HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

[497] as far as there can be, an end to the blasting power of ignorance and the damning power of sin; that the fires of intemperance, and the injustice of slavery, and the crime of war, may be no more seen; that all superstition, polytheism, and idolatry, all violations of the eternal right, and all the bitterness of sectarian zeal, may have passed to their graves for ever. In one word, we hope and pray, that, as your turn shall come to act and suffer the allotments of humanity, there may not be on earth one rational being who does not cheerfully acknowledge the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

To you, we must seem among the ancients; and you may wonder how we looked, felt, and acted. The laws of Nature do not change and your organs will obey them as do ours. You look at the light blue of the sky, or the dark blue of the ocean ; at the green grass of summer, or the yellow leaf of autumn; at the brightness of Orion, or the mountains of the moon; at the changing hues of sunset, or the bursting splendors of the aurora; on the innocent gambols of a child, or the sweet smile of a parent; on the deep sorrow of misfortune, or the marble face of death. You look at these; and, let us tell you, they all appeared to us exactly as they do to you.

In the woods, you hear their feathered minstrelsy; and, in the bower, the advertising cricket. At Niagara, you hear the heavy tones of its pouring; and, on the rocky Atlantic shore, the thunder of the sea. In the angry debate, you hear the sharp voice of passion ; and, in the family circle, the sweet song of love. And, be assured, these sounds, so well known to you, were as well known to us. To you, the fragrance of the rose and the miasma of the fen, the sweet of honey and the bitter of wormwood, the touch of fire and the feeling of ice, are probably the very same which we have experienced. Each of our senses has carried its report to the brain by that faithful electricity of the nerves in which you now rejoice.

Your minds, too, though enriched by superior cultivation, have attributes in common with ours. You delight to read the poems of Homer and Virgil, and repeat the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero ; you sometimes tire amid the sublimities of Milton, and love to see man and Nature lay their treasures at Shakspeare's feet. And here let us say, that your classic approbation and noble fire do not probably differ much from ours.