Page:History of Gardner, Massachusetts (1860) - Glazier.djvu/167

Rh At this period we bring our brief and imperfect sketch to a close. We have followed along the course of this history, sometimes smooth and sometimes troubled, for a period of about seventy-five years; which, with all its scenes and events, is now among the things that were; of which "the memory fondly delights to recall."

Such recollections of the past have a good moral influence on the generations present and to come. We learn in some degree, to appreciate the hardships of those who were the pioneers of society and who first made the sound of the axe to be heard in the forest. We are better prepared to estimate the advantages we enjoy, and the responsibility that attends the possession of such advantages.

We are also connected, in an important sense, with those who have lived in ages past, and others who are yet to come, exerting an influence from generation to generation that will continue to flow on to the end of time.