And thus, from the force of
circumstances, the basest principles of our nature were either made to
lie dormant, or to become the active agents in the advancement of the
noblest of causes--that of establishing and maintaining civil and
religious liberty.
But this state of feeling must fade, is fading, has faded, with the
circumstances that produced it.
I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever
will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must
fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the
lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted,
so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will,
their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they
cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the
generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly
every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The
consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father,
a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family--a
history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in
the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the
very scenes related--a history, too, that could be read and understood
alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211