University of California Berkeley 
 
- 
 
 
REV. DR. M'VICKAR'S ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CALIFORNIA REGIMENT. 
 

 
 CAMP POLK, GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, 
 
 7th Reg't N. Y. U. S. Volunteers, 
 
 Sept. llth, 1846. 
 REV. DR. McViCKAR : 
 
 Dear. Sir It affords us great pleasure to state that we have 
 been appointed a Committee, in behalf of the officers of our Regi 
 ment, for the purpose of expressing to you, in our names, their 
 extreme gratification in witnessing the interest which you have 
 expressed in the California Expedition. 
 
 We beg you, therefore, to accept our sincere thanks for your 
 great kindness, and request that you will, if in your power, transmit 
 to the Committee a copy of your beautiful address, upon the occa 
 sion of the presentation of the Bibles, by the New-York Bible 
 Society, in order that both officers and men may, when far from 
 friends and homes, still have the pleasure of referring to it, as a 
 token of the kind and generous spirit of our countrymen. 
 With sincere regard, 
 
 We are your ob't servants, 
 
 Capt. S. G. STEELE, 
 Capt. FRANCIS J. LIPPITT, 
 Lieut. J. C. BONNYCASTLE. 
 Rev. Dr. McViCKAR, 
 
 Chaplain, &fc. 
 
 GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, 
 Fort Columbus, 12th Sept. 1846. " 
 
 GENTLEMEN: Permit me, through you as their Committee, to 
 return my sincere thanks to the Officers of the California Regiment, 
 for the kind and nattering estimate they have been pleased to make 
 of my willingness of service towards their command during their 
 encampment on the Island. That service, my official station made 
 in some degree my duty the kindness with which it was received, 
 turned duty into pleasure ; and I can only pray that our short Pas 
 toral intercourse may not have been without its mutual blessing, to 
 be remembered with gratitude when oceans shall divide us. 
 
 With your request of a copy of my address on occasion of dis 
 tributing Bibles, &c., to the Regiment, I comply with unfeigned 
 diffidence, as feeling how little worthy it was of that deeply 
 interesting occasion. I do it, however, with the thankful prayer 
 and hope that the faithful words of a Christian friend and minister 
 may not be without their weight and value, when recalled in the 
 far distant home to which you are destined. 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen, with best wishes and sincerest prayers, 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 JOHN McViCKAR, 
 Chaplain of Fort Columbus. 
 To Capt. S. G. STEELE, } 
 
 Capt. FRANCIS J. LIPPITT, > Committee, Sfc. 
 Lieut. J. C. BONNYCASTLE, } 
 
REV. DE. M'VICKAR'S ADDRESS. 
 
 UNDER favor of your Colonel's permission I address my 
 self to you Officers, non-Commissioned and Privates of 
 the California Regiment and never before, I confess, have 
 I addressed myself to my fellow man with so deep a sense 
 of my inability to say that which befits the occasion and 
 the audience. It is not your numbers that daunt me I 
 have addressed assemblies as numerous nor is it your 
 military array, and that I a man of peace am called to 
 counsel soldiers with that too my official duty has made 
 me familiar nor yet that I speak to men presently bound 
 for the battle field ; even with such solemn partings, recent 
 events have made me alas but too conversant ; but never 
 before have I been called to address an organized body of 
 armed citizens who go forth alike to conquer and to colo 
 nize, and who bid adieu to their country and their homes, 
 with the professed understanding that they return not, but 
 are to find alike their dwellings and their graves in a far 
 distant land. This thought, I confess, overcomes me, and 
 when all the deep and varied responsibilities involved in 
 such an expedition arise before me, I feel bewildered as 
 well as overpowered, and can only throw myself as a man 
 and brother on your own sensibilities on this occasion to 
 give any weight to the few feeble parting words I have 
 now to utter. 
 
 But it is to the ulterior objects of your expedition alone 
 I shall speak. As a military armament I look not at it and 
 speak not of it. The duties and responsibilities of that are 
 in other and higher hands nor is it a subject that befits my 
 peaceful mission to you this day. From the dark fields of 
 
4 
 
 bloody strife, if such await you (which God forefend) I turn 
 gladly to the brighter scenes which greet the prophetic eye 
 when peace has converted your " swords into plough shares 
 and your spears into pruning hooks," and the transplanted 
 germ of American freedom shall begin to strike its roots 
 deep on the shores of the broad Pacific. Looked at in this 
 light, what scenes of duty and high responsibility arise be 
 fore the thoughtful mind. 'Tis then that I see in your 
 array a mission not of war but of peace and love like 
 unto some armed convoy of high benevolence freighted 
 with precious gifts from the wealthy East unto the forests 
 of the West a royal donation from the boisterous Atlan 
 tic unto her quiet ocean sister. In your departure ocean 
 speaks unto ocean and says, " Receive at my hand the gift 
 of civ ilization. That lamp of Science, Law and Religion, 
 which I myself received from the far East. I now, in turn, 
 hand over to the distant West. Freely I have received - 
 freely I give. Take the boon and hold it worthily." 
 
 But to speak without figure, who but must see in this 
 national transfer of American citizens from ocean to 
 ocean, a forward step taken (whether man intend it or 
 not) in that great Providential movement which from the 
 earliest times has sent the tide of civilization westward. 
 Thus looked at, you, my fellow-citizens, constituting the 
 California Regiment, are the living scion cut off from the 
 Parent American Stock, destined to engraft the Institutions 
 of the East on the wild plants of the West you are our 
 chosen carriers to introduce into less favored lands a 
 higher and purer Christian civilization. And now let no 
 man scorn this as an ideal picture, for if your armament 
 in its more peaceful objects will not bear this interpreta 
 tion, and if in its fulfilment it shall not reasonably carry 
 them out, God's blessing, be well assured, does not and 
 cannot rest upon it, for such is his blessed and unchanging 
 will, that even thus shall knowledge and virtue and fair 
 
.Religion circumnavigate the earth, through men who go 
 forth as you do bearing in your hands the seeds of a better 
 civilization. Whatever else your vocation, that is your pri 
 mary one, as God's children. Nor can man's neglect or 
 abuse wholly defeat it even out of evil God still educes 
 good, the sword of conquest is made to open His way, and 
 the deep laden barques of self-interest that rush in, are 
 still made to bear His gifts to destitute or savage lands 
 peace and the arts of life, order and law, science and its 
 teachers, the Missionary and the Gospel. Such is ever 
 the circuit of God's footsteps on the earth. Such, there 
 fore, must ever be the tracks of man's duty in following 
 it. Enlightened and Christian man is ever to be the 
 pioneer of a better civilization. 
 
 And now among the carriers of this better seed, what 
 race stands so prominent on earth as that of which we 
 Americans are on this Western Continent the Representa 
 tives a race that in the tide of time, since first called forth 
 on the theatre of the world's history, has never yet turned 
 back, whose course has ever been onward and upward, and 
 over whose destined Empire there would seem to hang no 
 other cloud than that which may arise from their own pos 
 sible unworthiness, should they be found to turn into base 
 gain or lust of dominion, a trust of power committed to 
 their hands for the Civilizing and Christianizing of the 
 earth. Then do I truly believe the abused talent will be 
 taken from them and given to others more worthy, and 
 when the spiritual light is quenched, that the candlestick 
 of power will be removed ; for what right have we to 
 claim exemption from that righteous fate which has with 
 drawn the gift of dominion from other chosen races, should 
 we like them prove unfaithful to the mission on which 
 we are sent. Let us then, as Americans, " not be high- 
 minded but fear " let us " be watchful and strengthen the 
 things that remain." 
 
6 
 
 To make void that curse of unworthiness is a responsibi 
 lity that rests in its due degree on all of Anglo-Saxon blood ; 
 but in a special degree, permit me to say, does it rest on 
 each member, high or low, of this California Regiment. 
 Never before has it, in my poor judgment, so rested on any 
 equal number of American citizens, for never before have 
 we as a nation thus colonized, and in the face of the civi 
 lized world put the stamp of our name and government and 
 land, on a new, distant and dubious settlement. We have 
 at least in this given a gage to the civilized world which 
 we are bound to redeem on peril of our honor. It be 
 hoves us all to remember that it is indeed a most high and 
 solemn act, one which the Christian world looks at in 
 doubt or fear, one, therefore, that shall hereafter take its 
 place m the world's history. The living germ of a new 
 State and a new Empire is as on this day to be solemnly 
 planted by American hands a living fountain as on this 
 day to be opened in the wilderness, whence coming gene 
 rations shall drink either sweet waters or bitter. Which 
 that shall be on you, I repeat it, mainly depends on 
 you, its founders, legislators, citizens, rulers on you offi 
 cers and men of this California Regiment. It is a respon 
 sibility that so rests upon you that you cannot shake it off. 
 
 Shall then your country permit you to depart laden 
 with such responsibilities, bearing forth as you do in the 
 face of the whole civilized world, her name and fame, the 
 credit of her Institutions, her moral training and her Re 
 ligious faith without one parting word of kindness or of 
 caution ? No, my friends ! Though it be but from lips 
 feeble as mine, yet as an anxious mother will your coun 
 try this day lay her hand on the head and her parting 
 charge on the heart and conscience of every son here pre 
 sent, who goes forth not to return. Even while I thus 
 speak do I see her, the venerable Genius of our Anglo- 
 Saxon land, the common mother of us all. I see her rise 
 
up, from this her watery throne where she sits embosom 
 ed amid the peaceful fleets of an unbounded commerce, 
 to bid you, her armed sons, farewell. I see her followed 
 in dim procession by a long train of patriots and heroes 
 and Christian men. Men who not only here but in older 
 lands have toiled and fought and bled, not for conquest but 
 for right ; not for license but for law, and that they might 
 build up for posterity that which we here enjoy, a fair 
 and (I trust) an enduring fabric of constitutional freedom. 
 In that long line may I not say I recognize conspicuous 
 the venerated form of Washington, the Father of our 
 country. He who built up our liberty on the foundation 
 of virtue and religion, and has left imprest on every Ameri 
 can heart the fairest portraiture the world ever saw of the 
 Christian soldier the hero, without stain and without re 
 proach. But higher yet do I recognize the Genius of our 
 Anglo-Saxon land. T see her form, I hear her words, and 
 mine, believe me, are their faithful echo. 
 
 " Go forth" she says, " my well armed sons the sword in 
 your hands, but peace in your hearts and justice in your 
 deeds. Go forth as Apostles from this my favored land to 
 teach and to bless those to which you go. Remember that 
 you bear a widely honored name. It has ever been a lin 
 eage of faith and virtue, of courage and gentleness, of peace 
 of order and of religion. Such has it been in the old 
 world, such in the heroic times of the new. Let not its 
 fair fame be tarnished or its Institutions defamed by unfil- 
 ial hands, or unworthy tongues. As you bear your 
 Country's ensign so, remember, do you, your Country's 
 honor. Let not the name of American Citizen ever re 
 ceive a blot through you. Let it not be said that with 
 Americans, might was the measure of right, or that gold 
 outweighed justice, or that the soldiers' sword made heavy 
 the scale of a vanquished enemy's ransom. Rather let that 
 name be known as one of blessing wherever it is heard 
 
8 
 
 even as that of a Teacher appointed of Heaven to instruc 
 the nations of the earth to exhibit to the world the living 
 proof how Liberty may dwell united with law, how indi 
 vidual freedom may stand linked together with Public or 
 der, and Christian faith in the nation walk hand in hand 
 with an unfettered private conscience. 
 
 Go forth then, my Children, and not only as citizens but 
 as men, remembering that you leave at home those whom 
 you will make to hold up or to hang their heads when in 
 future days your names and career are mentioned the Fa 
 ther, whose name you bear the Mother who nursed you 
 at her bosom the Sister with whom in early life you 
 played and who now dashes from her eye the parting tear, 
 in her blessed confidence that you, a brother and a son can 
 never forget those whom you early loved. In that sacred 
 confidence of Home affection do I too trust, that nothing 
 unworthy, nothing base, will ever be permitted to stain 
 your name or that of your country. I read it in your 
 looks I see it in your eye in that eye which even now 
 glistens when t Home ' is mentioned and which, in a far dis 
 tant clime, will daily turn to the picture of ' Home,' as 
 to a charm to guard alike your heart and life to fill the 
 one with pure and generous thoughts, the other, with 
 virtuous and noble deeds. 
 
 And that you may perform well all your parts, whether 
 as soldiers or Colonists, as Citizens, or as private men, go 
 forth as CHRISTIANS, and take the Blessed Book I now prof 
 fer to you, the gift of your Christian Country as the sum 
 and substance of her farewell. Take it as the best Charter 
 you can draft of your public liberties ; the surest safe 
 guard you can have of private virtue and the only endu 
 ring basis on which your Social Institutions can grow up. 
 Believe me. believe the voice of history, that Society 
 without Religion is a rope of sand, and government without 
 the fear of God is but tyranny under the name of law. 
 
Think not then lightly of this gift of a Bible, even as hu 
 man Legislators, for as no State can stand but upon Religion, 
 so no Christian State can stand but upon the Bible. It is 
 its LIFE, and losing that, even Empires sink into ruin, they 
 die and rot like things of earth. Take then this blessed 
 book in your hands, it contains the only Religion that can 
 stand inquiry, bind it closely to your hearts, it teaches the 
 only faith that can bring them comfort, and be assured that 
 the closer you do bind it to your hearts and lives and So 
 cial Institutions the greater will be the strength of your 
 new State as well as the more enduring its prosperity. It 
 will prove a safe-guard amid the perils of the wilder 
 ness, far beyond what man can give. Without its aid vain 
 will be your arms, when physical strength will be in 
 the governed ; vain your laws, for what will they be with 
 out reverence for the lawgiver ? vain your freedom without 
 virtue, to secure it, and very vain all attempts to build up a 
 people's virtue on any other foundation than that of the Re 
 ligion of the Bible, on reverence for that great unseen Law 
 giver whose eyes penetrate alike the wilderness and the hu 
 man heart, whose hand asks not the aid of human power, 
 and whosesecret justice keeps an account with man's con 
 science whether on the shores of the Pacific or of the Atlan 
 tic sea. To that inestimable gift I add another, next in my 
 love and as I think (viewed as a practical embodiment 
 of Bible teaching) in value, the Liturgy of the Church of 
 that land which is the home of our Anglo-Saxon race, the 
 home where our liberties were cradled, and our pure Re 
 ligion nursed, and whence our national blood has mainly 
 flowed. c Go forth then,' I say again, c my well armed Sons,' 
 confiding not so much in the arms you bear, as in the God 
 you serve, the faith you profess and the virtues you prac 
 tice. Look up in trust to that great and holy Being who 
 hath hitherto guided our race and nation as by a ( pillar of 
 cloud and fire,' and who will lead you, their Sons, as He 
 
10 
 
 led your Sires, if you prove worthy of them, to peaceful 
 homes, over a stormy ocean and through trackless forests. 
 Only follow as becomes your lineage the Anglo Saxon 
 footsteps, take Gods word for your guide and build up all 
 your Institutions, in His faith and fear. Let the banner of 
 Christ be planted, wherever you plant that of your 
 Country, and wheresoever you place your foot place too 
 God's house in the wilderness. THIS, even as a mother's 
 dying word, I charge upon your filial obedience. Build 
 early a temple to God's honor, dedicate it to a Saviour's 
 worship and from the rude log Church let daily prayers 
 ascend from consecrated lips to bring down a daily bles 
 sing on the still ruder log cabin." 
 
 Such words fellow-citizens, of parting caution seem I to 
 have heard from the lips of our common mother and as 
 such have I, however feebly, rehearsed them unto you. 
 God grant that true words may not prove fruitless through 
 the feebleness of him who speaks them. One thing gives 
 me hope. This day will be remembered by you in dis 
 tant lands not so much for what is said as what is given. 
 When oceans shall roll between and the words of the 
 Speaker be forgotten and the heart that prompted 
 them have long ceased to beat, still, shall this volume, 
 speak, and this day when they were given, be by you 
 freshly remembered. It may be, on the battle-field, in one 
 hurried but true thought of God and your Saviour ; it may 
 be on the bed of sickness, in the hour of penitence and 
 prayer ; I trust it will often be in the peaceful home of 
 the happy Emigrant, when your eye, my Brother, glan 
 cing on this book, shall bring back this day and this hour, 
 and this beauteous scene, and you will say to the dear ones 
 clustering around you. "Yes, I remember well the day when 
 this blessed volume was put into my hands, I thank God for 
 the gift. It has been my guide and counsel, my stay and 
 consolation in many a dark hour in the wilderness." 
 
n 
 
 Such, men and Brethren, fellow-soldiers and fellow-cit- 
 zens, but above all, FELLOW CHRISTIANS, such is the part 
 ing farewell, of one whose prayers will follow you, where 
 his words can no longer reach yon, and who prays now, 
 that the God and Saviour, whose he is, and whom he 
 serves, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will be your guide 
 and guard wherever you are, will bless, preserve and 
 keep you, now and forever. Amen. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 To each non-commissioned officer and soldier of the 
 Regiment, do I now present, in the name of the New- 
 York Bible Socieiy, by whose liberality it is furnished, a 
 copy of that Sacred Volume, together with an affection 
 ate and fervent prayer, that it may prove to each one 
 of you, the words of Eternal Life .Guard it carefully, read 
 it faithfully, and may God's blessing be with you in the 
 daily perusal of it. -. 
 
 I am also commisioned, to 'present to each soldier 
 desiring it, as a manual of devotion, both of public and 
 private use, a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, on 
 the part of the Bible and Common Prayer Book Society 
 of New- York, the Bishop White Prayer Book Society of 
 Philadelphia and several private contributors. 
 
 I am also enabled to present to the Regiment, on the 
 part of many donors.* (a list of whom is herewith an 
 nexed,) three small libraries, apportioned to the three 
 ships of the command, with a view to their re-union in 
 your future settlement, as the foundation of a Colonial 
 library. However small the collection, it will serve at 
 least to strengthen the ties of home, and to remind you, that 
 
 * American Tract Society, New York Protestant Episcopal 
 Tract Society, Sunday School Union, D. Apoleton & Co., 
 Mark W. Newman, Henry M. Onderdonk & Co., Wiley &. 
 Putnam, Saxton & Miles, Rev. Joseph Salkeld,Dr. Greenhow, of 
 Washington; Stanford & Swords,- Harper & Brothers. 
 
12 
 
 your country still holds you in affectionate remembrance* 
 To Lieut. Col. Henry S. Burton and Major James JL. 
 Hardy: To you, Gentlemen, as vested with a distinct 
 Command in your respective vessels, I have the honor 
 to present, on the part of the same Societies a copy of the 
 Bible and Prayer Book, inscribed with your names and 
 official Rank, with a view to facilitate the Services of Putn 
 lie Worship, on ship board. Receive themj as a parting 
 gift, from a Country that knows your worth and thorough 
 military training. Receive them, as the parting gift 
 of a friend, who is well assured that you value them 
 aright, and will so use them as to make them a blessing 
 to yourselves, and those under your Command. 
 
 To Col. J. D. Stevenson : To you, Sir, as the Colonel 
 of the Regiment, Leader of the Expedition and probable 
 Ruler of the new Colony, I have also the honor to present an 
 engraved Bible, on the part of the New York Bible Society, 
 and on the part of the N. Y. Bible and Common Prayer 
 Book Society, a Book of Common Prayer, similarly inscri 
 bed, with your name and rank. Receive them in expres 
 sion of the deep sympathy felt by this Christian land, in 
 the religious welfare of yourself and Command, and of their 
 equally deep conviction that you will find in them the surest 
 aids to discipline, as well as the wisest guidance to those 
 who gcvern. It is the closing prayer of one who yields 
 to no man here present, in the deep interest that he feels, 
 that this Expedition, shall be one of honorable and prosper 
 ous issue the prayer of one, who is alike your friend and 
 servant, it is his prayer that your path of duty may ever be 
 open and your course in it ever blest, as blest it doubtless will 
 be, so long as guided by the precepts and principles these vol 
 umes teach, of justice and piety, of purity and peace. 
 
 On the part, and in the name of our Common Country, 
 do I now, bid to you, and those under your command, an 
 affectionate and respectful FAREWELL.