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And far away was heard the shriek
Of steam. And men began to speak
Of iron roads, and rushing trains,
Of increased trade and ample gains
In Cuyahoga.

But ten years more jogged on the same,
Before the locomotive came,

On rails of iron, with breath of flame.
Since then, my friends, I need not name
All the marvelous wonders wrought

By giant steam and giant thought,

By the startling lightning's flash,

By clash of arms, by cannon's crash;

Since then, my friends, you've seen the fall

And rise of men and hopes-you know it all
In Cuyahoga.

The association now adjourned till 2 o'clock P. M., and partook refreshments in a social way, which were served in the hall of the Tabernacle in fine style by the Weisgerber Brothers.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The assemblage was called to order at the appointed hour, when the following exercises took place in the order in which they are here presented, interspersed with songs by Mrs. Lohmann, in alternation with instrumental music by the German orchestra.

ANNUAL ADDRESS-THE WESTERN PURITAN.

BY HENRY C. WHITE, ESQ.

Mr. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

Historic sympathy has become a great moulding force in our modern life. Nothing in intellectual growth to-day is more manifest than the development of the historic sense and sentiment—the tendency to historic philosophy. The inductive methods of thought-the best gift of

Science to this age-are being wonderfully applied in the field of hu man action and human phenomena. The modern historian is no longer the plodding chronicler, simply running the chain of narrative across the arid plain of human annals. He ascends an eminence whence he holds

in survey the whole race as a unit. History is therefore ceasing to be merely annalistic-ceasing to be merely national-and is becoming the science of civilization. Historical thought is being massed in far-reach

ing, vast, century-spanning generalizations.

In no country has the revival of history been so sudden and marked as in America-in no other locality as in the older west. The causes of this revival with us are not far to seek. We have completed our first cycle, have passed the first invisible milestone set in the pathway of history; we have added the first unit in the problem of existence— our first century has been completed. We have established the fact of self-government. We have come to the period of national retrospection, and the American mind is busy with its past. Fortunate for our country is it that, in seeking its genesis, we do not grope amid the shadows and myths of tradition. We possess a complete volume of written history. Measuring progress in great epochs, celebrating the nativity of peoples and institutions, is a sure way to inculcate knowledge of the past. We have passed the centennial of national independence, we approach the centennial of constitutional government; and to us these mighty anniversaries should be mounts of transfiguration, on which lofty heights we view our glorified country clad in the shining garments of Justice, Freedom, and Peace.

It is emphatically an era of retrospection in this older west. The generations which have gone out from us into the farther west are engaged in the sublime work of making government, law, and history on the plains and prairies, the peaks and slopes of the great continental spaces and ranges, in the surging and seething activities of giant industrial forces. We linger here on this peaceful shore, whence they have launched, noting the wave marks of time, picking up shells and pebbles among the wreckage, pointing to the vanishing footprints in the sands.

No better sign of the historical habit and activity is found, than in the fact of the innumerable associations and joint endeavors to garner

up the materials of our history. You at once prove and honor this universal demand in the organized work of this association.

History, scientifically considered, is governed by the uniform and continuing operation of law. The best developments of this science prove the enduring vitality and tenacity of certain ideas and habits of thought. To trace the fortunes of these more lasting opinions, or mental and moral habits, through many years and almost endless wanderings, changes and modifications, is a task as difficult as it is interesting and profitable. The presence and identity of such mental and moral habits must be proved from data always confused and multifarious, often elusive, entangled, and contradictory. It may be said, in fact, that such efforts rise no higher than speculation, because absolute demonstration is impossible. Such hypotheses must rest on moral evidence alone. But in English history there is one countervailing circumstance which tends to render the task less difficult; this circumstance is the vitality and tenacity of intellectual and moral biases and modes of thought in the Anglo-Saxon mind.

I have ventured on this occasion, presumptuously, and far beyond my competence, to leave the more frequented paths of historical narration, and shall seek to trace that resistless current of ideas which came to the surface in England, and which was the great fact of the 17th century. Puritanism. To find and to hold to that historic clue-line, recently called by a gifted American orator, "a shred of the most intense and tenacious life of Europe, floating over the sea and clinging to the bleak edge of America-that thin thread of the Old World by which incalculable destinies of the New World hung."

I shall try briefly to show how this thread of thought and life was carried into this western wilderness; how, finding lodgement here, it grew, under modifying and meliorating conditions, into permanent social institutions and moral tones of life, which mark and distinguish this community. Finally, I shall ask you to note with me somewhat of the fruitage of Puritanism-baneful and blessed-ripening in our present social life.

It has become quite the fashion to caricature the Puritan by magnifying some fantastic accidents of his character, not essential but due largely to the spirit and temper of his time. He stands upon the can

vass of criticism a sombre, ungraceful figure, with the hard ungenial face of austerity, and a heart full of the cold zeal of fanaticism. In the unfriendly light of modern letters, we see in him only the narrow and arrogant bigot of the 17th century. To modern eyes he stands by the wayside of history a false prophet, lifting up his harsh, censorious voice of warning and denouncing upon the world a woe that never came. He stands as the sign and symbol of all the narrow asceticism of a hardened, petrified faith.

In the religious fanatic we are prone to lose sight of his masterful work and influence in the domain of civil and political liberty. We sometimes forget even the fanatical heroism in which the rhetoric of a Macaulay paints him. Let us recall the vivid portraiture by the eminent historian, as it illustrates the strong coloring on the religious side of the Puritan character, prevalent in literature. He says:

"The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for all terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and confident of that favor they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registry of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life."

It is but the picture of the fierce and rugged prophet of the desert

and the wilderness. It is not the typical Puritan who ever walked the earth and not above it: whose head was not always among the stars: who was not always prostrate in the ecstasy of devotions. The real Puritan did not despise worldly wisdom nor secular knowledge. The leading pilgrims of the Mayflower had taken their degrees at Cambridge. Brewster had sounded all the depths and shoals of diplomacy, and in no Puritan who has left an impress upon the page of history was there lacking the strong sense for affairs-the dominance of practical wisdom. Puritanism has blessed the world most in the field of politics and government. As a political reformer the Puritan has wrought his most enduring work. He was the first reformer who founded all political rights, obligations, and duties, on the enlightened conscience of religion. "Puritanism," says DeTocqueville, "was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most democratic and republican theories."

Again he says, " Anglo-American civilization in its true light is the combined result of two distinct elements, both the product of Puritanism, the spirit of religion, and the spirit of liberty."

"A new

Thus we see that the surest muniments of our political liberties, the best institutions of our civil freedom, are gifts of the political Puritan. He was the son of that morning of hope which flushed, in purple dawn, the sky of England at the close of the reign of Elizabeth. He was the best gift of the Renaissance. He was the firstborn of the grandest epoch in human history. Green, the historian, thus gathers up, in sublime language, the spirit of the times which gave him birth: social fabric was thus growing up on the wreck of feudal England. New influences were telling on its development. The immense advance of the people as a whole in knowledge and intelligence throughout the reign of Elizabeth was in itself a revolution. The hold of tradition, the unquestioning awe, which formed the main strength of the Tudor throne, had been sapped and weakened by the intellectual activity of the Renaissance, by its endless questionings, its historic research, its philosophic skepticism. Writers and statesmen were alike discussing the claims of government, and the wisest and most lasting forms of rule. The nation was learning to rely on itself, to believe in its own strength and vigor, to crave for a share in the guidance of its own life. His conflict with the

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