30 REMARKS OF GOV, EVERETT. 



recollections of the precious blood by which they were redeem- 

 ed. K any thing was wanting to inspire you with a passionate 

 attachment to the blessings you enjoy, it would be the thought 

 of the inestimable price at which they were purchased. 



Nor let us forget, if we have a patriotic ancestry to be proud 

 of, and it we have privileges to enjoy, we have also incumbent 

 duties to perform. The great principles of republican liberty 

 are exposed to danger in peace as well as in war. Prosperity, 

 not less than trial, may sap the foundation of the social fabric ; 

 and there is at all times less danger from a foreign foe, than from 

 party passion, individual selfishness, and general apathy. 



It will not, of course, be expected of me to enlarge upon the 

 duties which devolve upon our husbandmen, with a view to guard 

 egainst these dangers and perpetuate our institutions in their pu- 

 dty. I can but glance at the topic. But I may say, that the 

 first and most important duty of the husbandman is to endeavor 

 i.0 preserve, and if it may be to strengthen, the broad foundation 

 laid by our fathers in a deep religious principle. Surely there 

 is no class of the community whose daily pursuits ought to fur- 

 nish greater nourishment to the sense of religious things. The 

 reflecting mind, it is true, beholds traces of a higher wisdom and 

 goodness in every step of every walk of life; but the husband- 

 man, who drops a seemingly lifeless seed into the cold damp 

 earth, there in great part to decay ; who sees the vital germ in a 

 few days pierce the clod, rise into the air, drink the sun's rays 

 and the dews of heaven, shoot upwards and expand, array itself 

 in glories beyond the royal vesture of Solomon, extract from the 

 same common earth and air a thousand varieties of the green of 

 the leaf, the rainbow hues of the petals, the juicy or the solid 

 substance of the fruit, which is to form the food of man and his 

 dependant animals. I say, the intelligent husbandman who be- 

 holds this, seems to step behind the veil which conceals the mys- 

 teries of creative power, and sit down (if 1 dare so speak) in the 

 laboratory of Omnipotence. 



Connected with the cultivation of the religious principle, and 

 the natural fruit of it, we look to our husbandmen for a high 

 moral sense. The worst feature in the degradation of many for- 



