books, their shillings and silver spoons and cotton cloth, their wisdom and religion, to the setting up of a college among these scattered hamlets. It is a Puritan minister who sits among his books before the hall yonder, which treasures the name and memory of the men who, trained here in good learning, gave their lives to save the country into which their villages had grown. John Harvard's College wrote upon the wall over against their names a sentence from the Book he read and taught, and it is his blessing on the day which sends his scholars into the world; and it cut in stone upon the front of the Law School words which guided the lawgiver from whom we have the Commandments of God. These are things which last. "Time is the great enemy," one said. Time is the great friend of that which has the power to live. Cherishing and enlarging our schools, let us remember that the fathers founded them.

We are coming, very late, to consider the men whom we have dispossessed, their rights and their interests. It was the earliest care of the fathers. Before they were here, they thought out what they would do for the natives in these wilds. At once they began to teach them. The Indian College witnessed to their desire. Preaching stations and preachers, churches and books, the Indian Bible, marked the missionary design. I do not forget the darker days, the conflicts, the killings, efforts of the red man to repel the white, the bloody self-defence. But they never meant this.

the

It was

with a pure design that they sought the savages and tried to win them to better ways. One does not like to think upon the later Indian wars, Indian treaties, Indian wrongs. At last the slumbering sense of justice has awakened. We are

taking up the work of the first comers, and the right will prevail, and some restitution will result. It is well. But let us remember that they who were here so long ago meant it for good to those who were here before.

They believed in the right and in liberty. It must not be overlooked by us who have so lately contended against oppression, that there was not a slave born in Massachusetts after 1641.

I have alluded to the leading features of their enterprise and labor. How vast their plans were, and how well were they worked out! They had lofty principles, from which they would not swerve when they became exacting. They were men, and their times were hard, winters were long upon this coast, but they cherished the virtues. The tenderest affection breathes in John Winthrop's letters, and the fragrance of spikenard is in Thomas Shepard's memories of his Margaret. Nor did they part with this which was human and sweet when they went out into the cold and stood among the snows. A colder generation was to come after them; the narrower conditions of their birth and childhood showed themselves in the character of men born here. But the warmth of their English homes was upon the first Englishmen. They had brought the best of all

they had, and they had brought themselves, to become larger men and women. We do not need to compare them with others or to translate them into our times. They were great, and they did grandly what they were set to do, what then most needed to be done. There is no call to canonize them; still less is there a call to criticise them. We have entered into their labor, and should know what it was.

They founded institutions; they did not believe in isolation. They built themselves into the town, though they were freemen; and into the church, because they were Christians. Every man kept his own conscience in the sight of God, but every man had regard unto his brother. They held a high idea of manhood, and they did their best to make it a reality. In all they purposed or hoped for, they recognized the highest authority and truth. The Lord was in their mind and heart. They had his comfort in privation, his guidance in perplexity. They knew that the strength of the hills was his, and upon his might they depended. They believed that they had his commandments and promises, and to these they gave unfaltering heed. They sought his glory and the extension of the kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom. The loftiest intention in the largest confidence dignified their work. They felt the power of an endless life, and they wrought for the centuries, the ages. We are celebrating the founding of a church of Christ. What thought of man has been higher or more enduring than that? Their Newtowne has lasted, and their college and their

church. The work of their hands has been established upon them. John Bridge looks from his granite pedestal upon the two churches which boast a common lineage, and far within the college gates, and rouses John Harvard from his open book to tell him that it was a good thing to bring Thomas Shepard to the New England; and John Harvard answers, VERITAS.

ADDRESS.

BY HON. WILLIAM E. russell, mAYOR.

MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I KNOW that the good city of Cambridge, that for two hundred and fifty years has walked hand in hand with this old church, through trials and suffering, wars and pestilence, yet always forward, is glad to be present to-day at this anniversary, bearing love to her younger sister, and the respect, reverence, and gratitude of a people deeply indebted for her long life of usefulness.

In 1636 our little town, poor, distressed, its people "straitened for want of land," with food so scarce that "many eate their bread by waight, and had little hope of the earth's fruitfullnesse," deserted by the governor, failing in the purpose of its founders, but filled with "quickening grace and lively affections to this temple worke," rejoiced in the founding of this church, that brought to it prosperity and happiness, and was to be its strength and very life. "God's glory and the Church's good" bound Winthrop, Dudley, and their associates "in the word of a Christian" to embark for the Plantation of