Page:Oration Delivered on the Centennial Day of Washington's Initiation into Masonry (1852).djvu/12

12 of their rights and liberty—the right of honoring truth and claiming its blessings.

And yet, strange to tell, and sad as strange, every department of truth has either been shut up, or placed under heavy restrictions and embarrassments, while every species of truth had had its martyrs, And yet, in this sacred charter of all our rights and privileges—this source of light and life divine—this guide and warrant of eternal life—the precept is, “Prove all things, and hold fast what is good.” In this single precept is contained a grant wide as the empire of truth, and free as truth, to range through, and explore her every department, and dig for her every treasure, to try her, to prove her, to embrace her; and when we find her, under whatever form, or whatever of her many departments, hold her fast, for she is good and will prove the highest and most lasting good.

And among all the illustrious names, that so brightly shine on the page of history, in this holy warfare for the cause of truth, that of our own immortal stands the highest and the brightest. He, more than all that preceded him in this noblest of causes, extended the empire of truth, by removing the obstacles, the barriers, and the chains, with which error, falsehood, and illegitimate power had confined and enslaved her. His right arm, and his good sword struck a fatal blow at the combined enemies of truth and humanity, which they shall ever feel, and gave an extended freedom to the spirit of all liberty, both in power and space, such as time had never witnessed before. And (to go back no farther in the past) what the superhuman mind of Algernon Sidney—the greatest of England’s noble list of martyrs—sublimely conceived in thought, what the philosophy of Locke foresaw and predicted afar-off—what Milton’s spirit, almost inspired, grasped and boldly proclaimed, in the foulest period of England’s history, and what flashed from the sword of Cromwell and of his stern Independents—our has completed and fulfilled, giving to it all a local habitation and a name, to perish no more—to be trodden down no more, but to continue and triumph, while the sun and the moon shall endure.

And, now, my brethren and fellow-citizens, to sum up what we have laid before you, it is this truth, which we have endeavored to unfold, in its amplitude and extent, that has given to the past whatever glory and greatness the past unfolds to our view: all else is but darkness, delusion and vanity; all else, save this truth, and its few and simple records, is but the history of a mighty and insane warfare against God and man, against the benevolence of the former and the welfare of the latter.

And now, my brethren and fellow-citizens, this truth—this same truth, of which we are the honored recipients—this truth