THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE. An address delivered in the Old South Meeting-House, June 4, 1876, and revised by Mr. Phillips. It was in this building that he made his last public address, the tribute to Harriet Martineau, which closes this volume, December 26, 1883. L ADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Why are we here to-day? Why should this relic, a hundred years old, stir your pulses to-day so keenly? We sometimes find a community or an individual with their hearts set on some old roof or great scene; and as we look on, it seems to us an exaggerated feeling, a fond conceit, an unfounded attachment, too emphatic value set on some ancient thing or spot which memory endears to them. But we have a right to-day- this year we have a right beyond all question, and with no possibility of exaggerating the importance of the hour-to ask the world itself to pause when this nation completes the first hundred years of its life; because these forty millions of people have at last achieved what no race, no nation, no age hitherto has succeeded in doing. We have founded a republic on the unlimited suffrage of the millions. We have actually worked out the problem that man, as God created him, may be trusted with self-government. We have shown the world that a Church without a bishop, and a State without a king is an actual, real, every-day possibility. Look back over the history of the race; where will you find a chapter that precedes us in that achievement? Greece had her republics, but they were the republics of one freeman and ten slaves; and the battle of Marathon was fought by slaves unchained from the door-posts of their masters' houses. Italy had her republics: they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. She had not risen to a sublime faith in man. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of State to property and education. And all these which at their best held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time. A hundred years ago our fathers announced this sublime, and, as it seemed then, foolhardy declaration, that God intended all men to be free and equal: all men, without restriction, without qualification, without limit. A hundred years have rolled away since that venturous declaration; and to-day, with a territory that joins ocean to ocean, with forty millions of people, with two wars behind her, with the sublime achievement of having grappled with the fearful disease that threatened her central life and broken four millions of fetters, the great Republic, stronger than ever, launches into the second century of her existence. The history of the world has no such chapter, in its breadth, its depth, its significance, or its bearing on future history. Well may we claim that this centennial year is the baptism of the human race into a new hope for humanity. Are we not entitled, then, coming with the sheaves of such a harvest in our hands, to say to the world, "Behold the blessing of God on our right faith in the human race!" Well, gentlemen, if that is sober prose, without one tittle of exaggeration, without one fond conceit borrowed from our kindred with the actors or from our birth in these streets, if that is the sober record, with how much pride, with what a thrill, with what tender and loyal reverence, may we not hunt up and cherish, and guard from change or desecration, the spot where this marvellous enterprise began, the roof under which its first councils were held, where the air still trembles and burns with Otis and Sam Adams? Except the Holy City, is there any more memorable or sacred place on the face of the earth than the cradle of such a change? Athens has her Acropolis, but the Greek can point to no such immediate and distinct results. Her influence passes into the web and woof of history mixed with a score of other elements, and it needs a keen eye to follow it. London has her Palace and Tower, and her St. Stephen's Chapel; but the human race owes her no such memories. France has spots marked by the sublimest devotion; but the pilgrimage and the Mecca of the man who believes and hopes. for the human race is not to Paris. It is to the seaboard cities of the great Republic. And when the flag was assailed, when the merchant waked up from his gain, the scholar from his studies, and the regiments marched one by one through the streets, which were the pavements that thrilled under their footsteps? What walls did they salute as the regimental flags floated by to Gettysburg and Antietam? These! Our boys carried down to the battlefields the memory of State Street and Faneuil Hall and the Old South Church. We had a signal prominence in those early days. It was not our merit; it was an accident perhaps. But it was a great accident in our favor that the British Parliament chose Boston as the first and prominent object of its wrath. It was on the men of Boston that Lord North visited his revenge. It was our port that was to be shut, and its commerce annihilated. It was Sam Adams and John Hancock who enjoy the everlasting reward of being the only names excepted from the royal proclamation of forgiveness. It was only an accident; but it was an accident which, in the stirring history of the most momentous change the world has seen, placed Boston in the van. Naturally, therefore, in our streets and neighborhood came the earliest collision between England and the Colonies. Here Sam Adams, the ablest and ripest statesman God gave to the epoch, forecast those measures which welded thirteen Colonies into one thunderbolt, and launched it at George III. Here Otis magnetized every boy into a desperate rebel. Here the fit successors of Knox and Hugh Peters consecrated their pulpits to the defence of that doctrine of the freedom and sacredness of man which the State borrowed so directly from the Christian Church. The towers of the North Church rallied the farmers to the Lexington and Concord fights; and these old walls echoed the people's shout, when Adams brought them word that Governor Hutchinson surrendered and withdrew the red-coats. Lingering here still are the echoes of those clashing sabres and jingling spurs that dreamed Warren could be awed to silence. Otis's blood immortalizes State Street, just below where Attucks fell (our first martyr), and just above where zealous patriots made a teapot of the harbor. It was a petty town, of some twenty thousand inhabitants; but "the rays of royal indignation collected upon it served only to illuminate, and could not consume." Almost every one of its houses had a legend. Every public building hid what was treasonable debate, or bore bullet-marks or bloodshed, evidence of royal displeasure. It takes a stout heart to step out of a crowd and risk the chances of support when failure is death. The strongest, proudest, most obstinate race and kingdom on one side; a petty town the assailant, its weapons, ideas; its trust, God and the right; its old-fashioned men patiently arguing with cannon and regiments; blood the seal of the debate, and every stone and wall and roof and doorway witness forever of the angry tyrant and sturdy victim. Now, gentlemen, man is not a mere animal, to eat, and sleep, and gain, and lay up, and enjoy, and pass away to his fathers. If we had been only that; if the North had been a pedler race, as the South supposed, not willing to risk sixpence for an idea, - no Democratic lawyers in yonder Court Street would have shut up their doors, put their keys in their pockets, and asked of Governor Andrew a commission when that piece of bunting was fired upon near Fort Sumter! It was only six feet square of cotton; it was only a few stars and stripes; it was only an insult offered to the sentiment of twenty millions of people. But it made Democrats and Republicans forget their differences, and a million of men. crowd down to the Gulf. It was only a sentiment. But what does it feed on? Ascend one of those lofty buildings above Chicago, and grow weary in counting her crowd of masts and her miles of warehouses; and when you have done it, you remember that the sagacity and the thrift of three hundred thousand men have created that great centre of industry, and there comes to your mind, perhaps sooner than anything else, the old lullaby, "How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, From every opening flower." It is industry; it is thrift; it is comfort; it is wealth. But on Bunker Hill let somebody point out to you the church-tower whose lantern told Paul Revere that Middlesex was to be invaded. Search till your eye rests on |