4 



try, from the heavy workings of cotton in Lawrence, and 

 granite in Rockport, of shoes in Lynn, and fishery in Glou- 

 cester, to the lighter craft of combs in West Newbury, shoe- 

 threads in Andover, and cigars in Saugus. You stand for 

 twenty-seven towns, and six incorporated cities of perhaps 

 twenty thousand souls each, whose school-houses are like 

 palaces, and whose churches stand thicker than the old cas- 

 tles that look down on "the wide and winding Rhine." You 

 are gathered from all political parties, and you stand for 

 every form of religious thought that calls itself Christian, 

 and possibly some who do not. You speak the English lan- 

 guage more purely than any other people, and you read the 

 authors of every civilized tongue under the whole heaven. 

 Not only so, but yours is a community marked of history. 

 You have the first landing-place, almost, of pilgrim feet, and 

 the first seat where Legislation sat down in the name of this 

 nation of the West ; and the first-built church of God's wor- 

 ship no doubt stands to-day within your borders. It was on 

 your soil that the first defiance was done to the flag of Eng- 

 land, it was here, too, that the first open collision with that 

 power occurred, and it was this soil and this community that 

 earliest drove out the soldiers of the insane king, and gave 

 timely notice to all the world that here was one spot already 

 in possession of Liberty. Nor less in Art and Science. The 

 cinders of the oldest iron-foundry in America lie to-day on 

 the river-bank, quiet witnesses of their own antiquity ; the 

 water still brightly flows in the oldest canal, hardly three 

 miles away, and the first weaving of American linen and 

 wool is said to have been done in the same region. Why 

 should I seek to unroll the long list of names of productive 

 thouo-ht, to recite to you the experimentation of Jacob Per- 



