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They were men of present valor, stalwart, old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's;

But we make their truth our falsehood; thinking that hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments while our tender spirits flee

The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes, freedom's new-lit altar fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailor? shall we in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr fagots round the prophets of to-day?

New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient god uncouth;
They must still be up and doing who would keep abreast of truth.
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires, we ourselves must pilgrims be;
Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.

But though our great inheritance from the Puritans is not any special thing that they did, but rather their direction, their attitude, their spirit, we have at the same time inherited from them certain special things, some of which indeed are of but little use, but some of which also are as good to-day as ever. And even of those things which we are disposed to put far from us, as of no earthly use in these enlightened days, some at least are as the lion's carcass in which Samson found such sweetness hid away. Thus, for example, while we pity them because their lives were so barren of all outward joy, are we perfectly sure that the other extreme into which modern society is rushing is any better? Is it not possible that there is some golden mean between their melancholy and our flightiness; their penury and our extravagance; their dull monotony and our continual round of pleasure; their bald simplicity of dress and our walking advertisments of dry goods and millinery; their everlasting prayer meetings and our equally everlasting theatre going, concerts, operas, and that immense nothingness and vacuity which we call fashionable life? At least the Puritan had better opportunity than we to stay at home in his own mind. And whether, after all, he didn't get more solid pleasure out of life than we do, is at least problematical. I think we are in danger of knowing less than he did of the sacred mystery of Home. If husbands and wives saw less of the world then than they do now, they saw, what seems to me better, a great deal more of each other, and mothers had their children to themselves to mould and fashion in their most impressible years. And so upon the whole I am very far from being certain that the Puritan can teach us nothing in these matters of the regulation of our daily lives.

The May-flower of 1620 brought over the America of to-day. There was no such entry on the ship's manifest, but it was there; all our great manufactories, all our great libraries, your mercantile and your historical libraries, every volume of them both, your schools and colleges, your churches-all of them, your free institutions, your declaration of independence, your constitu

tion with its great amendment already there, your great men-your Adams, your Lincoln, Dr. Channing and Theodore Parker, Samuel J. May and William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Becher and Harriet Beecher Stowe; all these were on board. They were not counted in with the one hundred, but they were there as much as Bradford or Winslow or Miles Standish. For your vast manufacturing interests are the legitimate outcome of the tireless industry of the Mayflower's company, of their heroic energy and indomitable will. Your schools and colleges and libraries, they carried them in their inquiring brains; your churches, they were bound up in their passion for religion; your great men were foretold in their great characters, their sterling worth; your young men that fought the battles of our last crusade were there in the devotion and self-sacrifice that brought brave men and tender women over two thousand miles of sea. But beside these latent glories and successes, these potential governments and churches and schools, these possible heroes and saints, besides these germs there was ripe fruit on board that little vessel which hasn't rotted yet. For not only was the civil government of the Puritans the best civil government of their time, but it was the best of all time down to the present. The compact that was written in the Mayflower's cabin has not yet been surpassed. It made every adult man in the ship's company a voter, and if there had been a black man there I am certain that he would not have been excluded; my only wonder and regret is that the Puritan women did not enter at once upon their duties to themselves and to the state. For had they done so our modern politics would not be such a horrible Augean stable as they are, nor the need half so urgent for some political Hercules to come and clean them out. But if they did not go beyond the present, they were at least its equals in that their government" of the people" was "for the people and by the people," if there ever has been such a government upon the earth.

And as with their state government so with their government of the church. It was a pure democracy; it was out-and-out congregationalism. As such, ninety-nine out of one hundred of the so-called congregational churches of to-day are false to their beginning. The Puritan congregation was complete in itself. Its members were not responsible for their performances to any body but themselves. Their minister was not a priest; he was one of the congregation. And between him and them there could come no pope, no bishop, no council, no outside ecclesiastical authority of any sort. And of all actual or possible forms of church organization, I cannot think of any that unites so well as this the highest justice, the most absolute simplicity, and the greatest power.

Therefore, my friends, I thank Heaven every day that here we have just such a Church, that after the way that men call heresy we come together here from week to week, and are responsible for our proceedings only to each other and to God. I sometimes wish that we might call ourselves Independent, but I thank Heaven that nothing can make us any more independent than we are. Protestantism" says Dr. Holmes, " means, mind your own business.

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But it is afraid of its own logic." I trust that you are not. Let other churches fall back upon bishops and synods and associations, that their business may be minded for them, see to it that you mind your own.

done so. I believe that you will do so to the end.

Thus far you have

Dear friends, this is the first day of my fourth year among you. Three years ago last night I became your minister in the grand old Puritan congregational way. I was settled by no council. It was a matter between you and me. And though at that time my fellow ministers were here and spoke to us their timely words of sympathy and cheer, they were here simply as friends. They exercised no authority upon either you or me. And though we seek the truth as earnestly as we please, there is nobody that can turn us out of any thing. For we are in nothing but ourselves and one another, and the dear God whose perfect law of liberty is law enough for us.

And as for these three years that I have been with you I cannot tell you what years of perfect joy and blessing they have been to me and mine. I came here with all the hopefulness of a young man. I came expecting from you a great deal of encouragement, a great deal of sympathy and love. I have had more that I expected. I came to you fresh from my books, without anything that could be called experience. I felt that I needed, and I asked for, your forbearance, and you were ready, too, with that. In your note of in vitation you accorded to me in express terms the perfect freedom of this desk. That freedom I accepted; that freedom I have used. I do not know that I have ever held my tongue on any matter upon which I thought I ought to speak. I have hated to give pain to any man or woman here but I have hated still more to keep silence when God bade me speak. I have been with you in your seasons of great joy and in your hours of sorrow. You have grown

dearer and more dear to me with every passing day. I thank you here and now for all your help and sympathy and kindly cheer. With God's help and blessing may we work together in his service, and for the welfare of his children, and for our mutual building up in all good things, for many a year to come. And on this 2zd of December, believing with John Robinson that there is more truth yet to break forth out of God's holy word, let us with him refuse to come to a period in religion, and so pledge ourselves anew to the guidance of that spirit which leadeth into all truth, assured that whether the truth to which it leadeth us be after the way that men call orthodoxy, or after the way that they call heresy, it will be none other than the very truth of God.

"Our God! our God! Thou shinest here;

Thine own this latter day;

To us Thy radiant steps appear;

Here leads Thy glorious way!

"We shine not only with the light
Thou didst shed down of yore;

On us Thou streamest strong and bright,
Thy comings are not o'er.

"The fathers had not all of Thee;

New births are in Thy grace;
All open to our souls shall be
Thy glory's hiding place.

"We gaze on Thy outgoings bright,
Down cometh Thy full power,
We the glad bearers of Thy light;

This, this thy saving hour."

THE

THE COST OF LIVING. THE TARIFF.

HE FRIEND, for November, contains an article under the above caption, from the pen of your correspondent, "Excelsior," summing up the case from his standpoint, and giving me credit for sundry "admissions," which, being arranged seriatim, present quite a formidable front. "Excelsior" must, however, allow me to give my own view of the matter, and I would commence by reminding him that my controversy with him has been solely in regard to the Tariff in its various aspects, and not on the general subject of Revenue, so that any admissions made by me as to the correctness of his points on the latter subject, must not and cannot fairly be counted against me on the former. It is my practice to concede as much as possible in an argument of this kind, so as to bring all the more force to bear on the main points. Having premised thus much, I do now most emphatically deny the fact that "this expensive system of taxation (the Tariff) involves a cost to the majority (and those the least able to bear any increase of burden) greater than need be, if we would simply abolish it and raise our revenue by direct taxation." Having thus explicitly denied this proposition, I will now proceed to refute it. The object of a Tariff, in a young and growing manufacturing country, such as ours, is to secure the greatest possible good to the largest number of people, and this would be among the foremost results of a uniformly protective Tariff.

"Excelsior" undoubtedly recognizes the justice and eminent fitness of our Patent-Laws; how, then, can he fail to apply the same reasoning to the Tariff-Laws? A poor man has invented a simple mechanical contrivance which will perform in one day the work which ordinarily required ten days' labor. He has spent weary days, perhaps years, in perfecting his invention, and when he brings it to light some wealthy capitalist, who enjoys a monopoly of the means which the poor man lacks, sees the machine, perceives its merits at a glance, and, availing himself of his vantage ground, erects a large factory, fits it out complete with machinery, the design of which he stole, and reaps a golden harvest; while the poor, unprotected inventor is left to struggle on as best he may.

Such would be the story of inventors were there no laws for their protection. Wise legislators have seen and understood this, and have legislated accordingly. The Capitalists, the Shylocks of the day, raised the same cry

of injustice. Why, said they, should the government interfere in such matters; why not give full and free play to all? The awarding of a patent to an inventor gives him a far more powerful instrument of protection than the tariff affords the manufacturer. It gives him the full and exclusive control of his invention with right to sell it at his own price.

The parallel between the two cases is plain, but it would perhaps be best to draw it.

A young manufacturing country is the poor inventor. An old aristocratic, wealthy monarchy is the capitalist. Can England, disinterestedly, give us advice in this matter? How kind in our English cousins to advise us to close up our manufactories, shut up our mines, and allow them graciously to supply our wants for a slight pecuniary consideration.

If any individual, or any number of individuals, possessed of sufficient physical and moral courage venture upon the all but hopeless task of attempting to rival British manufacturers, backed by British gold, thereby tending to break down a giant monopoly, and to free their fellow citizens from an all but servile submission to foreigners, such persons deserve the encouragement and approbation of their countrymen, and it is no more than simple justice for the Government to place a barrier between them and those who, by their greed and avarice, seek or attempt their temporal destruction. And this tax, though on the face of it appearing to be a tax on one class of citizens for the benefit of another, is in reality and indisputably a tax on foreigners, for the exclusive benefit of our own countrymen, irrespective of class or condition, as I will try to make plain further on.

And now let me endeavor to show from figures that even the spasmodic duties on Imports, with which we have been favored, have had a direct tendency to reduce the price of the articles on which they have been levied ;and as the scale of duty has been frequently changed, we can have an opportunity of witnessing the almost simultaneous effect upon the article in quesThe articles are so numerous that it is difficult to choose, but I will make a few extracts from a very interesting and instructive pamphlet published in the early part of this year in Boston, being " An Address, delivered before the National Association of Knit Goods' Manufacturers', May, 1867, by John L. Hayes."

tion.

"The article, soda-ash, is one which is very extensively used in this country (our annual consumption being at least 40,000 tons,) chiefly in the manufacture of paper, and is consequently indispensable to our daily requirements. In 1850 and 1851, a manufactory of soda-ash was started in Pittsburgh; the cuty then levied upon it being ten per centum ad val., barely sufficient to protect so new a manufacture. The British article in our market at this time sold at ten cents per pound, but as soon as the competition of the American manufacturer was felt in the market, the price was reduced to six cents. Still our manufacturers struggled on, and were able to earn a small profit. In 1857, however, the free traders obtained control of some articles, and this among the rest, and reduced the duty to four per cent. Even under this increased weight, our manufacturers held their own, and the market price of the British product was reduced to four and-a-half cents. The Tariff of 1861 placed soda-ash on the free list, which served to completely crush out the American manufacturers, and raise the price of the British article in this country to from twelve to fifteen cents."

Thus, in the comparatively short period of ten years, our manufacturers were able to reduce the price of a British staple to the enormous extent of

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