Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/191

Rh their government. The officers are one thing; and the people, thank God, are something a little different.

If a deed which so outraged the people had been done by the government of Massachusetts a hundred years ago, there would have been a "day of fasting and prayer," and next a muster of soldiers: one day the people would have thought of their trust in God, and the next looked to it that their powder was dry. Now nobody fasts, save to the eye; he prays best who, not asking God to do man's work, prays penitence, prays resolutions, and then prays deeds, thus supplicating with heart and head and hands. This is a day for such a prayer. The twelfth of last April issued the proclamation which brings us here to-day.

We have historical precedent for this commemoration, if men need such an argument. After the Boston Massacre of the fifth of March, 1770, the people had annually a solemn commemoration of the event. They had their great and honoured men to the pulpit on that occasion: Lovell, child of a Tory father,—the son's patriotism brought him to a British jail; Tudor and Dawes, honourable and honoured names; Thacher, "the young Elijah" of his times; Warren, twice called to that post, but destined soon to perish by a British hand; John Hancock,—his very name was once the pride and glory of the town. They stood here, and, mindful of their brothers slain in the street not long to bear the name of "King," taught the lesson of liberty to their fellow-men. The menace of British officers, their presence in the aisles of the church, the sight of their weapons on the pulpit-stairs, did not frighten Joseph Warren,—not a hireling shepherd, though he came in by the pulpit-window, while soldiers crammed the porch. Did they threaten to stop his mouth? It took bullet and bayonet both to silence his lips. John Hancock was of eyes too pure to fear the government of Britain. Once, when Boston was in the hands of the enemy of freedom,—I mean the foreign enemy,—the discourse could not be delivered here; Boston adjourned to Watertown to hear "the young Elijah" ask whether "the rising empire of America shall be an empire of slaves or of freemen." But on that day there was another commemoration held hard by; "one George Washington" discoursed from the "Heights of Dorchester;" and, soon after, Israel Putnam marched