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and I act and speak; and neither in my history or my observation do I find unmitigated wrong in the Church of Rome. Indeed I find her in all time, the representative of much that is of the most civilizing and salutary influence on the highest purposes and duties of life. She has often given the loftiest expression and the most energetic forms to the most exalted tendencies of human nature; and under her teachings, too, some of the holiest virtues have attained their most exquisite aspect of loveliness, the purest, tenderest, most graceful developments of the heart and mind. Her subtlety and ferocity have dealt with the sterner faculties of man. Her grace and tenderness have often times smoothed away these harsher asperities. In our own country the Roman Church has yielded promptly to the glorious Americanism of free conscience and free worhsip. The Roman Catholic State of Maryland was perhaps the first to graft it on her Constitution. Then, in what I have said and shall say, I speak of Papal Rome, which has always penetrated the despotisms of Continental Europe, but falls harmless before the shield of American freedom.

To resume. Even amid this turmoil of which I have spoken, amid the rude blasts of war, or beneath the poisonous breath of Papal debauchery, amid rivers of blood, or steeped in an atmosphere loaded with the pestilential vapors of the "Campagna," the lambent flame on the altar of the apostolic Anglo-Saxon Church, flickered it may be, but lived and lighted and warmed the cloistered recesses of Oxford and Cambridge. There, true christianity, tended by her chaste and veiled handmaids, divine philosophy and diviner liberty, sat in patient hope gazing on the wild tumult without, waiting for her votaries to return. And soon the ashes of Wickliffe fell upon her altar, and the seed of the Reformation shot forth at her feet; a Franciscan Monk, leaving his howling on the waste mountain side, came as a little child, and with the magic wand of ancient thought, laid before her some of nature's most hidden secrets, and again soon, the descendants of Alfred brought banners on which were written a monarch's oath sworn at Runymede, beneath the frown and uplifted sword of young Liberty, and she knew her triple offspring again.

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I dare not detain you with the historical detail which, with feeble ray, but still with unquestioned directness, comes down to us and tells us how steadily, how unswervingly, the English Church blended with its divinest mission the pursuits of knowledge and the largest expansion of civil liberty. All through the dreary, frightful waste and desert of the centuries from the Norman Conquest to the perfect establishment of the Reformation, I could walk with you along the pleasant banks of a little silver current of pure Christianity, hidden at times beneath brambles and thorns, and sometimes almost lost in a fearful morass, but at intervals emerging and glimmering in the bright sun, and fertilizing its borders to grow some sweet flower of poesy, or washing in its limpid water the ooze of time from a precious crystal of philosophy, or passing along the root, which it waters, of some sturdy ever enduring oak of human right, or cotching in its fall some daring human hope, and bearing it along, even down to us, here to-day, its universal beneficiaries.

Leave me with the solemn, deep-shaded cloisters of august old Magdalen, and turning away from the resounding echo of the vaulted corridors, pass over that little grass plot which Chaucer watered, and that flower bed which Cranmer and Sidney, and Milton and Hampden cultured, and through the casement beyond, see the bright moonlight sparkling on the Thames. There is a tradition I have heard, but know not where, that the brightest fountain of the Thames rises beneath that grass plot in the yard of old Magdalen College. But just where this little stream, out of Oxford, meets the River, a bark is moored with magic powers. In holy confidence take your place; I know its destination. It glides away and meets a coming tide, and rises, and swells and strengthens, and gathers rich freight as it sweeps through the heart of England, until rushing onward to the great ocean, it sails away beyond the far Atlantic, to these farthest shores, and pours out here its freightage, and we have come to-day to garner it up and diffuse it in richest charity over this land of ours. It was contemporaneous with this long struggling dawn of light in England, I have indicated that science and art

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and poetry, cherished by the wealth and taste of Venice, Florence and Genoa, cast a warmer glow and roseate hue over the blue skies of Italy.

Even beneath the withering hand of a vagabond popedom, Petrarch sung his undying love, and Rome's gentler superstitions taught Rafaelle to abandon the misty and rigid forms of Gothic rule, and give human shape to divine essences; Rome's sins made Dante tell his terrific ecstacies, and Rome's iron heeled tyrannies crushed from the great heart of Cola de Rienzi a shriek which startled the sluggish ears of Europe as if it were the echo of Brutus' voice crying, "Justice, liberty, Rome again is free." It was then, too, that Padua and Bologna and Pavia, rebelling against the mental despotism of the Church, broke through the "reluctant shades of Gothic night," and with the immortal thought of Greece and Rome, and sent its beams even to the rude coasts of Britain, then "Earth's loneliest bounds and ocean's wildest shores." Then, too, a flimsy scholasticism was fading before a more vigorous and profound comprehension of the old philosophies. Men began to comprehend that Plato and Aristotle had indicated the true pathway up to the holy precincts of Christianity, and that with them we might approach its portals, and still standing beneath, look up to the Angel of Faith, "on whose brow the light of the world was beaming," ready to open to all who would ask for entrance in her name. This was in the most intimate accordance with the spirit which had preserved the English Church through so many ages and troubles. It was the right seed for the English heart and mind. It grew apace and heavenward until its genial foliage overspread the land, and the thistles and noxious weeds of Rome, and the scentless blossoms of formal philosophy, withered beneath it.

The invention of the mariner's compass, the extension of geographical knowledge, came in happy coincidence to aid in the glorious work of intellectual emanicipation and religious and political advancement. But far above these extraneous impulses--far above all the devices of man, or human chances--Christianity, in all its glorious attributes of angelic beauty and Divine power--Christianity, God's essence--stooped from His throne to bear

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upward the still feeble and drooping wing of human learning. She bade man gaze around and beneath him at the realms of nature, inward on his own heart, and upward to the realm where Hope and Faith claim their everlasting home.

Christianity is not learning--Christianity is not knowlledge--Christianity is not philosophy--Christianity is the sublime faith of the eternal soul--and without it, neither learning, nor science, nor philosophy, nor liberty, can bear that fruitage which nourisheth the heart of man; but rather that which withereth away into bitter ashes. Pure and undefiled, this Divine essence hovered around the English Church and the English Universities--and driving away the fading shadows of antiquity, and lopping off the lifeless forms of Rome, bade the Church gather her strength from all human learning, and arming her with the panoply of Divine truth, and planting her forever on England's regenerating soil, she scatters her true children over the earth--and to-day, from India's remotest bounds, they are outstretching their pious hands to ask her blessing, and we here, beneath this free sky--ourselves as free--are raising our prayerful voices, and crying--All hail, our mother! (Great applause.)

It was, then, the revivial of ancient learning and thought, under the revealed tutelage of Christianity, which caused the final disruption from Rome, and produced that Reformation which has advanced human society to its present condition, and is, age by age, advancing it to man's highest capacities. The ashes of Huss were scattered on the Rhine, and a Council of Constance had exhumed and desecrated the bones of Wyckliffe--and yet, in less than a century, the voice of Luther was thundering at the Vatican--and again, in less than another century, Bacon had gathered all human knowledge, and traversed the realms of nature, even to the very verge of that domain, where the Eternal and Invisible dwelleth in "unapproached light"-and the pilgrim fathers were standing on Plymouth Rock--and again the English Protestant Church knew her triple offspring.

The assumption is indisputable, that the Reformation

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in England--the most illustrious triumph of virtue which history records--was caused by the advance of the people in religious knowledge, and the consequent necessity of religious freedom. Men, then, first began to refer their sentiments and principles, not to human arbitrament, but to God in his revealed law, and to their own consciences. The consequence was, that the popular heart, freed from degrading and palsying despotism, rose to the heroic courage of proclaiming and acting on the principles of truth and justice. And secondly, the advance of speculative learning and science aided largely to unveil the craft and mysticism which had ruled the earth, in demanding ampler bounds for the reach of thought--and, as a consequence to this, men began to understand, to desire, and to feel the necessity of civil freedom. To obtain this, the State must be freed from the domination of a foreign and false tyranny, and the people to be set free to seek the truth--In a word, to use the language of an eminent historian, "Protestanism was the refusal of men to live any longer in a general lie." (Applause.)

The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity bound the Church of England to the Constitution of the State, and made it a party to the maintenance of civil right, subordinate to, and dependent on, the State--not as before, the ruler of the State, and the arbiter of the conscience of the citizen. By this arrangement, the subsequent divisions of the Church never impeded the steady onward development of true religion--and I almost dare venture to say, gave impetus to the principles of liberty and the culture of learning. The Bishop of Ely may have overcame John Knox, at Frankfort; and Elizabeth may have, in her youth, favored Luther, while her clergy were fraternizing at Geneva; but Oxford and Cambridge continued to send forth on missions of knowledge, liberty and religion, such men as Ridley, Latimer, Tyndal, Hooper, Coverdale, and scores of others. Indeed, it was the ardent zeal for a perfect reformation which caused the different sects of Protestants. Earnest, but calm men, endeavored to prevent the too sudden and cruel disruption of all old forms, satisfied with the excision of the great grievance. Others equally sincere, but

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more stern and violent, demanded the utter and instant demolition of the doctrines, and of all forms and symbols of Romanism. The parties were nearly balanced, and in the early years of Elizabeth's reign a mere chance prevented the utter abrogation of all the forms and ceremonies of worship. A majority of the people were still much inclined to the sacred follies of Romanism; and, therefore, while over-zealous Reformers demanded the abandonment of all formularies, more moderate churchmen, and cautious statesmen, sought for soothing compromises. Both parties became irritated, and both fell into errors--the State moderates, by insisting on the retention of frivolous usages and ridiculous symbols--the Puritans, in seeking violently and relentlessly to persecute all who retained the slightest seeming of Romanism.

It will not aid our purpose or our argument to recall the thousand irritations which arose in that excited state of the hearts and minds of men, and which, finally, and most unhappily, produced those dissensions which still exist, and which all good men are continually praying may be healed, and for the healing of which we are this day convoked hither by these good men. Here, we are all Conformists in the worship of Jesus Christ the Son of God. We are all Conformists in the cause of civil liberty. We are all Conformists--on one mind--of one heart--of one soul--in our deep determination to preserve, expand and perpetuate this liberty, by sending wide over this dear land ou ours, the knowledge, the learning, and the virtue, whose temples we are this day founding on this soil. It matters not to the true EnglishAmerican Protestant--whether Puritan or Conformist-Presbyterian or Episcopalian--or in what costume or posture he worships--or what air he breathes--or what land he claims--he is evermore busy in his mission of diffusing knowledge and maintaining liberty.

It is true the various sects of Protestants were at times in deadly strife, persecuting, slandering, murdering each other, often with beast-like fury; but all were seeking light and liberty. Cranmer's Bible was chained to the pillar of the parish church, because it was too expensive to multiply it. The people crowded and thronged and fought to read it. Indeed, a guard was

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necessary to prevent the people from killing each other in their mad eagerness to read the Gospel of Peace. Twenty Bishops of the Church met the Puritans Reynolds, Sparks, Chatterton, and others, and out of their otherwise unhappy conference there arose the detemination which led to the translation of the Bible as we now have it. While the fires of Smithfield were reeking with the holiest blood of England--while Cranmer the aged, thrust first into the flame his recanting right hand --while Latimer stooped to gather the flame in his hand, that he might bathe his head, as if baptizing himself with it, and Ridley was roasting in front of Oxford--within its walls their spirits and their learning were still living and carrying on the work for which they died. Indeed, it was during this terrible century that Oxford received the foundations of eight schools, and Cambridge six, and that the Universities of Aberdeen and Dublin were established.

It was, too, at this period that the English language attained its utmost power of expression--indeed, I dare think, its acme of perfection--beyond which it has not passed, and may not. Take Ascham and More, Sidney, Surrey, Ridley, Sackville, and a host of others, and never since, not even in the direct continuity of the next century, has the true metal of the English language been made to ring with clearer tones. The grand simplicity of Ascham and Hooker, which has not been excelled, and the sweet rhythm of Surrey and Wyatt, breathing Italian airs, and the glorious incarnation of allegory woven by Spenser, were heard in those tumultuous days. And then, too, were heard the first low, sweet warblings--the nest-notes--of that voice whose majestic harmony in the next century swept over all the wide regions of the human soul, and still holds them in entranced subjection. These were some of the grand accompaniments with which our liberties were marshaled onward--these were the royal heralds to that imperial century which succeeded. (Applause.)

The revival of learning, the invention of printing, the invention of the mariner's compass, the discovery of America, the Reformation, and other causes, like concurrent winds, had lashed the torpid sea of life into a

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wild, tumultuous rage, which lasted near a centruy. In this storm men lost all reckonings; Religions, philosophies and governments were all in wild confusion; until near the beginning of the 17th century the storm began to abate and the waves to subside, and the various sects of religions, philosophies and governments each began to calculate their proper bearings, and each in its channel to work for access to some haven.

It was then that man's intellect and moral sense began to be substituted for the rule of his passions and his muscle. In England, the years from 1590 to 1690 gave birth to more developments of all which sends men forward in the career of true progress, than all the centuries, save one, since he has been the subject of history. Turn a leaf and take one minute's glance at the grand record:

1. Protestanism, by the adoption and accession of James 1st, was secured as a contsitutional necessity, Romanism becoming a political impossibility.

2. The Commons, the people of England, became the first estate of the Realm by this sublime decree, "The Commons of England, in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation."

3. Ministerial Governments became as settled a principle as the provisons of "Magna Charta," and was sealed by the blood of a King.

4. The establishment of appeals, the abolition of feudal tenures, the habeas corpus act, and the final triumph of the highest forms of Religious and Civil Liberty which have ever existed in Europe, by the Revolution of 1688; and lastly, science and literature blazed forth with a brilliancy which pales the ages of Pericles and Augustus. Oh, how I could revel with you in recalling with you the mighty things that were done and written in that age. What enlightened, what educated man, what patriot, what Christian, who is here to prove his claims by aiding this day's work, who will not admit that he owes the far greater portion of all these attributes to the development of the 17th century.

The old Egyptians planted at intervals along the course of the Nile lofty marble pillars, which rose above

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the rise of the river, and far above the muddy deposit. These pillars indicated the height of the water, the depth of the fertilizing deposit, and the true channel of the river, and above these marks were engraved maxims of wisdom for the instruction of those who navigated the river and cultivated the fields. Thus, with the great names which illustrate the 17th century, which mark the swelling tide of human thought as it rose, threatening destruction to all existing institutions, which measure the prolific fertility that comes of the subsiding flood, which record in marble letters the maxims of all wisdom, and lift the souls of men from the mere earth up to their kindred commerce with the skies. Cut but a half dozen names from the vast calendar, and say where is the record so full of human intellect and man's right progress. Take Shakspeare and Bacon, Milton and Newton, Cromwell and William of Orange, and those who thought and fought and worked with them, and you have a picture which the hand of Time has yet to parallel.

And while Protestanism was working thus in England, the same spirit was opening up this new land by like influences, step by step, to the same and grander results. For while in England there was a pause from the sublime grandeur of the 17th to the fantastic frippery and slugish effetism of the 18th century--while England felt the retrogressive wave from the continent, with its slimy crest of infidelity and materialism--the deepheaving oceanic current moved on with all its majestic power along these new shores of ours. That same century which raised its curtain on a drivelling dramatic charlatan, in bitter irony called the Grand Monarque, and let it fall on a tableau in which a flaunting vagrant of Paris impersonated the Goddess of Liberty, whose intermediate acts were played by Bolingbrokes and Walpoles, Voltaires and Rousseaus, in America gave birth to a Washington, a Franklin, and a Liberty undreamed of in the old or new days.

But even in that era of folly and infidelity--of debauchery and madness--there was one--if not more than one--bright and glorious exception which comes to sustain the sequences of our assumptions--and were it

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for the good of mankind, as some have thought, that the 18th century of European history should be blotted out, the angel who records the good gifts of God to men would write over the dreary blank the name of John Wesley--and perhaps some grateful American, or some Englishman freed from the blasphemy and stupid folly of the divinity of kings, might not be blamed, if beneath it he wrote the names of Chatham and Burke; but neither the Christian, the freeman, or the scholar, would mourn without comfort for the loss.

My countrymen, need I trace farther to you, or with more minute specification, the abiding communion of all our religious, civil and social principles, with the advance and diffusion of liberal knowledge? Do you not feel it in every impulse of your own hearts and minds? This unceasing--almost torturing--desire and longing to know, to have, and to give, is your very nature--the very being of your active life. You cannot--you dare not attempt to resist its requisitions.

For furthering my argument with you, Americans, I need not enter upon the details of that intimate communion which exists among all the Protestant Churches of America, in advancing the cause of learning, and the practical purposes of all knowledge--the freedom and happiness and moral exaltation of the people. As I have said, while from 1600 to 1776, from the Protestant freedom of England, to the universal freedom of America-from Bacon, who taught mankind to think, to Washington, who taught mankind to act--England was at times blazing with true, and at other times paling with false, letters and philosophy, we were constantly imbibing her virtues, and almost escaping her impurities. When Charles' falsehood triumphed, the Puritan came here and built his church, his hall of justice, and his school. When Cromwell became more cruel than his victim, the Cavalier fled, leaving his wealth, but bringing his courage, his religion, his love of letters, and his independence. Here they dwelt together in peace, and with one purpose. And after their political separation from England--a conjoined triumph of virtue and patriotism equal to that of the Reformation, and of civil exaltation