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 LIBRARY OF PRINCETON 
 
 MAY 2 4 2005 
 
 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
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 Princeton Tiieoiogicai Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.arcliive.org/details/addressdeliverOObrow 
 
ADDEESS 
 
 DELIVEHED BEFORE THE 
 
 AMERICAN WHIG AND CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETIES 
 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 
 
 JUNE 23d, 1846. 
 
 Br ALEXANDER E. BROWN. 
 
 PRINCETON, 
 
 PHINTED BY JOHN T. ROBINSON. 
 1846. 
 
Extract from the Minutes of the American Whig Society, June 24th, 1846. 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be tendered to 
 Alexander E. Brown, Esq., for his able and eloquent address 
 delivered yesterday, and that he be requested to furnish a copy 
 for publication. 
 
 W. C.ALEXANDER,) 
 
 ASHBEL GREEN, V Committee. 
 
 DANIEL ELLIOT. S 
 
 Extract from the Minutes of the CUosophic Society, June 24th, 1846. 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to 
 Alexander E. Brown, Esq., for the able and interesting ad- 
 dress delivered by him yesterday before the American Whig 
 and CUosophic Societies; and that a committee be appointed 
 to request a copy for publication. 
 
 Committee, Prof. Maclean and Joseph Annin, Esq. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 The contrast between the spirit of earlier ages of 
 antiquity and that of the present age, is both startUng 
 and interesting. The energies of the one, seem to 
 have been directed solely toward promoting the inte- 
 rests of the few. The other, spontaneously pours its 
 blessings on the living and moving mass of mankind. 
 The one, a dark and sullen stream whose waters, un- 
 suited and unrefreshing to the common lip, flash back 
 no sunbeam to cheer the common eye. The other, 
 clear and sparkling with the beams of truth ; bearing 
 in safety on its bosom the destinies of millions ; water- 
 ing in its course meadows, the poor man's wealth, 
 and reflecting on its bank the stately mansion, the 
 rich man's pride ; and speaking in notes of liquid 
 gladness, the language of hope for all. 
 
 We stand beside the gigantic monuments of ancient 
 Egypt. We examine the mystic characters with 
 which they are covered. We are astonished at their 
 proportion, and we inquire for their uses and the 
 means of their structure. All save the voice of con- 
 
jecture is silent. The arid desert gives not even an 
 answering echo back. But reasonable conjecture tells 
 us they are monuments of an age when the energies 
 of the many were tasked to the death to minister to 
 the pride and avarice of the few. That each of these 
 hieroglyphics probably occupied the life-time of an 
 immortal being, whose soul knew not the privilege of 
 straying beyond the narrow circle of his employment. 
 That those ponderous blocks of granite, of which they 
 are composed, were altars of sacrifice upon which 
 overtasked and overburdened labour stretched itself, 
 hopelessly and despairingly to die. That it is a mon- 
 ument not only of regal power, but of human suffering 
 and human oppression ; and that when the task was 
 completed, and the ring of the lash and the shriek of 
 agony had died upon the gale, the unburied remains 
 and whitening bones of its artificers were a fit garni- 
 ture of the mausoleum of irresponsible power. This 
 is but a single illustration ; but the little that remains 
 to us of the history of that age by no means de- 
 tracts from its force. 
 
 Descending the stream of time to the days of ancient 
 Greece and Rome, we find the condition of the masses 
 somewhat, though not very materially improved. 
 Mind, for the chosen few, had begun to unfold its 
 treasures. Bright spirits arose to enlighten the age ; 
 but to the mass of their countrymen they were but as 
 stars whose mystic characters were to them unintelli- 
 
gible; that cheered not their humble homes, and that 
 warmed not their cheerless hearts. They passed 
 away, but little regretted by the multitude for whose 
 benefit they had done nothing, and by an age by 
 which they were not understood. But they still sur- 
 vive and are as household words with us, and their 
 labours are better appreciated in our day than they 
 were by those for whose benefit they should have 
 laboured. Strange that those parchment scrolls — which 
 the barbarian cast aside with contempt when he tore 
 the canvass of the painter, and threw down and de- 
 stroyed the noblest w^orks of the sculptor's chisel, in 
 his search for plunder — should even now aid in wield- 
 ing the sceptre of mind over aland of which the Athe- 
 nian sage never dreamt, and where the Roman eagle 
 never winged its flight — that the thunders of Demos- 
 thenes should have been heard re-echoed on the floor 
 of Congress in the days of our Revolution, and the 
 harp of the Mantuan bard still pour its sweet notes 
 among the wild forest glades of our own free Colum- 
 bia. But they were in advance of their age, and 
 therefore not appreciated. No blame to them, but the 
 hiofher honour. That a^e called not for the cultiva- 
 tion of the common mind. Man was considered then 
 in mass as a physical machine, not as a moral and 
 accountable being. The fierce legionary could per- 
 form his work of blood ; the plodding labourer could 
 perform his daily task of drudgery ; the bondsman 
 
8 
 
 could fan the slumbers of his master, without the aid 
 of education ; and of course it was not given to them. 
 Thus will it ever be where the glorious soil of the 
 intellect is uncultivated. There will abuses flourish 
 in all their rankness. There will the many toil, and 
 labour, and die for the benefit of the few. 
 
 Such has been the history of the past. Turn we 
 for one moment to the contrast presented by the pre- 
 sent age. Men build for themselves now monuments 
 more enduring than the massive piles of antiquity. 
 But they build them of words that are common to a 
 whole nation. Distinct too from each other, though 
 formed from materials which all daily employ. Dedi- 
 cated not to the use of one, but for ameliorating the 
 condition of all. Undying records of the times ; whose 
 uses and history can never be lost in any future anti- 
 quity, however remote ; for they are imbued with the 
 spirit of that holy truth, which by the will of the Al- 
 mighty is destined to be unchangeable and eternal. 
 Yes, whilst the scriptures endure the best literature 
 of our day will never want a key and interpreter. We 
 carve not the marble block into the semblance of the 
 human form with a skill that embodies all physical 
 perfections and imbues it with a beauty almost divine, 
 but in their stead we point to our living statues which 
 the genius of the present age has roused from their 
 death-like slumbers. We point to the youth rescued 
 from ignorance, and taught to feel and know the di- 
 
9 
 
 vinity within him ; his kindling eye raised to the 
 heavens, his ear intent to catch the language of in- 
 struction, his bosom swelling with delight as the mys- 
 teries of science are unfolded to his mind, his timid 
 step ascending the hill of fame, her chaplet on his 
 head, happy in the present, with a soul overflowing 
 with gratitude for the hopes of an hereafter. 
 
 These are the statues of the present age. Choose 
 ye between the living and the dead. We rear no 
 obelisks, we carve no gigantic monsters to guard over 
 the desolations of the wide-spread desert. But in 
 their stead we point you to the swart artizan, govern- 
 ing with unerring skill those tremendous engines of 
 modern times, whose powers render the storied feats 
 of Hercules and the Titans, seem like the exploits of 
 the pigmies ; before which the most enduring monu- 
 ments which have defied the shocks of time would be 
 crumbled into dust. In former ac^es that man would 
 have been a god ; in the present he is an educated 
 mechanist. Choose ye between the torpid endurance 
 of physical power, and the active energy of enlightened 
 mind acting upon matter. 
 
 We build no temples to unknown gods, rich with 
 all the graces and w^onders of architecture. No gor- 
 geous mausoleums in which decayed mortality may 
 be mocked by the durability of the structure that sur- 
 rounds it. We consecrate no halls where the effigies 
 of the great of departed ages stand in marble silence, 
 
10 
 
 whose stony eyes view not the train of their worship- 
 pers, whose ears drink not in the sweet tributes paid 
 to their memories, whose Ups reply not to their saluta- 
 tions. But in their stead temples to the living God, 
 built as a labour of love, where all may enter upon 
 the platform of humble equality, where the wisest may 
 learn, and the most ignorant can understand. School- 
 chouses, where the energies of the youthful mind are 
 aroused and rightly directed into action, and where 
 the boy is prepared to become the enlightened man. 
 Colleges, where the garnered treasures of the mighty 
 dead are collected and preserved; where the wild 
 war-harp of Homer is strung anew, and thrills each 
 bosom as it echoes through the halls ; where the lyre 
 of Horace falls sweetly on the ear, and Virgil kindles 
 the warm flame of poesy in the bosom of the future 
 bard ; where Cicero excites the passions and corrects 
 the taste, and Demosthenes touches as with fire the 
 lips of the future orator. These, and other of the relics 
 of antiquity, culled by the careful hand of sages, who 
 have devoted their lives to the sweet and willing task, 
 are administered to the youthful mind. Learning 
 unfolds her ample stores, whilst the mind is adorned 
 by the study of the classics. It is invigorated by ap- 
 plication to the exact sciences, and is trained for future 
 efficiency by strict attention to those branches which 
 conduce to practical utility. Above all the Bible is a 
 class book, and whilst the mind is prepared for the 
 
11 
 
 purposes of earth, the soul is trained for heaven and 
 eternity. 
 
 These are the monuments of the present age, and 
 strongly do they contrast with those of former days. 
 Do we ask the reason of the difference ? It is found 
 in the fact that the former age was one of mere physi- 
 cal force, whilst the present is the age of moral power 
 and religious influence. Under these influences the 
 oppressions of the many, by the few, are fast disap- 
 pearing : for the intellectual man resists and repels 
 where the mere physical being only writhes beneath 
 the lash ; the educated multitude turn their flashing 
 eyes and broad hands upon the oppressors who would 
 drive them, and hurl them to the dust, where the 
 ignorant masses of former days rendered a silent and 
 sullen submission. 
 
 Such, my countrymen, is the history of our own 
 bright land, the best illustration of the spirit of the 
 age; whose every page is marked by the mighty 
 workings of popular education. The power of educa- 
 ted masses is to be seen in every step of our country's 
 advancement, from the landing of the first emigrants 
 upon our shores ; the declaration and achievement of 
 our independence; the springing up of our cities ; our 
 triumphs in peace ; our triumphs in war ; aye, down 
 to the very day when on the Rio Grande's banks, the 
 countless hordes of ignorant invaders fled in dismay 
 before the thunders of the red artillery whose light- 
 
12 
 
 nings were directed by educated freemen. Ours is a 
 land where the public mind is educated up to a level 
 with their rights. All powers are wielded for the 
 benefit of the many, and not for that of the few, and 
 consequently will never want for defenders against 
 either foreioni or domestic foes. This then brino-s me 
 to a subject upon which I will beg leave to detain you 
 for a few moments. 
 
 The influence which Seminaries of Learning 
 must ever exercise upon civil liberty. 
 
 The aspirations of the youthful heart are ever for 
 freedom. Scarcely has the thought sprung sponta- 
 neously in the mind, ere the springing step is ready to 
 bound along the path which fancy sketched, and the 
 ready hand to carry out the scheme which valour 
 planned. He sees the waves breaking in hoarse 
 surges on the shore, and he longs to breast them. He 
 hears the war of elements and he longs to dare them, 
 and almost murmurs at the roof which protects him 
 from their rage. In frame a boy, in will he is a giant. 
 Neglected, the young vine would shoot and grow in 
 profitless and rank luxuriance. Trained and pruned 
 by the paternal hand of culture, its form becomes 
 strong and graceful, and it is loaded with the clusters 
 of a generous vintage. It is thus that by regulating 
 and condensing the energies of our glorious youth, 
 that colleges become the nurseries of civil liberty. 
 
13 
 
 These are the offerings which our literary institutions 
 annually lay upon the altar of our common country. 
 In our Colleges and Universities, where mind is free 
 and energy unfettered, the coUision of ardent and 
 youthful minds must cause the flame of freedom to 
 burn with redoubled brightness. The youth read the 
 histories of nations suffering and oppressed, and now 
 passed away forever. They read of an ignorant and 
 uninformed populace goaded on by intense physical 
 suffering, rushing like a turbid torrent, and sweeping 
 away in their course the palace of the monarch and 
 the hovel of the laborer ; desolating alike the park of 
 the noble and the vineyard of the peasant ; commenc- 
 ing a revolution for liberty in its widest sense in 
 anarchy and blood, and ending it by submitting tno a 
 iron despotism. And the pale student starts from his 
 Tolume and asks, how shall I best serve my country ? 
 how avert from her these fearful evils ? And reason 
 answers him, by holding (as it is your duty as an 
 educated man to do) the torch of religion and lamp of 
 learning before your countrymen ; by forwarding the 
 cause of education among the masses, so that when 
 Columbia marshals her hosts against either domestic 
 or foreign oppression, no man in all that wide spread 
 multitude, but shall be not only an acting but a think- 
 ing and reasoning being; prompt to understand his 
 rights and astute to perceive that where anarchy be- 
 gins, liberty ends. 
 
14 
 
 This duty to their country our Colleges have thus 
 far nobly performed. But to what extent? Count if 
 you can the noble trees which spring from seeds mys- 
 teriously floating through the air. Calculate the 
 flowers that the summer shower and the summer sun 
 cause to spring in glad luxuriance from the generous 
 earth, and you will be yet far from being able to esti- 
 mate the benefits which a right-minded, highly-edu- 
 cated man may produce on a thinking community. 
 How do the prejudices of olden time vanish before his 
 touch. How strange and yet how palpable the secrets 
 he discloses of the arcana of nature. How subtle and 
 yet how practical the application of the secrets of 
 science to the common purposes of life. How does 
 collision and intercourse w^ith such a mind beget in- 
 quiry upon subjects never before thought of How 
 rapidly is search prosecuted after new ideas. And 
 intellect once awakened thus, when shall it cease to 
 labour? Never. 
 
 In Europe, too, the Universities have ever been the 
 nurseries of liberal sentiments. Witness the ready 
 sympathy of the German Universities with Republi- 
 can France, ere she revolted humanity by her deeds 
 of blood; and their gallant opposition to Imperial 
 France, when her legions threatened to destroy the 
 little of liberty that Germany still possessed. Then 
 did the professor and the student, throwing aside their 
 books, array themselves for the battle-field. Then 
 
15 
 
 did the heroic Korner — he of the lyre and the sword — 
 wake the wide land with the notes of freedom's min- 
 strelsy; and finally pouring forth his blood on the 
 battle-field, leave in the galaxy of genius one bright 
 star the less. 
 
 But we may be told that in France learning was 
 with the revolutionists, and was responsible therefore 
 for at least some part of their excesses. Admit that 
 the cyclopedists were among those who aided in that 
 fearful work. It only makes my argument the stronger. 
 We contend not for exclusiveness of knowledge. It 
 was because learned, but misguided men, had an igno- 
 rant mass to act upon, that these evils occurred. If 
 they chose, before a people too illiterate to read or 
 understand their Bibles, by solemn edicts to denounce 
 religion; is it to be wondered at that they met with 
 no reproof from those into whose minds religion had 
 never poured its light? As it ever will be with human 
 learning, unguided by a light from on high, their learn- 
 ing made them the most pitiable of fools. To form a 
 government not recognizing any kind of religion, was 
 an experiment as rash and impracticable as to have de- 
 prived the atmosphere of France of its oxygen, and then 
 to have required the people to live and breathe under 
 its influence. Theirs was an instance of learning reject- 
 ing the aid of high moral and religious influences, and 
 consequently doomed to destruction. This is not the 
 learning communicated to our people in our Seminaries. 
 
16 
 
 But it is contended that the system of Schools is 
 all-sufficient for the wants of the people, without the 
 aid of institutions for instruction in the higher branches 
 of science and learning. And it is upon this ground 
 that the opponents of Colleges principally fortify them- 
 selves. And yet nothing can be more fallacious than 
 a system which overthrows itself. So surely as the 
 acquisition of knowledge awakens the human mind, 
 and kindles in it the desire of further acquisition, so 
 surely does the multipUcation of schools, and the ex- 
 tension of general education render necessary the erec- 
 tion of Colleges to supply the wants of those who are 
 not willing to pause at the threshold. If those men 
 were told of a law about to be passed, prohibiting any 
 individual, however great his strength or powers of 
 endurance, from performing more than the amount of 
 labour in a day of which the most feeble man in the com- 
 munity was capable, he would at once denounce it as 
 an act of gross tyranny. What, he would exclaim, 
 has God given that man strength and power, and will 
 you by your laws prevent him from enjoying and 
 profiting by them. If they were to be told that men 
 however industrious and skilful in their business were 
 to be prevented from acquiring more than a certain 
 amount of wealth, and that to be measured by the 
 possessions of the poorest man in his district, they 
 would at once exclaim, what folly, what injustice. 
 And yet they are prepared at once, without remorse, 
 
17 
 
 to apply the Procrustean system to the mind; to say 
 to the aspiring youth, who thirsts to increase his store 
 of knowledge, thus far it is well for you to go, but be- 
 yond those limits, with our consent, jou cannot pass. 
 It is true, with assistance you may become an intel- 
 lectual giant: but intellectual dwarfs better suit the 
 institutions of our country. The body shall be free; 
 the will shall be free; but the intellect shall be 
 clogged. The bark shall dash at the pleasure of the 
 mariner over the stormy sea, but we will, if we can, 
 extinguish the stars by which he should guide her 
 course. 
 
 True it is that mighty men, the men of the sword, 
 the pen, and the orator, have sprung from the ranks 
 of the people without the aid of collegiate education, 
 and have dazzled, delighted, and astonished the world. 
 But have those men arisen where education was neg- 
 lected b}^ those around them ? Was nature the only 
 glass at which they dressed themselves? Did natural 
 genius inspire them with a knowledge of war, of laws 
 and government of which they never had heard before? 
 No. They sprung up in highly intellectual commu- 
 nities, and by force of intellect caught at once from 
 others that which it had taken them toil and time to 
 acquire, and surpassed their instructors. But the 
 model had to be presented before them, or the statue 
 never could have been made. Had Shakspear, Frank- 
 lin and Henry been born among savage tribes, they 
 
18 
 
 would have been noble savages ; but they vrould still 
 have been only savages. 
 
 It is through this indirect influence that Colleges 
 greatly benefit the country in which they are sus- 
 tained. Year after year they send forth through the 
 land men qualified to discharge, efficientl}^ the duties 
 of life ; to mingle in the thoroughfares of business ; to 
 fill the professions ; bearing with them as they go, if 
 they act up to the instructions which they have re- 
 ceived, a high tone of sentiment, and infusing into the 
 ranks with which they associate, the vigour of moral 
 and intellectual power. Thus it is that our literary 
 institutions repay the favours which they receive from 
 the people. No cowled monks amongst them make of 
 their learning a selfish secret of the cloister ; no magi 
 are they to veil their mysteries from the common eye ; 
 no pensioned occupants of fellowship, living in learned 
 ease for learning's sake alone ; but active, vigorous 
 minded men moving in close contact with their fellows, 
 asking for no more room upon the common platform 
 of the world than they have power to occupy, and 
 claiming no exclusive privileges, save those which 
 mind can conquer for itself These are the well dis- 
 ciplined soldiers of civil liberty. With honest pride 
 mav our institutions of learning look upon the bands 
 of generous youth who pour annually from their por- 
 tals, and mingle in the ranks of the defenders of civil 
 and religious liberty. Well may they say to their 
 
19 
 
 countrymen, these are the pledges which we give you 
 of our usefulness ; receive them with confidence ; their 
 hearts are yours already, and whilst they are true to 
 the teaching they have received within our walls, 
 your trust will never be betrayed. 
 
 But it has been contended that learned men are not 
 the friends, or at least have not been the active cham- 
 pions of freedom. If by this it is merely meant to 
 assert that the book-worm has not been often found 
 ranged upon freedom's battle-field, there could be no 
 danger to my argument in admitting the proposition. 
 It would be strange indeed to find them engaged in 
 any kind of active enterprise. But if it is intended 
 to assert that the man of education, the man of en- 
 larged intellect, has been found to shrink from his 
 compatriots in the hour of danger, I beg leave to deny 
 the proposition unreservedly. I do not mean to con- 
 tend that learning and freedom are synonymous terms. 
 That if the eldest son of a despot happened to be a 
 learned man, he would of necessity, on his father's 
 decease, set free his people and convert his govern- 
 ment into a republic. Far from it. It is most proba- 
 ble he would use his learning for the purpose of 
 consolidating and increasing his power. I do not 
 deny that learned men have been found upon the side 
 of the oppressor. But I have yet to learn that intelli- 
 orent and intellectual men are the safest and easiest 
 subjects upon which to exercise oppression. And 
 
20 
 
 where, as in our Republic, the learned and educated 
 man mingles in daily intercourse with the people of 
 whom he forms a part, where is it that he has arrayed 
 himself against their rights ? And those revolutions 
 in which the purely unlettered man has taken the 
 lead, for what purposes have they been undertaken ? 
 and how have they generally ended? They have 
 generally been revolts occasioned by mere physical 
 suffering, and have ended sometimes in a temporary 
 removal of the grievance complained of — sometimes 
 by the dispersion and overthrow of those who rose to 
 right themselves. But little other benefit has resulted 
 to the actors. Still less to mankind at large. 
 
 But those two glorious Revolutions which were not 
 based upon mere want of bread, or actual deprivation 
 of property ; revolutions in which encroachment was 
 resisted before actual oppression had commenced ; 
 where keen-sighted vigilance over popular rights, per- 
 ceived and arrested the blow aimed at them, before it 
 had acquired the velocity which would have rendered 
 it irresistable; revolutions which have been the watch- 
 words of struggling man throughout the world. The 
 Revolution which drove the Stuarts from the throne 
 of Eno^land, and that which drove the British kinor 
 from all control over these Colonies, were they planned 
 or carried through by the ignorant and unlettered ? 
 Those indeed were revolutions effected by and based 
 upon moral power ; and their precedents will be quo- 
 
21 
 
 ted, and their influence felt, whenever and wherever 
 man may be driven to the assertion of his rights. Is 
 there any evidence in history to show that even Crom- 
 well, mighty as he afterwards became, comprehended 
 the necessity of resisting the levying of ship-money, at 
 the outset, or that that necessity to him appeared 
 stronof enouo^h to rouse him to actual resistance ? 
 None that I have been able to see. But there was 
 one man, a graduate of a University ; a man of for- 
 tune and a man of leisure, who read the classics in 
 the sweet retirement of the country ; who brought the 
 experience of the past to bear upon the present, and 
 who saw that to precipitate the coming of the tempest 
 was the surest way to render its rage innocuous. 
 Surrounded by his few^ and sterling friends, all of 
 them men of learning and acuteness, in the face of 
 astonished England, he braved the crown in the plen- 
 itude of its power. Startled by this bold example, 
 the public mind aroused itself into an inquiry into 
 public rights ; hints of the rights of the people began 
 to be murmurcil, and that man shaped these murmurs 
 into words of mighty import. Borne down for awhile 
 by unrighteous decisions he still persisted. When a 
 Parliament was assembled, he was there to stand by 
 his country and cheer her with his eloquence. Broad 
 and deep were laid in the public mind the foundation 
 for the mighty events that were to follow — mighty 
 the onward impulse given to the nation. When hos- 
 
22 
 
 tilities between the king and the country actually 
 commenced, that man was in the field acting the part 
 of a brave and skilful soldier ; and finally on the bat- 
 tle-field he sealed his devotion with his blood. He 
 had lived the true and generous friend of the people, 
 and he died in their cause. And since that day his 
 name has been one of the watchwords of English and 
 American freedom. In the days of the Revolution, 
 his course was taken as a precedent ; and when that 
 Revolution was successfully terminated, he took his 
 place in the public mind with Washington, Franklin, 
 Jefferson, and the other bright stars of that day ; — and 
 at the present hour, the American statesman need not 
 blush to acknowledge that he has taken for his model 
 the English patriot, John Hampden ! 
 
 Such was one of the men whom an English Uni- 
 versity sent to dwell amongst the people. None can 
 doubt, that although Cromwell, with his red right 
 hand, darted the bolt which drove the Stuarts from 
 the throne, the fire in which it was forged was kindled 
 by Hampden : — that if Cromwell and his ironsides, by 
 their physical power, scattered the armies of the king, 
 the moral power of Hampden evoked the spirit which 
 rendered those victories profitable and enduring : — 
 that if the cannon of Cromwell prostrated the throne, 
 the surviving spirit of Hampden, caused to be erected 
 a Temple of British Freedom upon its ruins. 
 
 Such is the difference between physical and moral 
 
23 
 
 power! When the fierce Soldiery are mouldering, 
 and their corslets and sabres rusting in the grave, the 
 spirit of the Patriot still has its watchtower in each 
 freeman's heart, ready to evoke new heroes from the 
 ranks of the people to battle for their rights. Thus 
 that race, which with impunity exhumed and insulted 
 the remains of Cromwell, found in the name of Hamp- 
 den a spell-word of power which a second time closed 
 the hearts of Englishmen against them. 
 
 But were those who planned the second and might- 
 ier Revolution, among the ignorant and illiterate ? A 
 revolution, surpassing in its consequences all that the 
 most sanguine ever dared to prophecy. Were they 
 Tells, or Massaniellos, or Hofers ; — honest friends of 
 liberty, true as steel and fearless as their swords, but 
 ignorant of forms of government, who laid the founda- 
 tions of this mighty fabric deep on the living rock? 
 Was it such men as they who arranged this glorious 
 galaxy of States, into which star after star has rolled, 
 and holds each its even way unfelt except in the in- 
 crease which it makes to the splendour of the whole ? 
 Who planned that mighty moral bond, stronger than 
 triple steel, which binds together mighty and indepen- 
 dent States ; which throws its soft yet strong embrace 
 around each addition to the band, and becomes at 
 once a part of its nature ? Who formed, when the 
 country was but small, a Constitution which has been 
 respected and unbroken by twenty-six, now twenty- 
 
24 
 
 eight, States of conflicting interests; States, whose 
 principal tenancy in common is in the glorious battle- 
 fields of the Revolution, and whose undivided and 
 indivisible freehold is in the grave of their Washing- 
 ton? 
 
 They have read the history of our Revolution to 
 little purpose, vi^ho do not know that many of the pro- 
 minent men of that day brought all there was of the 
 learning and wisdom of their age to the mighty work 
 they had in hand. Scholars as ripe and patriots as pure 
 as Hampden were there, bending all their energies to the 
 task before them. And nobly did they accomplish it. 
 Read the histories of the Signers of the Declaration of 
 Independence, and you will find a large proportion to 
 have been graduates of Colleges. Learning and ex- 
 perience had taught the men of that day the value of 
 moral influences, and upon them they based their 
 work. That moral influence which rallies men to 
 fight like heroes, and pour out their blood like water, 
 in defence of a tattered flag, the emblem of a principle, 
 who would hold their lives too dear to be risked in the 
 defence of any earthly treasure: those principles of 
 love and moral suasion, under which the old thirteen 
 Stales were bound together, but w^hich like fire in- 
 creasing in intensity by communication, holds in bonds 
 of love and confidence the hearts of twenty millions 
 of freemen, whose territory must be spanned by an 
 arch springing from the blue Pacific wave, and ending 
 
25 
 
 among the hoarse surges of the Atlantic coast. That 
 noble principle which prompts us to hold to our 
 hearts, and appropriate as our own, all that is great 
 and good in by-gone ages, which time can neither dim 
 nor destroy ; — a principle which causes the names of 
 Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth, to thrill through 
 the bosom of the youngest American, with a sense as 
 keen as ever the trumpet's note sent through the bo- 
 soms of those who trod the ice-bound sod of the one, 
 or dyed with their blood the burning sands of the 
 other. 
 
 Such, under God, were some of the moral forces 
 brought to bear in erecting and consolidating this glo- 
 rious structure. Under these influences it has stood 
 firm; and may, with the blessing of God, ^tand firm 
 for ever. Substitute in their places mere physical 
 force, and a few years would present you with a head- 
 less trunk and gigantic, dissevered members, writhing 
 in the agony of deuth. The earth would remain, but 
 the Sun that warmed, and invigorated, and rendered 
 it the Paradise of freedom, would be blotted out from 
 the heavens. 
 
 Were men of learning then recreant in the hour of 
 their country's need ? No ! Scarce a battle-field where 
 they did not shed their blood — no council-board at 
 which they were not present. But need I to discuss 
 this subject further in the vicinity of that venerable 
 institution, whose walls have been shaken with the 
 
 2* 
 
26 
 
 thunders of hostile artillery ? through whose fields the 
 war-steed has dashed with blood-stained hoof? who 
 gave up her staff and her stay to her country, when 
 her WiTHERSPOoN wended his way to the First Con- 
 gress, to pledge " life, fortune, and sacred honour, in 
 behalf of the land of his adoption ; and who gave the 
 first fruits of her academic labours, when her Stock- 
 ton affixed his name to the same glorious instrument. 
 And are these things so? Is the miracle which our 
 country presents to the world, in point of fact no 
 miracle at all, but simply the result of the application 
 of moral and religious causes, made by the wisdom of 
 our ancestors under the most happy circumstances ? 
 Is it necessary, in order to preserve these blessings 
 that the public mind should be refined, and knowledge 
 extended to the many, instead of being as heretofore 
 confined to the few ? If so, how shall we best minister 
 to the interests of our country ? By cherishing our 
 Colleges, those reservoirs of pure waters, builded by 
 the hand of wisdom ; which so benignly pour their 
 invigorating and perennial streams through the land. 
 
 Cherish that venerable Institution in whose behalf 
 we are here assembled. One hundred years sit lightly 
 on her brow. A hundred years in which the gigantic 
 efforts of the human mind have displayed themselves 
 with startling and electrical rapidity. A hundred 
 years during which more free principle has been 
 evolved, and more pernicious error exploded, than in 
 
27 
 
 the thousand that preceded them. And yet she has 
 been always equal to the requirements of her day. 
 Light, more light, has been the incessant cry of the 
 people ; and year after year she has opened wider and 
 wider the windows of the mind. Founded under the 
 reign of a king, she has been fully equal with the 
 spirit of the age as the teacher of stern Republican 
 principles. Men have been educated within her walls 
 whose mighty works in the cause of freedom have 
 made their names household words, where she per- 
 chance is never mentioned. And yet like a kind and 
 generous mother she glories in their honest fame, 
 albeit it may eclipse her own. Suffering under wrong 
 and neglect she has vindicated herself by pouring 
 the rich treasures of her sons into the bosom of their 
 country, and training them to dedicate themselves to 
 her service ; and has forgotten that neglect in the 
 sweet task of rearing others for that same bright 
 career. Year after year for a century past, have her 
 venerable Presidents, with streaming eyes and bleed- 
 ing bosoms, given the parting charge and parting 
 benediction to a band of bright-eyed youths about to 
 sever long-cherished ties, and launch upon unknown 
 seas ; — and when another year rolled round, those 
 venerable men might see, pressing against the barriers 
 that held them in, another band instinct with life, 
 ambition and energy ; eager to follow their departed 
 companions, careless of the paths, regardless of the 
 
'28 
 
 dangers, so they but lead to the rewards of an honour- 
 able fame. 
 
 Oh, my friends, how much vitality and vigour has 
 this Institution transfused into the veins and arteries 
 of our land, in the last hundred years. One hundred 
 years of fast-clinging affections — one hundred years 
 of heart-rend mg separations ! The winds of near one 
 hundred autumns have stripped her of her leaves, but 
 she has renewed them as they fell; and she now 
 stands clothed in a glorious foliage, rich in bright 
 hopes and future promises. And think you these 
 associations will have no influence upon the destinies 
 of our common country ? Aye, should the trumpet of 
 discord ring through our land, from the North, from 
 the South, from the East, from the West, brother will 
 call unto brother ; strong hands and willing minds 
 will be put to the work of reconciliation ; and when 
 the storm has passed, and the bow of peace appears in 
 the sky, beneath its arch will stand conspicuously 
 displayed, that Ancient Hall, where learning and re- 
 ligion were cherished in the mind, and that friendship 
 which grows not dim with age, was kindled in the 
 heart. Let but the future be what the past has been, 
 and a grateful country, with loud acclaim, will pro- 
 nounce this Hall of Science one of the strong pillars 
 of Civil Liberty. 
 
29 
 
 Gentlemen of the two Literary Societies : 
 
 You are training yourselves to take an active, 
 and I trust not inglorious, part in the affairs of a 
 mighty nation. A nation whose physical power is 
 tremendous, and whose growth has been so extraor- 
 dinary as to baffle calculation for the future. A nation 
 of boundless territory, and capable of supporting in 
 comfort more than quadruple her present population. 
 A nation free, generous and independent in their 
 views. A nation, too, more under the influence of mind, 
 than any nation that ever existed. Keen to investigate, 
 and acute in their scrutiny ; but sure to let their 
 actions go with their belief Over all this mighty 
 land thought holds her throne, and she alone is privi- 
 leged to wield her sceptre over the free. And mighty 
 are her efforts. Go listen on your Atlantic shore 
 w^hen the fierce tempest rolls her billows on the beach, 
 — go listen when the wild winds rave through your 
 forests of a thousand years. It is but a harmless echo 
 compared with the concentrated energy of a free and 
 thinking people, when roused by some mighty thought 
 they arm themselves for action. Where is the rock- 
 bound coast which can resist the mighty billows of 
 the popular will ; where the earth-fast oak that is not 
 uprooted by its breath ? 
 
 Such, my young friends, is a character of the people 
 amongst whom you will act and move. How shall 
 you prepare yourselves for usefulness and distinction 
 
30 
 
 on this glorious theatre ? By cultivating your every 
 power to its fullest extent. By attention to all your 
 studies, for there are none of which you will not at 
 some time wish to avail yourselves in after years. 
 By cultivating a sound and healthy tone of moral and 
 religious sentiment, which tells as much for the man 
 as a well-toned instrument does for the musician. 
 And finally, by adopting for your motto, " he will best 
 serve who best loves his country." 
 
 Farewell. The hour is come. The dream is past. 
 The student has become the graduate. The youth 
 has become the man ; and soon the dust of the high- 
 ways of busy life will hide from our view the green 
 fields of our college days. 
 
LB2325 .L77 
 
 Obituary addresses delivered on the 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 ^ 1 1012 00085 2162 
 
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 1 
 
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