Page:Oration Delivered on the Centennial Day of Washington's Initiation into Masonry (1852).djvu/5

Rh A hundred years—how long! how short! how great! how little! a drop in the ocean of eternity, into which centuries, like rivers, fall and disappear. But, as a single drop of water may contain, within itself, all the elements and materials, out of which Omnipotence can create and replenish a world, so a single century may give birth to men and events, that will change the political and moral character of the world; which, giving life and being to a train of principles, whose operations and extension will tell, loudly and deeply, upon each succeeding generation; and whose consummated work of grandeur, wisdom and goodness will be read, only in the last, the brightest and the best pages of time’s recorded history.

A hundred years! how has the world been changed in that period. What solemn and rigid demonstrations have been given of the uncertainty and mutability of all human wisdom and power, and what convincing proof has been furnished, that over all the commotions of this world, produced by the evil passions of men, and ambition and wickedness of Kings and rulers, there rules a divine and omnipotent power, of wisdom, and goodness, that can bring good out of evil, order out of confusion, and make the folly and madness of men effect his purposes of mercy and benevolence to suffering humanity.

A hundred years ago, the two greatest powers of Europe—and, we might add, the most bloody—athough, self-styled, the most-christian, then and since—battled long and fiercely for the dominion of this Continent, which God designed for neither, but for a people then unknown, without a history and without a name, and which He accomplished in his own time, and chiefly by the agency of him who holds the first place in the hearts of free-men; the brightest name in the page of history; and worthy the highest place in the love, admiration and praise of Masons.

It is not often that a really great man appears in the world. It is only when a great man is neeeded to redeem the world, or a part of it, out of the difficulties and miseries into which, wicked and imbecile rulers have plunged it. And when Divine wisdom designs to achieve some important purpose, in the progress of time, by which to advance the interest and welfare of humanity, He prepares the human agents, by whom to effect the same. The hour comes, and the men are present, and ready to do all that the hour and the occasion require.

But how unknown to man are the purposes and decrees of Divine wisdom, until those, purposes and decrees unfold themselves to the world, in the progress of time, and on the page of history. When the Subject of this day’s celebration was initiated into the Order of Masonry, who, of all those, then present, entertained a thought of his future career of greatness? Who, that assisted in that ceremony, could have fancied, that in a few years, he would