Harriet Beecher Stowe on Thanksgiving

Extracted from: Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know, by Various, Edited by Asa Don Dickinson Published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for THE PARENTS' INSTITUTE, INC.
Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine" 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, 1915,

HOW WE KEPT THANKSGIVING AT OLDTOWNBy Harriet Beecher Stowe.
The old-time New England Thanksgiving has been described many times, but never better then by the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in her less successful but more artistic novel, "Oldtown Folks," from which book the following narrative has been adapted.

When the apples were all gathered and the cider was all made, and the yellow pumpkins were rolled in from many a hill in billows of gold, and the corn was husked, and the labours of the season were done, and the warm, late days of Indian summer came in, dreamy and calm and still, with just frost enough to crisp the ground of a morning, but with warm trances of benignant, sunny hours at noon, there came over the community a sort of genial repose of spirit—a sense of something accomplished, and of a new golden mark made in advance on the calendar of life—and the deacon began to say to the minister, of a Sunday, "I suppose it's about time for the Thanksgiving proclamation."



Conversation at this time began to turn on high and solemn culinary mysteries and receipts of wondrous power and virtue. New modes of elaborating squash pies and quince tarts were now ofttimes carefully discussed at the evening firesides by Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and notes seriously compared with the experiences of certain other aunties of high repute in such matters. I noticed that on these occasions their voices often fell into mysterious whispers, and that receipts of especial power and sanctity were communicated in tones so low as entirely to escape the vulgar ear. I still remember the solemn shake of the head with which my Aunt Lois conveyed to Miss Mehitable Rossiter the critical properties of mace, in relation to its powers of producing in corn fritters a suggestive resemblance to oysters. As ours was an oyster-getting district, and as that charming bivalve was perfectly easy to come at, the interest of such an imitation can be accounted for only by the fondness of the human mind for works of art.

For as much as a week beforehand, "we children" were employed in chopping mince for pies to a most wearisome fineness, and in pounding cinnamon, all-spice, and cloves in a great lignum-vitæ mortar; and the sound of this pounding and chopping reëchoed through all the rafters of the old house with a hearty and vigorous cheer most refreshing to our spirits.

In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the labours of housekeeping which have since arisen—no ground and prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came into our hands in the rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was deemed one of the appropriate labours of childhood. Even the very salt that we used in cooking was rock salt, which we were required to wash and dry and pound and sift before it became fit for use.

At other times of the year we sometimes murmured at these labours, but those that were supposed to usher in the great Thanksgiving festival were always entered into with enthusiasm. There were signs of richness all around us—stoning of raisins, cutting of citron, slicing of candied orange peel. Yet all these were only dawnings and intimations of what was coming during the week of real preparation, after the Governor's proclamation had been read.

The glories of that proclamation! We knew beforehand the Sunday it was to be read, and walked to church with alacrity, filled with gorgeous and vague expectations.

The cheering anticipation sustained us through what seemed to us the long waste of the sermon and prayers; and when at last the auspicious moment approached—when the last quaver of the last hymn had died out—the whole house rippled with a general movement of complacency, and a satisfied smile of pleased expectation might be seen gleaming on the faces of all the young people, like a ray of sunshine through a garden of flowers.

Thanksgiving now was dawning! We children poked one another, and fairly giggled with unreproved delight as we listened to the crackle of the slowly unfolding document. That great sheet of paper impressed us as something supernatural, by reason of its mighty size and by the broad seal of the State affixed thereto; and when the minister read therefrom, "By his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a Proclamation," our mirth was with difficulty repressed by admonitory glances from our sympathetic elders. Then, after a solemn enumeration of the benefits which the Commonwealth had that year received at the hands of Divine Providence, came at last the naming of the eventful day, and, at the end of all, the imposing heraldic words, "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." And then, as the congregation broke up and dispersed, all went their several ways with schemes of mirth and feasting in their heads.

And now came on the week in earnest. In the very watches of the night preceding Monday morning a preternatural stir below stairs and the thunder of the pounding barrel announced that the washing was to be got out of the way before daylight, so as to give "ample scope and room enough" for the more pleasing duties of the season.

The making of pies at this period assumed vast proportions that verged upon the sublime. Pies were made by forties and fifties and hundreds, and made of everything on the earth and under the earth.

The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil, forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of genera and species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies, Marlborough-pudding pies—pies with top crusts and pies without—pies adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given direction.

Fancy the heat and vigour of the great pan formation, when Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah, and my mother and grandmother, all in ecstasies of creative inspiration, ran, bustled, and hurried—mixing, rolling, tasting, consulting—alternately setting us children to work when anything could be made of us, and then chasing us all out of the kitchen when our misinformed childhood ventured to take too many liberties with sacred mysteries. Then out we would all fly at the kitchen door, like sparks from a blacksmith's window.

On these occasions, as there was a great looseness in the police department over us children, we usually found a ready refuge at Miss Mehitable's with Tina, who, confident of the strength of her position with Polly, invited us into the kitchen, and with the air of a mistress led us around to view the proceedings there.

A genius for entertaining was one of Tina's principal characteristics; and she did not fail to make free with raisins, or citrons, or whatever came to hand, in a spirit of hospitality at which Polly seriously demurred. That worthy woman occasionally felt the inconvenience of the state of subjugation to which the little elf had somehow or other reduced her, and sometimes rattled her chains fiercely, scolding with a vigour which rather alarmed us, but which Tina minded not a whit. Confident of her own powers, she would, in the very midst of her wrath, mimic her to her face with such irresistible drollery as to cause the torrent of reproof to end in a dissonant laugh, accompanied by a submissive cry for quarter.

"I declare, Tina Percival," she said to her one day, "you're saucy enough to physic a horn bug! I never did see the beater of you! If Miss Mehitable don't keep you in better order, I don't see what's to become of any of us!"

"Why, what did 'come of you before I came?" was the undismayed reply. "You know, Polly, you and Aunty both were just as lonesome as you could be till I came here, and you never had such pleasant times in your life as you've had since I've been here. You're a couple of old beauties, both of you, and know just how[92] to get along with me. But come, boys, let's take our raisins and go up into the garret and play Thanksgiving."

In the corner of the great kitchen, during all these days, the jolly old oven roared and crackled in great volcanic billows of flame, snapping and gurgling as if the old fellow entered with joyful sympathy into the frolic of the hour; and then, his great heart being once warmed up, he brooded over successive generations of pies and cakes, which went in raw and came out cooked, till butteries and dressers and shelves and pantries were literally crowded with a jostling abundance.

A great cold northern chamber, where the sun never shone, and where in winter the snow sifted in at the window cracks, and ice and frost reigned with undisputed sway, was fitted up to be the storehouse of these surplus treasures. There, frozen solid, and thus well preserved in their icy fetters, they formed a great repository for all the winter months; and the pies baked at Thanksgiving often came out fresh and good with the violets of April.

During this eventful preparation week all the female part of my grandmother's household, as I have before remarked, were at a height above any ordinary state of mind; they moved about the house rapt in a species of prophetic frenzy. It seemed to be considered a necessary feature of such festivals that everybody should be in a hurry, and everything in the house should be turned bottom upwards with enthusiasm—so at least we children understood it, and we certainly did our part to keep the ball rolling.

At this period the constitutional activity of Uncle Fliakim increased to a degree that might fairly be called preternatural. Thanksgiving time was the time for errands of mercy and beneficence through the country; and Uncle Fliakim's immortal old rubber horse and rattling wagon were on the full jump in tours of investigation into everybody's affairs in the region around. On returning, he would fly through our kitchen like the wind, leaving open the doors, upsetting whatever came in his way—now a pan of milk, and now a basin of mince—talking rapidly, and forgetting only the point in every case that gave it significance, or enabled any one to put it to any sort of use. When Aunt Lois checked his benevolent effusions by putting the test questions of practical efficiency, Uncle Fliakim always remembered that he'd "forgotten to inquire about that," and skipping through the kitchen, and springing into his old wagon, would rattle off again on a full tilt to correct and amend his investigations.

Moreover, my grandmother's kitchen at this time began to be haunted by those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in my grandmother's kitchen.

The great hogshead of cider in the cellar, which my grandfather called the Indian hogshead, was on tap at all hours of the day; and many a mugful did I draw and dispense to the tribes that basked in the sunshine at our door.

Aunt Lois never had a hearty conviction of the propriety of these arrangements; but my grandmother, who had a prodigious verbal memory, bore down upon her with such strings of quotations from the Old Testament that she was utterly routed.

"Now," says my Aunt Lois, "I s'pose we've got to have Betty Poganut and Sally Wonsamug, and old Obscue and his wife, and the whole tribe down, roosting around our doors till we give 'em something. That's just mother's way; she always keeps a whole generation at her heels."

"How many times must I tell you, Lois, to read your Bible?" was my grandmother's rejoinder; and loud over the sound of pounding and chopping in the kitchen could be heard the voice of her quotations: "If there be among you a poor man in any of the gates of the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand, from thy poor brother. Thou shalt surely give him; and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest to him, because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works; for the poor shall never cease from out of the land."

These words seemed to resound like a sort of heraldic proclamation to call around us all that softly shiftless class, who, for some reason or other, are never to be found with anything in hand at the moment that it is wanted.

"There, to be sure," said Aunt Lois, one day when our preparations were in full blast; "there comes Sam Lawson down the hill, limpsy as ever; now he'll have his doleful story to tell, and mother'll give him one of the turkeys."

And so, of course, it fell out.

Sam came in with his usual air of plaintive assurance, and seated himself a contemplative spectator in the chimney corner, regardless of the looks and signs of unwelcome on the part of Aunt Lois.

"Lordy massy, how prosperous everything does seem here!" he said in musing tones, over his inevitable mug of cider; "so different from what 'tis t' our house. There's Hepsey, she's all in a stew, an' I've just been an' got her thirty-seven cents' wuth o' nutmegs, yet she says she's sure she don't see how she's to keep Thanksgiving, an' she's down on me about it, just as ef 'twas my fault. Yeh see, last winter our old gobbler got froze. You know, Mis' Badger, that 'ere cold night we hed last winter. Wal, I was off with Jake Marshall that night; ye see, Jake, he had to take old General Dearborn's corpse into Boston, to the family vault, and Jake, he kind o' hated to go alone; 'twas a drefful cold time, and he ses to me,' Sam, you jes' go 'long with me'; so I was sort o' sorry for him, and I kind o' thought I'd go 'long. Wal, come 'long to Josh Bissel's tahvern, there at the Halfway House, you know, 'twas so swingeing cold we stopped to take a little suthin' warmin', an' we sort o' sot an' sot over the fire, till, fust we knew, we kind o' got asleep; an' when we woke up we found we'd left the old General hitched up t' th' post pretty much all night. Wal, didn't hurt him none, poor man; 'twas allers a favourite spot o' his'n. But, takin' one thing with another, I didn't get home till about noon next day, an' I tell you, Hepsey she was right down on me. She said the baby was sick, and there hadn't been no wood split, nor the barn fastened up, nor nuthin'. Lordy massy, I didn't mean no harm; I thought there was wood enough, and I thought likely Hepsey'd git out an' fasten up the barn. But Hepsey, she was in one o' her contrary streaks, an' she wouldn't do a thing; an' when I went out to look, why, sure 'nuff, there was our old tom-turkey froze as stiff as a stake—his claws jist a stickin' right straight up like this." Here Sam struck an expressive attitude, and looked so much like a frozen turkey as to give a pathetic reality to the picture.

"Well, now, Sam, why need you be off on things that's none of your business?" said my grandmother. "I've talked to you plainly about that a great many times, Sam," she continued, in tones of severe admonition. "Hepsey is a hard-working woman, but she can't be expected to see to everything, and you oughter[97] 'ave been at home that night to fasten up your own barn and look after your own creeturs."

Sam took the rebuke all the more meekly as he perceived the stiff black legs of a turkey poking out from under my grandmother's apron while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and told of his shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at Thanksgiving, was a yearly part of his family program. In time he departed, not only with the turkey, but with us boys in procession after him, bearing a mince and a pumpkin pie for Hepsey's children.

"Poor things!" my grandmother remarked; "they ought to have something good to eat Thanksgiving Day; 'tain't their fault that they've got a shiftless father."

Sam, in his turn, moralized to us children, as we walked beside him: "A body'd think that Hepsey'd learn to trust in Providence," he said, "but she don't. She allers has a Thanksgiving dinner pervided; but that 'ere woman ain't grateful for it, by no manner o' means. Now she'll be jest as cross as she can be, 'cause this 'ere ain't our turkey, and these 'ere ain't our pies. Folks doos lose so much that hes sech dispositions."

A multitude of similar dispensations during the course of the week materially reduced the great pile of chickens and turkeys which black Cæsar's efforts in slaughtering, picking, and dressing kept daily supplied....

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Great as the preparations were for the dinner, everything was so contrived that not a soul in the house should be kept from the morning service of Thanksgiving in the church, and from listening to the Thanksgiving sermon, in which the minister was expected to express his views freely concerning the politics of the country and the state of things in society generally, in a somewhat more secular vein of thought than was deemed exactly appropriate to the Lord's day. But it is to be confessed that, when the good man got carried away by the enthusiasm of his subject to extend these exercises beyond a certain length, anxious glances, exchanged between good wives, sometimes indicated a weakness of the flesh, having a tender reference to the turkeys and chickens and chicken pies which might possibly be overdoing in the ovens at home. But your old brick oven was a true Puritan institution, and backed up the devotional habits of good housewives by the capital care which he took of whatever was committed to his capacious bosom. A truly well-bred oven would have been ashamed of himself all his days and blushed redder than his own fires, if a God-fearing house matron, away at the temple of the Lord, should come home and find her pie crust either burned or underdone by his over or under zeal; so the old fellow generally managed to bring things out exactly right.

When sermons and prayers were all over, we children rushed home to see the great feast of the year spread.

What chitterings and chatterings there were all over the house, as all the aunties and uncles and cousins came pouring in, taking off their things, looking at one[99] another's bonnets and dresses, and mingling their comments on the morning sermon with various opinions on the new millinery outfits, and with bits of home news and kindly neighbourhood gossip.

Uncle Bill, whom the Cambridge college authorities released, as they did all the other youngsters of the land, for Thanksgiving Day, made a breezy stir among them all, especially with the young cousins of the feminine gender.

The best room on this occasion was thrown wide open, and its habitual coldness had been warmed by the burning down of a great stack of hickory logs, which had been heaped up unsparingly since morning. It takes some hours to get a room warm where a family never sits, and which therefore has not in its walls one particle of the genial vitality which comes from the indwelling of human beings. But on Thanksgiving Day, at least, every year this marvel was effected in our best room.

Although all servile labour and vain recreation on this day were by law forbidden, according to the terms of the proclamation, it was not held to be a violation of the precept that all the nice old aunties should bring their knitting work and sit gently trotting their needles around the fire; nor that Uncle Bill should start a full-fledged romp among the girls and children, while the dinner was being set on the long table in the neighbouring kitchen. Certain of the good elderly female relatives, of serious and discreet demeanour, assisted at this operation.

But who shall do justice to the dinner, and describe the turkey, and chickens, and chicken pies, with all that endless variety of vegetables which the American soil and climate have contributed to the table, and which, without regard to the French doctrine of courses, were all piled together in jovial abundance upon the smoking board? There was much carving and laughing and talking and eating, and all showed that cheerful ability to despatch the provisions which was the ruling spirit of the hour. After the meat came the plum puddings, and then the endless array of pies, till human nature was actually bewildered and overpowered by the tempting variety; and even we children turned from the profusion offered to us, and wondered what was the matter that we could eat no more.

When all was over, my grandfather rose at the head of the table, and a fine venerable picture he made as he stood there, his silver hair flowing in curls down each side of his clear, calm face, while, in conformity to the old Puritan custom, he called their attention to a recital of the mercies of God in His dealings with their family.

It was a sort of family history, going over and touching upon the various events which had happened. He spoke of my father's death, and gave a tribute to his memory; and closed all with the application of a time-honoured text, expressing the hope that as years passed by we might "so number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom"; and then he gave out that psalm which in those days might be called the national hymn of the Puritans.

"Let children hear the mighty deeds
Which God performed of old,
Which in our younger years we saw,
And which our fathers told.
"He bids us make his glories known,
His works of power and grace.
And we'll convey his wonders down
Through every rising race.
"Our lips shall tell them to our sons,
And they again to theirs;
That generations yet unborn
May teach them to their heirs.
"Thus shall they learn in God alone
Their hope securely stands;
That they may ne'er forget his works,
But practise his commands."

This we all united in singing to the venerable tune of St. Martin's, an air which, the reader will perceive, by its multiplicity of quavers and inflections gave the greatest possible scope to the cracked and trembling voices of the ancients, who united in it with even more zeal than the younger part of the community.

Uncle Fliakim Sheril, furbished up in a new crisp black suit, and with his spindleshanks trimly incased in the smoothest of black silk stockings, looking for all the world just like an alert and spirited black cricket, outdid himself on this occasion in singing counter, in that high, weird voice that he must have learned from the wintry winds that usually piped around the corners of the old house. But any one who looked at him, as he sat with his eyes closed, beating time with head and hand, and, in short, with every limb of his body, must have perceived the exquisite satisfaction which he derived from this mode of expressing himself. I much regret to be obliged to state that my graceless Uncle Bill, taking advantage of the fact that the eyes of all his elders were devotionally closed, stationing himself a little in the rear of my Uncle Fliakim, performed an exact imitation of his counter with such a killing facility that all the younger part of the audience were nearly dead with suppressed laughter. Aunt Lois, who never shut her eyes a moment on any occasion, discerned this from a distant part of the room, and in vain endeavoured to stop it by vigorously shaking her head at the offender. She might as well have shaken it at a bobolink tilting on a clover top. In fact, Uncle Bill was Aunt Lois's weak point, and the corners of her own mouth were observed to twitch in such a suspicious manner that the whole moral force of her admonition was destroyed.

And now, the dinner being cleared away, we youngsters, already excited to a tumult of laughter, tumbled into the best room, under the supervision of Uncle Bill, to relieve ourselves with a game of "blindman's bluff," while the elderly women washed up the dishes and got the house in order, and the men folks went out to the barn to look at the cattle, and walked over the farm and talked of the crops.

In the evening the house was all open and lighted with the best of tallow candles, which Aunt Lois herself had made with especial care for this illumination. It was understood that we were to have a dance, and black Cæsar, full of turkey and pumpkin pie, and giggling in the very jollity of his heart, had that afternoon rosined his bow, and tuned his fiddle, and practised jigs and Virginia reels, in a way that made us children think him a perfect Orpheus....

You may imagine the astounding wassail among the young people.... My Uncle Bill related the story of "the Wry-mouth Family," with such twists and contortions and killing extremes of the ludicrous as perfectly overcame even the minister; and he was to be seen, at one period of the evening, with a face purple with laughter and the tears actually rolling down over his well-formed cheeks, while some of the more excitable young people almost fell in trances and rolled on the floor in the extreme of their merriment. In fact, the assemblage was becoming so tumultuous, that the scrape of Cæsar's violin and the forming of sets for a dance seemed necessary to restore the peace....

Uncle Bill would insist on leading out Aunt Lois, and the bright colour rising to her thin cheeks brought back a fluttering image of what might have been beauty in some fresh, early day. Ellery Davenport insisted upon leading forth Miss Deborah Kittery, notwithstanding her oft-repeated refusals and earnest protestations to the contrary. As to Uncle Fliakim, he jumped and frisked and gyrated among the single sisters and maiden aunts, whirling them into the dance as if he had been the little black gentleman himself. With that true spirit of Christian charity which marked all his actions, he invariably chose out the homeliest and most neglected, and thus worthy Aunt Keziah, dear old soul, was for a time made quite prominent by his attentions....

Grandmother's face was radiant with satisfaction, as the wave of joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally subdued them, and into the dance they went.

"Well, well!" quoth my grandmother; "they're all at it so hearty I don't see why I shouldn't try it myself." And into the Virginia reel she went, amid screams of laughter from all the younger members of the company.
But I assure you my grandmother was not a woman to be laughed at; for whatever she once set on foot she "put through" with a sturdy energy befitting a daughter of the Puritans.

"Why shouldn't I dance?" she said, when she arrived red and resplendent at the bottom of the set. "Didn't Mr. Despondency and Miss Muchafraid and Mr. Readytohalt all dance together in the 'Pilgrim's Progress?'" And the minister in his ample flowing wig, and my lady in her stiff brocade, gave to my grandmother a solemn twinkle of approbation.

As nine o'clock struck, the whole scene dissolved and melted; for what well-regulated village would think of carrying festivities beyond that hour?

And so ended our Thanksgiving at Oldtown.

Adapted from "Oldtown Folks," Houghton, Mifflin Co.

Baghdad in 1830 – A Year of Flood, Plague, Starvation, and War

Extracts from: Journal of a residence at Bagdad, during the years 1830 and 1831, by MR. ANTHONY N. GROVES, published in London in 1832

Sept. — The weather is now become decidedly cooler. A fortnight since the average height of the thermometer in the shade, during the warmest part of the day, was 117; it is now lowered to 110. During the hottest time of the year, which is now just over, the quicksilver was rarely lower than 110, or higher than 118 in the shade, except in the morning, when the general range was from 87 to 93.

Oct. 21. — There has just been acting here a scene of duplicity, falsehood, and bloodshed, which appears strange to us, but is not uncommon in this land of misrule and cruelty. A Capidji (or Ambassador) from the Porte to the Pasha has been long expected, and with evident anxiety by him and those immediately about him, which was increased to the highest pitch, when by a messenger from Aleppo, the Pasha received the intelligence, that this man's intention was to supersede him, and of course to destroy him. It then became the object of the Pasha to endeavour to get him into his hands, which was the more difficult, as it is usual for the Capidji to read publicly his firman, and proclaim the successor at Mousul, or some place near, who, collecting the Arabs, marches to lay siege to this place, till the head of the Pasha is delivered to him. To prevent this, therefore, the Pasha made the Imrahor, or Master of the Horse, who has the whole arrangement of the military force, to write a letter to the Capidji, begging him to come here at once, and that he would, without a struggle, give the head of Dauoud Pasha into his hand, whereas if he remained at Mousul, there must be an open contention about it.

By this he was allured to approach the city, and the Pasha sent out 700 or 800 men under pretence of showing him honour, to meet him and secure him in case any accounts of the true state of the case should reach him, that he might have no possibility of flight. Thus he was brought into the city, and his quarters appointed in the house of the Musruff; when, after the Pasha had obtained from him the declaration of his object, a Divan was called, and it was determined to put him to death. This event has thrown the city into great consternation, and every one who can, is buying corn in expectation of what is to follow. For the tragedy will not end here, as a friend of the Capidji is left behind at Mousul, and another Capidji is at Diarbekr, waiting the result of this negociation. So it appears that the Sultan is determined to act at once and decidedly against this Pasha. We are now, therefore to expect a siege, and a state of anxiety and fear in this city for some months; but the Lord, who sitteth in the heavens, is ordering all for his own glory, and for our safety, and he will provide for us.

Feb. 19. — To-day we have heard that the above report of the plague being at Sulemania is false; that it has been there, but has now left it; so we know not what to believe.

March 28. — The plague has now absolutely, we believe, entered this unhappy city. Major T. and all those connected with the residency are preparing to leave for the mountains of Kourdistan; they have most kindly invited us to go with them and form part of their family; this is most truly kind, and there are many things to recommend it — the opportunities it would afford M. for learning Armenian, and me Arabic, and for observation on the country and people, besides our being delivered from all apparent danger either from the sword which threatens us from without, or the pestilence within. The absence of all these friends and so many of the principal Christian families who are going with them, leave us exposed to the bigotry of the people in any tumults that may arise — all these things presented themselves to our minds. But there are considerations that outweigh these in our minds: in the first place, we feel that while we have the Lord's work in our hands we ought not to fly and leave it; again, if we go, it is likely that for many months we cannot return to our work, whereas the plague may cease in a month; opportunities of usefulness may arise in the plague that a more unembarrassed time may not present; and our dear friends from Aleppo may come and find no asylum. The Lord gives great peace and quietness of mind in resting under his most gracious and loving care, and as the great object of our lives is to illustrate his love to us, we believe that in the midst of these awful circumstances, he will fill our tongues with praise as he does fill our hearts with peace.

March 29. — Yesterday Dr. Beagrie and Mr. Montefiore went and saw several patients they thought afflicted with the plague; but their minds were not perfectly made up. To-day, there is no longer any doubt. I accompanied Mr. Montefiore, in his visits, and now there are about twenty, and the number is increasing. Thus, then, this long expected scourge has visited this city, and our Father only knows when the awful visitation may cease. We can only cast ourselves on his holy and loving hands for safety or peace: into these hands we do cast ourselves, with all that is dearest to us in this world. We have proved our Jesus to be the Captain and Author of our hopes, and always found that in the power of his name we have obtained the victory. Nothing but the Lord's loving pity can prevent the most awful extension of the disease; not only are the people crowded together, two or three dying in one room, but the intercourse is perfectly unrestricted in all parts of the city, so that I fear what is now confined to one quarter, and might possibly, by a vigilant government be kept there, is spreading in all directions. We have, therefore, been forced to the most painful step of breaking up our school, for it would have been quite impossible to collect together eighty children from different parts of the city, without exposing all to danger. May the Lord enable us profitably to avail ourselves of our retirement, to cultivate a more extended communion with him who is our life. Dear M. is much staid on her God, and feels that as he has been, so he will be to us a hiding place in every storm.

April 1. — The plague is still increasing, but apparently not rapidly. We wait the Lord's pleasure in our own house. The only inconvenience is want of water, which cannot be had from without; and they say that when the plague becomes intense all the water carriers cease to ply; but the Lord hath said, in the time of famine ye shall be satisfied; on this promise we rest in peace.

The deaths at present from the plague are confined to the Mohammedans and the Jews. To avoid it, many of the Jews have gone to Bussorah, and the Kourds who brought it here have fled from the city; a large caravan of Christians are now thinking of returning to Mosul, who were driven from Mosul three or four years ago by plague and its attendant famine.

The poor Jews have been robbed of every thing by the Arabs, and sent naked back, and there seems little better prospect for those who are going to Mosul: they have the Arabs on one side the road, and the Kourds on the other.

April 4. — We were last night alarmed by the voices of apparently thousands of persons on the other side of the river; by degrees the discharges of guns were mingled with the cries, which gradually extended also to this side the river. We concluded it must be from a tribe of Arabs having broken into the city, the noise being exactly similar, onlv much more violent, to that of the two tribes of Arabs who were contending the other day. But after an hour's suspense, we heard it was a concourse of Arabs to supplicate from God the removal of the plague from them.

The deaths from the plague do not seem to increase with any rapidity, these two or three days; 150 perhaps is the highest any day. On a preceeding occasion, about 60 years ago, it amounted to near 2000 a day. There is with us the father of our schoolmaster, who had the plague at that time, and says you might have walked from one gate of the city to the other, and hardly have met a person or heard a sound. We trust it may be the Lord's gracious purpose to take off the heaviness of his judgment, and spare yet a little longer this sinful city.

April 9. — Stillness still prevails over the city, like the calm which precedes a convulsion; our neighbours are preparing for defence, by getting armed men into their houses, but we sit down under the shadow of the Almighty's wings, fully assured that in his name we shall boast ourselves. The Pasha, however, has not gone out as he intended yesterday.

We have just heard that the reports of the plague has stopped for a little the approach of the enemies of the Pasha, still every thing is exceedingly unsettled. He is going to shut himself up in the citadel till the answer comes from Constantinople to his overtures, but all those about him are against him, and wishing for the arrival of his enemies. About fifty went out the other day, and seized on Hillah, but they were driven out.

April 10. — The accounts brought us of the numbers of those who have died of the plague, on this side of the river alone, in little more than one fortnight, all agree in making it about 7000. The poor inhabitants know not what to do: if they remain in the city, they die of the plague; if they leave it, they fall into the hands of the Arabs, who strip them, or they are exposed to the effects of an inundation of the river Tigris, which has now overflown the whole country around Bagdad, and destroyed, they say, 2000 houses on the other side of the river, but I think this must be exaggerated; the misery of this place, however, is now beyond expression, and may yet be expected to be much greater. Dreadful as the outward circumstances of this people are, their moral condition is infinitely worse; nor does there seem to be a ray of light amidst it all. The Mohammedans look on those who die of the plague as martyrs, and when they die there is no wailing made for them; so that amidst all these desolations there is a stillness, that when one knows the cause is very frightful. The Lord enables us to feel the blessedness of the 91st Psalm, at least of the portion of those to whom that Psalm pertains; and we have, amidst all these very trying circumstances, a peace that passeth understanding. We feel indeed that we owe it to our Lord's love to be careful for nothing, neither to run or make haste as others, but to stand still and see the salvation of our God.

April 12. — I have just taken leave of the kind T.'s. The accounts of the dead are truly terrific; they say the day before yesterday 1200 died, and yesterday Major T.'s man of business obtained a receipt to the amount of 1040 on this side of the river. If this statement can be relied on, the mortality, within and without the city, must be truly appalling, and should it not please the Lord soon to stay the destroying Angel's hand, the whole country must become one wide waste.

April 13. — The plague has just entered our neighbour's dwelling, where they have collected together nearly thirty persons, not simply their own family. It seems as if a spirit of infatuation had seized them, for instead of making their number as small as possible, they seem to congregate as many together as they can.

April 14. — This is a day of awful visitation. The accounts of deaths yesterday vary from between 1000 and 1500; and to-day, they say, is worse than any, and the increase in the numbers of deaths is exclusive of the immense multitudes who are dying without the city. One of our schoolmasters is gone to Damascus, and has taken with him his little nephew who was boarding with us, so we are indeed now quite alone. In fact, nothing prevents the entire desertion of the city, but the dangers of the way, and the poverty of the inhabitants.

April 15. — The accounts of the mortality yesterday still more alarming — 1800 deaths in the city. There was great danger of the bodies being left in the houses, and the inhabitants flying and leaving them unburied, but by great exertions on the part of some young men in one quarter of the town to bury the dead there, others have been stimulated in other quarters to similar exertions, and last night all were buried. Our Moolah has just been here; he says he has bought winding sheets for himself, his brother, and his mother. He says that yesterday he was in the Jew's quarter, and only met one person, and that was a woman, who, when she saw him, ran in and locked the door. Meat, for some days, or any thing else from without, we have been unable to get. Water alone we have obtained. But, to-day, even that we cannot get at any price; every waterman you stop, answers he is carrying it to wash the bodies of the dead.

April 16. — The accounts of yesterday are worse than any day, and an Armenian girl, who has been here this morning", said she saw, in a distance of about 600 yards, fifty dead bodies carrying to burial. The son of Gaspar Khan, our next neighbour, is dead. Two have been carried out from a little passage opposite our house to-day, where two more are ill. All you see passing have a little bunch of herbs, or a rose, or an onion to smell to, and yet as to real measures of precaution there has not been one step taken; not even contact avoided, and the most unrestrained intercourse goes on in every direction, so that nothing but the Lord's arm shortening it, can prevent the entire desolation of the whole province. The population of Bagdad cannot exceed 80,000, and of this number more than half have fled,^ so that the mortality of 2000 a-day is going on among considerably less than 40,000 people.
April 19. — Still heavy, heavy news. The Moolah has called to give us an account of the city. He says it now stands stationary at between 1,500 and 2,000 a-day, and has been so for a fortnight. What a mass of mortality! Among the Pasha's soldiers, he says they have lost, in some of the regiments, above 500 out of 700. — And in the towns and villages without, the report is, that it is as bad or worse than within the city.

April 20. — The plague much the same. Among the Armenians nine were buried yesterday, and seven to-day. There are not left in the city more than 400, and now there is the plague in every third or fourth house. The water also is encreasing, so that a little more will inundate the whole city on this side the river, as it has on the other, to the inexpressible additional misery of the poor people. The caravan which left for Damascus can neither advance nor return on account of the water. Yesterday four dead were carried out from the little passage opposite our house, making in all 14 dead from eight houses, and there are others now lying ill.

April 24. — The plague still raging with most destructive violence; the two servants in our next neighbour's house are both dead, and two horses left, I fear, to starve. A poor Armenian woman has just been here, to beg a little sugar for a little infant she picked up in the street this morning; and she says, another neighbour of her’s picked up two more. They have just been digging graves beside our house. Almost all the cotton is consumed, so that persons are wandering all over the city to find some, for burying their dead. Water not to be had at any price, nor a water-carrier to be seen. Oh, what heart-rending scenes sin has introduced into the world! Oh, when will the Lord come to put an end to these scenes of disorder, physical as well as moral. In one short month, not less than 30,000 souls have passed from time to eternity in this city, and yet, even now, no diminution apparently of deaths.

April 25. — To-day, three more from the same passage, making twenty-one from these houses. Such a disease I never heard of or witnessed; certainly not more than one in twenty recovers; every one attacked seems to die.

This has been a heart-rending day. The accounts from the Residency, and the falling of a wall, undermined by the water, obliged me to go out, and I found nothing but signs of death and desolation; hardly a soul in the streets, unless such as were carrying the dead, or themselves affected with plague, and at a number of doors, and in the lanes, bundles of clothes that had been taken from the dead, and put out. The Court of the Mosque was shut, having no place left for burying, and graves were digging in every direction in the roads, and in the unoccupied stables about the city. The water also has increased so much as to be within a few inches of inundating the city. Should this further calamity come on this side, as it has on the other, the height of human misery will be near its climax, for where they will then bury their dead I know not. There seems no diminution in the plague yet, that we can discern.

April 26. — For many days we have been unable to obtain any account of the number of deaths; but the Chaoosh of Major T has been with the Pasha this morning, who is in the greatest possible state of alarm, wishing to go, but not knowing how. One of his officers, whose business it is to inquire about the number of deaths daily, reported that it had reached 5,000, but yesterday was 3,000, and to-day less. Enormous as the mortality has been, I cannot but think this beyond the truth; yet it must be remembered, that the inundation kept immense masses of poor thronged together in the city, who, but for this, would have all fled in one direction or another.

April 27. — To-day all thoughts are turned from the plague to the inundation, which from the falling of a portion of the city wall on the north-west side last night, let the water in full stream into the city. The Jews' quarter is inundated, and 200 houses fell there last night: we are hourly expecting to hear, that every part of the city is overflowed. A part also of the wall of the citadel is fallen. And, in fact, such is the structure of the houses, that if the water remains near the foundations long, the city must become a mass of ruins.
This inundation has not only ruined an immense number of houses in the city, and been the cause of tens of thousands dying of the plague, but the whole harvest is destroyed. The barley, which was just ready to be reaped, is utterly gone, and every other kind of corn must likewise be ruined, so that for 30 miles all round Bagdad, not a grain of corn can be collected this year, and perhaps, if all was quiet this might be of no consequence, for from Mosul and Kourdistan it might easily come; but this will be prevented by the enemies of the Pasha who surround us. The poor are beginning to feel immense difficulty in the city, for all the shops are shut, and there is a great scarcity of wood for firing; and should the water now cause a general inundation of the whole city, the heart sickens at the contemplation of the scenes that must follow; for the houses of the poor are nothing but mud, scarcely one of which will be left standing.

April 28. — News more and more disastrous. The inundation has swept away 7,000 houses from one end of the city to the other, burying the sick, the dying, and the dead, with many of those in health, in one common grave. Those who have escaped, have brought their goods and the relics of their families, to the houses the plague has desolated, or desertion left unoccupied, and houses are yet falling in every direction.

May 1. — The Lord has brought us all in safety to the beginning of another month, through the most trying period of my life; yet the Lord has every day filled our mouth with praise, and enabled us to see his preserving hand. To-day, as I passed along the street, I saw numbers of dead bodies lying unburied, and the dogs eating with avidity the loathsome food. Oh! it made my very heart sink. The numbers of the dead can now be no longer ascertained, for most of the bodies are buried either in the houses or in the roads; yet amidst all this, the Lord suffers not the destroying angel to enter our dwelling; but we feel the Lord has commanded the man with the ink-horn to write us down to be spared, as this is one of the vials of God's wrath on his enemies.

May 8. — The Lord has this day manifested that the attack of my dear dear wife, is the plague, and of a very dangerous and malignant kind, so that our hearts are prostrate in the Lord's hand. As I think the infection can have only come through me, I have little hope of escaping, unless by the Lord's special intervention.

May 13. — My dearest wife has reached the light of another day, still quietly sinking without a sigh and without a groan. This my prayer for her in the night of my darkness the Lord has mercifully heard.

May 14. — This day dearest Mary's ransomed spirit took its seat among those dressed in white, and her body was consigned to the earth that gave it birth — a dark, heavy day to poor nature, but still the Lord was the light and stay of it.

May 15, 16. — I feel to-day many symptoms similar to those with which my dearest Mary's illness commenced — pains in the head and heaviness, pains in the back, and shooting pains through the glands and the arms. At another time I should think only of them as the result of a common cold; but now I know not how to discriminate, the beginnings are so similar.

May 19. — The water to-day has again fallen considerably in price, and as far as we can judge, God has mercifully nearly extinguished this desolating plague. I now feel quite satisfied the attack I had the other day was an attack of the plague, though very slight.

June 29. — My dear little baby has had an attack of purulent ophthalmia, which gives me much anxiety; for three or four days she had been recovering a little, when this trying attack seized her dear little eyes; she was quite unable to open either of them.

July 9. — The camp of those without the city is moving down to-day towards us; and we hear a continued firing of cannon. It is reported they are come within half an hour's march of the city.

July 28. Thursday. — Up to this time the shells and balls of the besiegers have done us no harm. Two shells have passed just over us. The one fell on the roof of the house of an Arab family at a little distance from us, who were all asleep, and on bursting killed three: one cannon ball has just passed over us, besides musket balls innumerable, only two of which, however, I have felt so fear as to endanger us. The one just passed by me and struck the wall, the other, by bending my head, passed just over me: yet dangerous as it seems in such circumstances to sleep on the roof, the suffocating heat of the rooms is insupportable. Famine is making its destructive way here among the poor. All the necessaries of life are raised from four to six times their usual price, and often are not to be obtained at all, and in addition there is no labour going on in the city: every shop is closed, and every one's concern is to take care of his life or property. They are constantly killing persons in the streets, without the least inquiry being made after the perpetrators; nay, they are publicly and notoriously known.

Aug. 19. Friday. — Every thing seems darkening in this wretched city. Numbers of poor people are crying at the gates to be let out, that they may not be starved in the city; but they will not let them go. All the necessaries of life have risen to five times their usual price, and the pressure of this is increased tenfold by the time at which it has occurred. The bricklayers, carpenters, every trade has entirely ceased its occupations in the city since the commencement of the plague; so that all day-labourers, such as weavers and others, are thrown out of their employments, and without means of gaining their bread. In addition to this, the Arabs are breaking into every house where they expect to find a little corn or rice, so that it is a difficult choice either to be without provisions in danger of starving, or of being broken in upon by such ruffians, and stripped. We intend to bury a little box, containing some rice, and flour, and dates, under ground, that in the event of their breaking in, we may yet secure food for a few days, which may give us time to look about.

Aug. 24. Thursday — Three months and ten days have now passed since the Lord took from me her who was on earth the supreme consolation of my life; and now, this day, he has taken from me my sweet little baby without a sigh, without the expression of pain during the whole of her illness; for this my heart can, even at this moment, bless the Lord; but it has left a void that has more than ever made the world appear a waste.

Sept. 9. Friday. — Every thing continues still increasing in price, and in an increased ratio the sufferings of the poor: if they leave the city they are stripped and driven back; if they remain they are starved; and even the dates are just come to an end, upon which for near three weeks, both the people and the cattle have been feeding. The Pasha has this day taken the jewels of his wives to sell, from which and some other signs, I am led to think his course is nearly run, and that ere long he will follow the fate of his predecessor.

Sept. 15. Thursday. — After a night of anxious suspense, the day has dawned in comparative peace; the cry that Ali Pasha's troops were entering the city, began soon after we had retired to rest, and continued till near morning. Now we hear that Daoud Pasha had fled from the house of Saleh Beg during the night and endeavoured to enter the citadel, but the soldiers would not admit him. He is now in the hands of the people of the Meidan. The Chaoush Kiahya of Ali Pasha has entered the city, and every one is in an awful state of suspense as to the future fate of the inhabitants, at least of the higher classes. I have just set up the English flag that they may know the inhabitant of the house is a stranger here, who has nothing to do with the strife of the city.

October 9. Lord's Day. — It is just one fortnight since the Lord has laid me on the bed of sickness and suffering; for nearly a fortnight previous an attack of typhus fever had been making its steady advances. I had lost all appetite, strength, and ability to sleep, accompanied by that strange overwhelming depression of mind that inclines one to weep one knows not why. But this day fortnight I was completely laid by, and this is the first day I have had my clothes on since.

A MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS Given in 1890.

A speech given: MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS AT FT. MADISON, IOWA, BY THOMAS HEDGE, MAY 30, 1890.

The story of the rise of civil and religious liberty on this continent is full of incongruities and of contradictions. The Pilgrim Fathers planted their commonwealth among the gray rocks of Massachusetts, that they might have freedom to worship God; but we remember they compelled the flight to Narragansett of the learned and sincere Roger Williams, the friend of Milton, chiefly because he held forth that the civil magistrate's power extends only to the bodies, goods and outward state of man, and thus the other commonwealth of Rhode Island and Providence plantations had its beginning.

It has been an American custom, reaching back to the days of our grandfathers, to read in public, with religious solemnity, the Declaration of Independence on the morning of the Fourth of July, and the winged words of Jefferson — "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" — we imagined, because they stirred our blood, that they set forth our profoundest faith. But it is only thirty years since no American citizen was permitted to speak in the spirit of those words below the lower rapids of yonder river, and only thirty years ago that if that American citizen should stretch forth his hand to help any man, woman or child, of a certain class, to cross that river in search of that unalienable right of liberty, he would be guilty of a crime against the government whose symbol was this flag.
(We are not ashamed to remember that there were not a few criminals of this sort in this neighborhood in those days.)
We were not in spirit a nation or a union, but a most heterogeneous aggregation of peoples, under the yoke of as many various customs, traditions, prejudices and bigotries as there were different communities. State lines were a reality, sectional feeling and mutual dread as impassable as the mountain range.

The truth spoken by him who was more than prophet, 'This country cannot remain half slave and half free,' at last became evident, and the darkness came and the labor and agony of the new birth of freedom.
It seemed as if the spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the land and breathed again into the nostrils of this people the breath of life. The eyes of their understanding were opened; it was given to them to see the invisible, to stand upon the Mount of Transfiguration and to be inspired with the presence of them of old time who had toiled, suffered and triumphed for the good of those to be. All human capacities seemed to be enlarged. All human faculties to be reinforced. All human affections quickened and purified in this fire of trial. The cause was seen to be and accepted as the cause common and vital to us all. It was the people's war. The times grew spacious. Nothing was too great or too high for the energy the constancy, the self-denial, the faith of this people in their devotion to this cause — ever old and ever new — of human liberty. As in the days of the revolution it called manhood from the tranquil pursuits and toils of peace, the delight of life, to absence from home, to cold, hunger, the prison-pen, disease, wounds, death; it called woman to poverty, to loneliness, to agony of suspense, to widowhood and bereavement of her first born.
There were days which were to her as a thousand years, when the very air quivered with the tidings of defeat or the hardly less dreadful word of victory; when she was told that while men of their abundance had cast their offerings into the treasury she had given more than them all — even all her living.
When this death angel came, although for tears she saw it not, the glory of the Lord shone 'round her dwelling-akin to that of the star of Bethlehem, for it had been vouchsafed to her to bear a son found worthy to die for the help of his fellow-men.
And the boys whom these women with christian grace had sent away, these boys whom we bear in memory at this hour, deeming it the highest privilege and pride of our earthly life that we hobnobbed with them and marched with them and were with them where they fell, they made up an army such as never had been known before. Their understanding comprehended fully the purpose of their warfare — it was not for ambition, for material conquest, for personal aggrandizement, nor to relieve themselves of personal oppression, for they had never realized the presence or approach of any tyranny. The flag to them was but the sign of the enforcement and security of those unalienable rights, which they had been trained to believe were the birthright of all men. It was such a sign, not for themselves or their's alone, not for a class, a sect, a party, a generation or a race, but for everyone made in the image of God, wherever and so long as that flag might wave.

I said that we were a heterogeneous people, marked by our provincial prejudices and bigotries. Travel broadens the view and dispels the mists of prejudice, and no sort of travel so effectually as that pursued by our young volunteer, After the boy from Iowa had trudged alongside of the boy from Vermont or Pennsylvania, or of the boy whose father was born in Ireland or Germany, and had drank from the same canteen, and shared his hard tack, had climbed the same opposing earthwork at his side, had witnessed his boyish valor "in the imminent deadly breach'' ''on the fiery edge of battle,'' and had lain down beside him in the swamp and suffered the same cold, the same homesickness, he began to realize what Paul meant by till men being of one blood; boundary lines and section corners vanished, and his love of country, as of his countrymen, came to comprehend the wide continent, bounded only by the inviolate seas.

He so bore himself that he conquered even the prejudices of his opposers, and to-day wherever his grave may be, whether by those of his kindred or in the red soil of Virginia, in the mountains of Georgia or Tennessee, or under the flowers of Carolina, it is at home, in his own country, a pledge and monument of perpetual union, and of ever growing peace and good will among its people.
As something of the duty of tradition mingles in these ceremonies, let me place in the minds of those born since the day of Appomattox a hint of the personality of the "boy in blue.'' As yon read that "the old 'Continentals' in their ragged regimentals faltered not," your fancy pictures a grizzled soldier toughened by the frosts of many winters, when in truth he and the Minute Man and the Green Mountain boy, as well as the boy in blue, were of the same age, which is yours. The soldier whose memory we are met to honor was not such as these to-day — his face lined and refined by care, with stooping shoulders and whitening hair, and halting step, and eyes grown dim; but such as these were five and twenty years ago; his face bright with hope, his gaze clear and proud with purpose, his step firm and sure, with the spring of youth. And my veteran brothers, those who were taken away from us at the front are now before the vision of our memory as when they marched out to die. Imperishable youth is theirs.
Their fame shall live so long as man loves liberty, the example of their sacrifice be an inspiration to future patriotism, their spirits the airy leaders of heroes yet to be.
It was ordained that they should die in glory — no less was it in the infinite purpose that we should survive. The earnest lesson of the day is that we learn and fulfil that purpose, that while they sleep we guard the field they died to win.
In the quarter of a century that has passed since the last surrender we have had time to come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, to lose something of the exaltation of spirit of the time of war in the dusty scramble for the things that perish, and a generation has arisen that cannot fully appreciate at what great price their freedom was obtained and preserved. We need to be reminded in season and out of season that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The old theory seems to be regaining its lost ground, that the jurisdiction of human government is boundless, and its authority without limit; that all things, including riches and wisdom and virtue and honor, can be attained by the enactment of a legislature. We forget, that while government is an essential agency of society — supreme within its sphere — that its sphere is limited and that it is only an agency, like the Sabbath, made for man: that its province is only in public matters, to protect each from others' trespasses and to insure to every man his own. We do not keep in mind that government cannot create or confer the essential rights of man; that as Jefferson wrote, it is only an institution to secure these rights, and as it does not create or confer these rights, so it cannot justly impair them or take them away.
So long as men are self-seeking there will be efforts made to usurp power in legislation for selfish ends. So long as men are self-righteous they will strive to impose their own standard of right and wrong upon their neighbors, and as the people prefer, or wish to seem to prefer, whatsoever things are honest, or true, or of good report, with success proportioned to the apparent worthiness of the end to be attained. Our liberties are in little danger from the Philistines; it is the leaven of the Pharisee that is the present menace of the republic.

While it was the duty of the veteran, as a soldier, "not to reason why, only to do and die," it is his duty as a veteran, citizen always to reason why. To him much has been given — of him much shall be required. A sovereign citizen, to him is intrusted only in fuller measure, and to a higher degree, the charge of the Roman consul — to see that the republic receives no harm.

As the sphere of government is limited, so, comparatively, is his duty as a citizen; including this duty, intertwined with it, but infinitely broader and higher, is his duty as a man. The conscientious fulfillment of the daily round, the common task, is the path laid out for him to toil in after virtue. We cannot escape the scrutiny and the judgments of the boy of to-day his notion of the defender of the republic, his estimate of those comrades over whose repose we this day scatter the rose, the lily and the violet, is made up of what he sees in us. Their good name is in our keeping. No higher tribute can we pay to the fame of the American soldier than "the white flower of a blameless life.'’ Comrades, brothers! let our remaining days be so disciplined that when our rest is sounded our neighbors may mourn each one of us as we mourn these; that contemplating a character full rounded, freed from stain of ill doing, or rust of indolence, they may say lovingly and proudly. "As his young comrades died, so this veteran lived — for the advantage of his fellow-men."

Easter in Jerusalem in 1697

Extracts from: A JOURNEY FROM ALEPPO TO JERUSALEM, AT EASTER, A. D. 1697. TO WHICH IS ADDED AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S JOURNEY TO THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES AT BEER, AND TO THE COUNTRY OF MESOPOTAMIA. By Henry MAUNDRELL, M. A. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. BOSTON: SAMUEL G. SIMPKINS. 1836.

There being several gentlemen of our nation (fourteen in number) determined for a visit to the Holy Land, at the approaching Easter, I resolved, though but newly come to Aleppo, to make one in the same design: considering that as it was my purpose to undertake this pilgrimage some time or other, before my return to England, so I could never do it, either with less prejudice to my cure, or with greater pleasure to myself, than at this juncture; having so large a part of my congregation abroad at the same time, and in my company.

Pursuant to this resolution, we set out from Aleppo, Friday, February 26, 1696, at three in the afternoon, intending to make only a short step that evening, in order to prove how well we were provided with necessaries for our journey.

* * * *

March 25.
In two hours and one third we came to the top of a hill, from whence we had the first prospect of Jerusalem; Rama, anciently called Gibeah of Saul, being within view on the right hand, and the plain of Jericho, and the mountains of Gilead on the left. In one hour more we approached the walls of the holy city; but we could not enter immediately, it being necessary first to send a messenger to acquaint the governor of our arrival, and to desire liberty of entrance.

Without which preceding ceremony, no Frank dares come within the walls. We therefore passed along by the west side of the city, and coming to the corner above Bethlehem gate, made a stop there, in order to expect the return of our messenger. We had not waited above half an hour, when he brought us our permission, and we entered accordingly at Bethlehem gate. It is required of all Franks, unless they happen to come in with some public minister, to dismount at the gate, to deliver their arms, and enter on foot: but we coming in company with the French consul, had the privilege to enter mounted and armed. Just within the gate, we turned up a street on the left hand, and were conducted by the consul to his own house, with most friendly and generous invitations to make that our home, as long as we should continue at Jerusalem. Having taken a little refreshment, we went to the Latin convent, at which all Frank pilgrims are entertained. The guardian and friars received us with many kind welcomes; and kept us with them at supper: after which, we returned to the French consul's to bed. And thus we continued to take our lodging at the consul's, and our board with the friars, during our whole stay at Jerusalem.

Friday, March 26.
The next day being Good Friday, in the Latin style, the consul was obliged to go into the church of the sepulchre, in order to keep his feast; whither we accompanied him although our own Easter was not till a week after theirs. We found the church doors guarded by several Janizaries, and other Turkish officers; who are placed here to watch, that none enter in, but such as have paid first their appointed caphar. This is more or less according to the country, or character of the persons that enter. For Franks, it is ordinarily fourteen dollars per head, unless they are ecclesiastics; for in that case it is but half as much.

Having once paid this caphar, you may go in and out gratis as often as you please during the whole feast; provided you take the ordinary opportunities, in which it is customary to open the doors: but if you would have them opened at any time out of the common course, purposely for your own private occasion, then the first expense must be paid again.

The pilgrims being all admitted this day, the church doors were locked in the evening, and opened no more till Easter day; by which we were kept in a close but very happy confinement for three days. We spent our time in viewing the ceremonies practised by the Latins at this festival, and in visiting the several holy places; all which we had opportunity to survey, with as much freedom and deliberation as we pleased.

And now being got under the sacred roof, and having the advantage of so much leisure and freedom, I might expatiate in a large description of the several holy places, which this church (as a cabinet) contains in it. But this would be a superfluous prolixity, so many pilgrims having discharged this office with so much exactness already, and especially our learned sagacious countryman Mr. Sandys: whose descriptions and draughts, both of this church, and also of the other remarkable places in and about Jerusalem, must be acknowledged so faithful and perfect, that they leave very little to be added by after-comers, and nothing to be corrected. I shall content myself therefore, to relate only what passed in the church during this festival, saying no more of the church itself, than just what is necessary to make my account intelligible. The church of the holy sepulchre is founded upon mount Calvary, which is a small eminence or hill upon the greater mount of Moriah. It was anciently appropriated to the execution of malefactors, and therefore shut out of the walls of the city, as an execrable and polluted place. But since it was made the altar on which was offered up the precious, and all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, it has recovered itself from that infamy, and has been always reverenced and resorted to with such devotion by all Christians, that it has attracted the city round about it, and stands now in the midst of Jerusalem, a great part of the hill of Sion being shut out of the walls, to make room for the admission of Calvary.

In order to the fitting of this hill for the foundation of a church, the first founders were obliged to reduce it to a plain area; which they did by cutting down several parts of the rock, and by elevating others. But in this work, care was taken, that none of those parts of the hill, which were reckoned to be more immediately concerned in our blessed Lord's passion, should be altered or diminished. Thus that very part of Calvary, where they say Christ was fastened to, and lifted upon his cross, is left entire; being about ten or twelve yards square and standing at this day so high above the common floor of the church, that you have twenty-one steps or stairs to go up to its top: and the holy sepulchre itself, which was at first a cave hewn into the rock under ground, having had the rock cut away from it all round, is now as it were a grotto above ground. The church is less than one hundred paces long, and not more than sixty wide: and yet is so contrived, that it is supposed to contain under its roof twelve or thirteen sanctuaries, or places consecrated to a more than ordinary veneration by being reputed to have some particular actions done in them relating to the death and resurrection of Christ As first, the place where he was derided by the soldiers: secondly, where the soldiers divided his garments: thirdly, where he was shut up, whilst they dug the hole to set the foot of the cross in, and made all ready for his crucifixion: fourthly, where he was nailed to the cross: fifthly, where the cross was erected: sixthly, where the soldier stood, that pierced his side: seventhly, where his body was anointed in order to his burial: eighthly, where his body was deposited in the sepulchre: ninthly, where the angels appeared to the women after his resurrection: tenthly, where Christ himself appeared to Mary Magdalen, &c, The places where these and many other things relating to our blessed Lord are said to have been done, are all supposed to be contained within the narrow precincts of this church, and are all distinguished and adorned with so many several altars.

In galleries round about the church, and also in little buildings annexed to it on the outside, are certain apartments for the reception of friars and pilgrims; and in these places almost every Christian nation anciently maintained a small society of monks; each society having its proper quarter assigned to it, by the appointment of the Turks: such as the Latins, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Abyssines, Georgians, Nestorians, Cophtites, Maronites, &c., all which had anciently their several apartments in the church. But these have all, except four, forsaken their quarters; not being able to sustain the severe rents and extortions, which their Turkish land-lords impose upon them. The Latins, Greeks, Armenians, and Cophtites, keep their footing still. But of these four, the Cophtites have now only one poor representative of their nation left; and the Armenians are run so much in debt, that it is supposed they are hastening apace to follow the examples of their brethren, who have deserted before them.

Besides their several apartments, each fraternity have their altars and sanctuary, properly and distinctly allotted to their own use. At which places they have a peculiar right to perform their own divine service, and to exclude other nations from them.

But that which has always been the great prize contended for by the several sects, is the command and appropriation of the Holy sepulchre: a privilege contested with so much unchristian fury and animosity, especially between the Greeks and Latins, that in disputing which party should go into it to celebrate their mass, they have sometimes proceeded to blows and wounds even at the very door of the sepulchre; mingling their own blood with their sacrifices. An evidence of which fury the father guardian showed us in a great scar upon his arm, which he told us was the mark of a wound, given him by a sturdy Greek priest in one of these unholy wars. Who can expect ever to see these holy places rescued from the hands of infidels? Or if they should be recovered, what deplorable contest might be expected to follow about them? seeing even in their present state of captivity, they are made the occasion of such unchristian rage and animosity.

For putting an end to these infamous quarrels, the French king interposed by a letter to the grand visier about twelve years since; requesting him to order the holy sepulchre to be put into the hands of the Latins, according to the tenor of the capitulation made in the year 1673. The consequence of which letter, and of ether instances made by the French king, was, that the holy sepulchre was appropriated to the Latins: this was not accomplished till the year 1690 they alone having the privilege to say mass in it. And though it be permitted to Christians of all nations to go into it for their private devotions, yet none may solemnize any public office of religion there, but the Latins.

The daily employment of these recluses is to trim the lamps, and to make devotional visits and processions to the several sanctuaries in the church. Thus they spend their time, many of them for four Or six years together: nay so far are some transported with the pleasing contemplations in which they here entertain themselves, that they will never come out to their dying day burying themselves (as it were) alive in our Lord's grave.

The Latins, of whom there are always about ten or twelve residing at the church, with a president over them, make every day a solemn procession with tapers and crucifixes, and other processionary solemnities, to the several sanctuaries; singing at every one of them a Latin hymn relating to the subject of each place. These Latins being more polite and exact in their functions than the other monks here residing, and also our conversation being chiefly with them, I will only describe their ceremonies, without taking notice of what was done by others, which did not so much come under our observation.

Their ceremony begins on Good Friday night, which is called by them the Nox tenebrosa, and is observed with such an extraordinary solemnity, that I cannot omit to give a particular description of it.

As soon as it grew dusk, all the friars and pilgrims were convened in the chapel of the apparition (which is a small oratory on the north side of the holy grave, adjoining to the apartments of the Latins,) in order to go in a procession round the church. But, before they set out, one of the friars preached a sermon in Italian in that chapel. He began his discourse thus; In questa notte tenebrosa, &c. at which words all the candles were instantly put out, to yield a livelier image of the occasion. And so we were held by the preacher, for near half an hour very much in the dark. Sermon being ended, every person present had a large lighted taper put into his hand, as if it were to make amends for the former darkness; and the crucifixes and other utensils were disposed in order for beginning the procession. Amongst the other crucifixes there was one of a very large size, which bore upon it the image of our Lord, as big as the life. The image was fastened to it with great nails, crowned with thorns, besmeared with blood; and so exquisitely was it formed, that it represented in a very lively manner the lamentable spectacle of our Lord's body, as it hung upon the cross. This figure was carried all along in the head of the procession; after which, the company followed to all the sanctuaries in the church, singing their appointed hymn at every one.

The first place they visited was that of the pillar of flaggellation, a large piece of which is kept in a little cell just at the door of the chapel of the apparition. There they sung their proper hymn; and another friar entertained the company with a sermon in Spanish, touching the scourging of our Lord.

From hence they proceeded in solemn order to the prison of Christ, where they pretend he was secured whilst the soldiers made things ready for his crucifixion; here likewise they sung their hymn, and a third friar preached in French.

From the prison they went to the altar of the division of Christ's garments, where they only sung their hymn, without adding any sermon.

Having done here, they advanced to the chapel of the derision; at which, after their hymn, they had a fourth sermon (as I remember) in French.

From this place they went up to Calvary, leaving their shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Here are two altars to be visited: one where our 'Lord is supposed to have been nailed to his cross; another where his cross was erected. At the former of these they laid down the great crucifix, (which I but now described) upon the floor, and acted a kind of resemblance of Christ's being nailed to the cross; and after the hymn, one of the friars preached another sermon in Spanish upon the crucifixion.

From hence they removed to the adjoining altar, where the cross is supposed to have been erected, bearing the image of our Lord's body;

At this altar is a hole in the natural rock, said to be the very same individual one, in which the foot of our Lord's cross stood. Here they set up their cross with the bloody crucified image upon it; and leaving it in that posture, they first sung their hymn, and then the father guardian, sitting in a chair before it, preached a passion-sermon in Italian.

At about one yard and a half distance from the hole in which the foot of the cross was fixed, is seen that memorable cleft in the rock, said to have been made by the earthquake which happened at the suffering of our Lord; when (as St. Matthew, Chap, xxvii. ver. 51, witnesseth) the rocks rent, and the very graves were opened. This cleft, as to what now appears of it, is about a span wide at its upper part, and two deep; after which it closes: but it opens again below, (as you may see in another chapel contiguous to the side of Calvary,) and runs down to an unknown depth in the earth. That this rent was made by the earthquake, that happened at our Lord's passion, there is only tradition to prove: but that it is a natural and genuine breach, and not counterfeited by any art, the sense and reason of every one that sees it may convince him; for the sides of it fit like two tallies to each other: and yet it runs in such intricate windings as could not well be counterfeited by art, nor arrived at by any instruments.

The ceremony of the passion being over, and the Guardian's sermon ended, two friars, personating, the one Joseph of Arimathea, the other Nicodemus, approached the cross, and with a most solemn concerned air, both of aspect and behavior, drew out the great nails, and took down the feigned body from the cross. It was an effigy so contrived, that its limbs were soft and flexible, as if they had been real flesh: and nothing could be more surprising, than to see the two pretended mourners bend down the arms, which were before extended, and dispose them upon the trunk, in such a manner as is usual in corpses.

The body being taken down from the cross, was received in a fair large winding-sheet, and carried down from Calvary; the whole company attending as before, to the stone of unction. This is taken for the very place where the precious body of our Lord was anointed, and prepared for the burial, John xix. 39. Here they laid down their imaginary corpse; and casting over it several sweet powders and spices, wrapt it up in the winding-sheet: whilst this was doing, they sung their proper hymn, and after-wards one of the friars preached in Arabic a funeral sermon.

These obsequies being finished, they carried off their fancied corpse, and laid it in the sepulchre; shutting up the door till Easter morning. And now after so many sermons, and so long, not to say tedious a ceremony, it may well be imagined that the weariness of the congregation, as well as the hour of the night, made it needful to go to rest.

Saturday, March 27.
The next morning nothing extraordinary passed; which gave many of the pilgrims leisure to have their arms marked with the usual ensigns of Jerusalem. The artists, who undertake the operation, do it in this manner. They have stamps in wood of any figure that you desire; which they first print off upon your arm with powder of charcoal: then taking two very fine needles tied close together, and dipping them often, like a pen in certain ink, compounded as I was informed of gunpowder and ox-gall, they make with them small punctures all along the lines of the figure which they have printed; and then washing the part in wine, conclude the work. These punctures they make with great quickness and dexterity, and with scarce any smart, seldom piercing so deep as to draw blood. In the afternoon of this day, the congregation was assembled in the area before the holy grave, where the friars spent some hours in singing over the Lamentations of Jeremiah; which function, with the usual procession to the holy places, was all the ceremony of this day.

Sunday, March 28.
On Easter morning, the sepulchre was again set open very early. The clouds of the former morning were cleared up; and the friars put on a face of joy and serenity, as if it had been the real juncture of our Lord's resurrection. Nor doubtless was this joy feigned, whatever their mourning might be, this being the day in which their lenten disciplines expired, and they were to come to a full belly again.

The mass was celebrated this morning just before the holy sepulchre, being the most eminent place in the church; where the father guardian had a throne erected, and being arrayed in episcopal robes, with a mitre on his head, in the sight of the Turks, he gave the host to all that were disposed to receive it; not refusing children of seven or eight years old. This office being ended, we made our exit out of the sepulchre, and returning to the convent, dined with the friars.

After dinner, we took an opportunity to go and visit some of the remarkable places without the city walls; we began with those on the north side.

The first place we were conducted to was a large grot, a little without Damascus Gate; said to have been some time the residence of Jeremiah. On the left side of it is shown the prophet's bed, being a shelve on the rock, about eight feet from the ground, and not far from this, is the place where they say he wrote his lamentations. This place is at present a college of Dervises, and is held in great veneration by the Turks and Jews, as well as Christians.

The next place we came to was those famous grots called the sepulchres of the kings; but for what reason they go by that name is hard to resolve: for it is certain none of the kings, either of Israel or Judah, were buried here, the holy scriptures, assigning other places for their sepultures; unless it may be thought perhaps that Hezekiah was here interred, and that these were the sepulchres of the sons of David, mentioned 2 Chron. xxxii. 33. Whoever was buried here, this is certain, that the place itself discovers so great an expense both of labor and treasure, that we may well suppose it to have been the work of kings. You approach to it at the east side, through an entrance cut out of the natural rock, which admits you into an open court of about forty paces square, cut down into the rock with which it is encompassed, instead of walls. On the south side of the court, is a portico nine paces long and four broad, hewn likewise out of the natural rock. This has a kind of architrave running along its front, adorned with sculpture of fruits and flowers, still discernible, but by time much defaced. At the end of the portico on the left hand, you descend to the passage into the sepulchres. The door is now so obstructed with stones and rubbish, that it is a thing of some difficulty to creep through it. But within you arrive in a large fair room, about seven or eight yards square, cut out of the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, that no architect with levels and plummets could build a room more regular: and the whole is so firm and entire, that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble. From this room, you pass into (I think) six more, one within another, all of the same fabric with the first Of these, the two innermost are deeper than the rest, having a second descent of about six or seven steps into them.

In every one of these rooms except the first, were coffins of stone placed in niches in the sides of the chambers. They had been at first covered with handsome lids, and carved with garlands; but now most of them were broke to pieces by sacrilegious hands. The sides and ceiling of the rooms were always dropping, with the moist damps condensing upon them. To remedy which nuisance, and to preserve these chambers of the dead polite and clean, there was in each room a small channel cut in the floor, which served to drain the drops that fall constantly into it.

But the most surprising thing belonging to these subterraneous chambers was their doors; of which there is only one that remains hang tag, being left as it were on purpose to puzzle the beholders. It consisted of a plank of stone of about six inches in thickness, and in its other dimensions equalling the size of an ordinary door, or somewhat less. It was carved in such a manner, as to resemble a piece of wainscot. The stone of which it was made was visibly of the same kind with the whole rock, and it turned upon two hinges in the nature of axles. These hinges were of the same entire piece of stone with the door; and were contained in two holes of the immovable rock, one at the top, the other at the bottom.

From this description it is obvious to start a question, how such doors as these were made? Whether they were cut out of the rock, in the same place and manner as they now hang; or whether they were brought, and fixed in their station like other doors? One of these must be supposed to have been .done: and whichsoever part we choose, as most probable, it seems at first glance to be not without its difficulty. But thus much I have to say, for the resolving of this riddle, (which is wont to create no small dispute amongst pilgrims,) viz. that the door which was left hanging did not touch its lintel, by at least two inches; so that I believe it might easily hare been lifted up and unhinged. And the doors which had been thrown down, had their hinges at the upper end, twice as long as those at the bottom; which seems to intimate pretty plainly, by what method this work was accomplished.

From these sepulchres, we returned toward the city again, and just by Herod's Gate were shewn a grotto full of filthy water and mire. This passes for the dungeon in which Jeremiah was kept by Zedekiah, till enlarged by the charity of Ebed Melech. Jer. xxxviii. At this place we concluded our visits for that evening.