The Nation commenced. passing so signally over Europe impressed its character on this continent. Twenty-five years after New Amsterdam had been submitted to the English, at least two hundred thousand Europeans are computed to have had their home in this country, representing, for the most part, the several peoples which I have named. The future Nation was then fully commenced. It had only thenceforth to work, and grow. It was formed of plain people. Its wealth was small, and its culture not great. It had been hardly noticed, at first, amid the swift changes of states and dynasties with which Europe was dazzled. But the forces which it contained represented an illustrious ancestry. It is no exaggeration to say that the most energetic life of the world, up to that era, was reproduced in it. We have thought of it, too commonly, as composed of men who had simply come here in zeal for an opinion, or to escape the fierce inquest of tyranny. It was a broader temper which brought them, an ampler purpose which they came to serve. The push of a century was behind them; eager, aggressive, sweeping out to new conquests on unknown coasts. It had seen such changes in Northern Europe as only its vehement energy could have wrought; and now, with seemingly careless hand, using the impulse of various motives, it had flung into space a separate people, infused with its temper, alive with its force, In its constituent moral life, that people was one, though gradually formed, and drawn from regions so remote. It was fearless, reflective, energetic, constructive, by its birthright; at once industrious and martial; intensely practical, politically active, religiously free. There was, almost, a monotony of force in it. It accepted no hereditary leaders, and kept those whom it elected within careful limitations. It gave small promise of esthetic sensibility, with the dainty touch of artistic taste; but it showed from the outset a swift and far-sighted common-sense. It was vital with expectation; having the strongest ancestral attachments, yet attracted by the Future more than by the Past, and always looking to new success and larger work. It was hospitable, of course, to all new comers, giving reception in New England, as well as here, to even the Jesuit and his mass; * but it absorbed only what harmonized with it, was indifferent to the rest. It was sensible of God, and His providence over it; but entirely aware of the value of possessions, and profoundly resolved to have the power which they impart. It was the heir to a great Past. It had before it the perilous uncertainties of an obscure Future. But any philosopher, considering it at that point, with a mind as intent and reflective as Burke's, would have said, I think, without hesitation, that its Future must respond to the long preparation; that the times before it must match the times out of which it had come, and take impress from the lands whose tongues and temper it combined. If that strong stock, selected from so * See Parkman's "Jesuits of North America," pp. 322–327. The Training of the Nation. many peoples, and transferred to this continent at that critical time, was not destined thenceforth to grow, till the little one became a thousand, and the small one a strong nation, there is no province for anticipation in public affairs, and "the philosophy of history" is a phrase without meaning. The after-training which met it here was precisely such, you instantly observe, as befitted its origin, and carried on the development which was prophesied in its nature. It was an austere, protracted training; not beautiful, but beneficent; of labor, patience, legislation, war. As the colonies had been planted according to the wise maxim of Bacon—" the people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, laborers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers," * so they were trained for practical service, for long endurance, for the arts of industry not of beauty, for ultimate oneness as a Nation, and a powerful impression upon mankind. Incessant labor was their primary teacher; universal in its demands, in effect most salutary. If they had been idle men, supplied with abundant resources from abroad, a something mystical and dark would have penetrated their spirit, from the pathless forests which stretched around, from the lonely seas which lay behind, from the fierceness of the elements, from their sense of dislocation from all familiar historic lands. * Essay xxxiii.; "of Plantations.” There was, in fact, something of this. Certain passages in their history, certain parts of their writings, are only explained by it. It would have been general, and have wrought a sure public decline, except for the constant corrective of their labor. They would have seen, oftener than they did, phantom armies fighting in the clouds, fateful omens in aurora and comet.* The dread of witchcraft, still prevalent in the old world, would more widely have fevered their minds. The voice of demons would have oftener been heard, in the howl of wolves, or the winds wailing among the pines. But the sweat of their brows medicined their minds. The work which was set for them was too difficult and vast to allow such tendencies to get domination. A continent was before them to be subdued, and with few and poor instruments. With axe and hoe, mattock and plough, they were to conquer an unde fined wilderness, untouched, till then, by civilized industry; with no land behind to which to retreat, with only the ocean and the sand-hills in the rear. It was a tremendous undertaking; greater than any The Aurora Borealis, the beauty of the northern sky, which is now gazed upon with so much delight, was seen for the first time in New England in 1721, and filled the inhabitants with alarm. Superstition beheld with terror its scarlet hues, and transformed its waving folds of light, moving like banners along the sky, into harbingers of coming judgment, and omens of impending havoc. Under its brilliant reflection, the snow, the trees, and every object, seemed to be dyed with blood, and glowed like fire." Barstow's Hist. of New Hampshire, chap. vii. The Continent to be subdued. infant people had ever encountered; greater, fortunately, than they themselves knew at the time. Plutarch tells us that Stasicrates once proposed to Alexander to have Mount Athos carved into a statue of himself; a copious river flowing from one hand, and a city of thousands of people in the other; the Ægean archipelago stretching outward from the feet. Even the ambition which decreed Alexandria, and made Asia its vassal, might have pleased itself with a fancy so colossal. But it was trifling, compared with the work which the colonists of this country were called to take up; as a Macedonian bay, compared with the ocean on which their rugged continent looked. Upon that continent they were to impress the likeness of themselves. What Europe had only partially realized, after its centuries of advancing civilization, they and their children were suddenly to repeat, fashioning the wilderness to the home of commonwealths. The strain of the work was prodigious and unceasing. No wonder that the applications of science have always had a charm for Americans! No wonder that impossible" has ever since seemed here a foolish word! But the muscle which was built, in both body and will, was as tough and tenacious as the work was enormous. They had to secure,-by invention, where English policy permitted, by purchase, where it did not,-whatever they needed for the comfort of life, and whatever means of culture they possessed. Their fisheries were |