tried by the extremities of either season. When the Pilgrims approached the coast of Plymouth, they found it clad with all the terrors of a northern winter.

"The sea around was black with storms,

And white the shores with snow."

of

We can scarcely now think, without tears, of a company men, women, and children, brought up in tenderness, exposed, after several months' uncomfortable confinement on shipboard, to the rigors of our November and December sky, on an unknown, barbarous coast, whose frightful rocks, even now, strike terror into the heart of the returning mariner, though he knows that the home of his childhood awaits him within their enclosure.

The Massachusetts Company arrived at the close of June. No vineyards, as now, clothed our inhospitable hill-sides; no blooming orchards, as at the present day, wore the livery of Eden, and loaded the breeze with sweet odors; no rich pastures, nor waving crops, stretched beneath the eye along the way side, from village to village, as if Nature had been spreading her floors with a carpet, fit to be pressed by the footsteps of her descending God! The beauty and the bloom of the year had passed. The earth, not yet subdued by culture, bore upon its untilled bosom nothing but a dismal forest, that mocked their hunger with rank and unprofitable vegetation. The sun was hot in the heavens. The soil was parched, and the hand of man had not yet taught its secret springs to flow from their fountains. The wasting disease of the heart-sick mariner was upon the men; and the

women and children thought of the pleasant homes of England as they sank down, from day to day, and died at last for want of a cup of cold water in this melancholy land of promise. From the time the company sailed from England, in April, up to the December following, there died not less than two hundred persons, nearly one a day.

They were buried, say our records, about the Town Hill. This is the Town Hill. We are gathered over the ashes of our forefathers.

It is good, but solemn, to be here. We live on holy ground; all our hill-tops, are the altars of precious sacrifice. This is stored with the sacred dust of the first victims in the cause of liberty.

And that is rich from the life stream of the noble hearts who bled to sustain it.

Here, beneath our feet, unconscious that we commemorate their worth, repose the meek and sainted martyrs whose flesh sunk beneath the lofty temper of their noble spirits; and there rest the heroes who presented their dauntless foreheads to the God of battles, when he came to his awful baptism of blood and of fire.

Happy the fate which has laid them so near to each other, the early and the latter champions of the one great cause! And happy we, who are permitted to reap in peace the fruit of their costly sacrifice! Happy, that we can make our pious pilgrimage to the smooth turf of that venerable summit, once ploughed with the wheels of maddening artillery, ringing with all the dreadful voices of war, wrapped in smoke, and streaming with blood! Happy, that here, where our fathers sank, beneath the burning sun, into the parched clay, we live, and assemble, and mingle sweet counsel and grateful thoughts of them, in comfort and peace!

* Bunker Hill.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

TO PRACTICAL MEN, AND ON THE ENCOURAGEMENTS
TO ITS PURSUIT.*

THE chief object of the Mechanics' Institute is, to diffuse useful knowledge among the mechanic class of the community. It aims, in general, to improve and inform the minds of its members; and particularly to illustrate and explain the principles of the various arts of life, and render them familiar to those who are to exercise these arts as their occupation. It is, also, a proper object of the Institute to point out the connection between the mechanic arts and the other pursuits and occupations, and show the foundations which exist in our very nature for a cordial union between them all.

These objects recommend themselves strongly to general approbation. While the cultivation of the mind, in its more general sense, and in connection with morals, is as important to mechanics as to any other class, nothing is plainer than that those, whose livelihood depends on the skilful practice of the arts, ought to be instructed, as far as possible, in the scientific principles and natural laws on which the arts are founded. This is necessary, in order that the arts themselves should be pursued to the greatest advantage; that popular errors should be eradicated; that every accidental improvement in the processes of industry, which offers itself, should be readily taken up and pursued to its principle; that false notions, leading to waste of time and labor, should be pre

* The following essay contains the substance of addresses delivered by the author, before several institutions for scientific improvement.