Day came in all the beauty of an early spring. The trees were budding;
the grass growing rankly a full month before its time; the bluebird and
the robin gladdening the genial season, and calling forth the beams of
the sun which on that morning shone with the warmth of summer; but
distress and horror gathered over the inhabitants of the peaceful town.
There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the
grassy field was red "with the innocent blood of their brethren slain,"
crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.
Seven of the men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded; a quarter part
of all who stood in arms on the green. These are the village heroes, who
were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of
a race divine. They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of
mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the
mighty struggle which they began. Their names are held in grateful
remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and
multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled
their duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their action
was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time. The light that
led them on was combined of rays from the whole history of the race;
from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world's morning;
from the heroes and sages of republican Greece and Rome; from the
example of Him who died on the cross for the life of humanity; from the
religious creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this
truth, as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark
flood of the Middle Ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted
out of their forests to the councils of Saxon England; from the burning
faith and courage of Martin Luther; from trust in the inevitable
universality of God's sovereignty as taught by Paul of Tarsus and
Augustine, through Calvin and the divines of New England; from the
avenging fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed the mitre on the ruins
of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self-assertion of the
earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and
the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the
liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century;
from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the reality and the
rightfulness of human freedom. All the centuries bowed themselves from
the recesses of the past to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who
proved themselves worthy of their forerunners, and whose children rise
up and call them blessed.
Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet,
exclaimed: "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" for he saw his
country's independence hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest,
knew that the storm did but bear him the more swiftly toward the
undiscovered world.
Copyrighted by D. Appleton and Company, New York.