PLYMOUTH ROCK.

139

T

65. PLYMOUTH ROCK.

WO hundred and fifty years ago, our Fathers lighted a feeble watch-fire on the Rock of Plymouth. It has never gone out; it burns there; it burns here; it burns in every state of the Union.

It flashed first on the Atlantic; now its light gleams on the Pacific wave. It will burn on for ages, and nothing but the daylight dawn of eternity will put it out by superior brightness. Even in Old England, there are not wanting those who mark upon the calendar of remembrance the 21st of December.

As the sun leaves those shores, and wheels hitherward, every hour awakes in rank the states that celebrate that memorable date. Where there is a drop of New England blood, there will be holy thoughts and grateful memories.

No man born in New England will ever forget his mother, though her breast was granite, and her kiss frost. To-night, then, in every state of the Union, there will be a time for grateful retrospection. Maine, amid her snows, will rehearse the story that never wears out by telling.

New Hampshire, from amid her hills and mountains, will send back a grateful remembrance to the past, and an All Hail" to the future.

Vermont, her green hills now tucked up in white for their winter's sleep, will recount to her children the story of the winter-day, and the welcomeless. landing.

And Virginia! what shall she say? Uncover the head; draw near with me that I may ask, not those

140

INFINITY OF CREATION.

who forget, but those who remember, Washington. Hark! To-night Mount Vernon offers a greeting of holy reverence to Plymouth Rock; and sweeping westward, every state shall send patriotic thoughts to the ancestral shrine.

Yea, across the plains, along the mountain slopes, in the cabin of the wearied miner, all down the coast of California and Oregon, there shall be a grateful recognition of the Pilgrim Fathers; and from the gigantic evergreens of Calaveras goes a greeting to the pine trees of all New England.

By the God of the Pilgrims! I say to the North, Give up, and to the South, Keep not back, but bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth, and reverence the name of the Pilgrims.

Let the Savannah murmur it; let the Mississippi sound it; let the Chesapeake and the Delaware bear the chorus to the sea; then let the Atlantic speak, and the Pacific answer, "deep calling unto deep."

GOD

66. INFINITY OF CREATION.

OD called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of my throne." And to the servants that stood around his throne, he said, “Take him, and undress him from his robes of flesh, cleanse his vision, and put a new breath into his nostrils; only touch not with any change his human heart, the heart that weeps and trembles."

It was done, and with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage; and from

INFINITY OF CREATION.

141

the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. Sometimes, with the solemn flight of angel wing, they fled through zaarahs of darkness, through wildernesses of death, that divided the worlds of light; sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under prophetic motions from God. Then, from a distance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time through a sleepy film; by unutterable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment the rushing of planets was upon them; in a moment the blazing of suns was around them. Then came eternities of twilight that reveal, but were not revealed.

On the right hand and on the left towered mighty onstellations, that by self-repetitions and answers rom afar, that by counter positions, built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose archways, horizontal, upright, rested, rose at altitude by spans that seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measures were the architraves, past number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. Within were stairs, that scaled the eternities below; above was below; below was above to the man stripped of gravitating body; depth was swallowed up in depth unfathomable.

Suddenly as thus they rode from infinite to infinite, suddenly as thus they tilted over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights and other depths, were coming, were nearing, were at hand. Then the man sighed and stopped, shuddered, and wept. His overladen heart uttered itself in tears, and he said,

142

THE HOUR OF DESTINY.

"Angel, I will go no farther, for the spirit of man acheth with this infinitude. Insufferable is the glory

of God. Let me lie down in the grave, and hide me from the persecution of the infinite; for end I see there is none." And from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice, "The man speaks truly. End there is none, that ever yet we heard of!" "End is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded. "Is there indeed no end, and is this the sorrow that kills you?" But no voice answered, that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, saying, "End is there none to the universe of God. Lo, also, there is no beginning!"

67. THE HOUR OF DESTINY.

HE last plank has now indeed been shivered to which we clung with such despairing faith; the last drop added to the cup of insult and misery, and it has overflowed.

Men of Ireland! calmly contemplate all that God, your outraged country, and humanity now demand of you; and then resolutely dare, heroically conquer, or bravely die. What have you to fear? Nothing in heaven, for you are justified before God. You may kneel by your uplifted flag, and call Him to witness. how you have endured every wrong, suffered, unavenged, every infamy, and sought redress only with clasped hands, and streaming eyes, and passionate prayers for "justice, justice!" The cry has gone up to Him, and entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth; but it could not melt the heart of man.

THE HOUR OF DESTINY.

143

Ireland Ireland! it is no petty insurrection, no local quarrel, no party triumph, that summons you to the field; it is a war against all that is opposed to justice, and happiness, and freedom.

It is a death-struggle, now, between the oppressor and the oppressed. Strike! strike! Another instant, and his foot will be upon your neck, his dagger at your heart. Will he listen 'to.prayers? Will he melt to tears? No! The strong men, and the mothers, and the pale children, down they fall, thousands upon thousands, a death rain of human corses upon the earth; their groans vibrate with a fearful dissonance through the country, and their death-wail shrieks along the universe; but no pity dims the eye of the stern murderer who watches their agonies. What then? Is there no hope? Will ye drag on a wretched existence, degraded in the eyes of Europe, making Ireland a by-word among the nations? Will ye suffer these things, that so your children may rise up in after years, and say, "Was it thus and thus, when ye were young men, and ye never lifted your arms to prevent it?" No! God has not utterly forsaken us. He has left us one path, and but one; there is no other. You must march in it, or the ruin of your country, the death of the living and the vengeance of the unavenged dead, will be on your souls.

Rise, then, men of Ireland! Rise in your cities, and in your fields, on your green hills, in your valleys, by your dark mountain passes, by your rivers and lakes, and ocean-washed shores. Rise as a nation; not to make a demand for justice from a foreign country, but to make Ireland an independent kingdom