CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 29 
In the year 1776 our forefathers resolved that they would not any 
longer live under the British government and God assisted them to 
gain their liberties, and, if the people of the United States would 
remember that it was God alone who enabled them to resist the 
British who were much more powerful than the Americans and sent 
very large armies and a great many ships against them, they would 
be very thankful to God for His kindness. They would do right to 
celebrate the day of their independence but they ought not to get 
drunk upon it and behave as if they cared nothing about God and 
did not believe that He would be angry with them for their wickedness 
and ingratitude. 
Two or three days ago I went over to the place where the first 
great battle was fought between the Americans and the British. 
There had been it is true some fighting before at Lexington a short 
distance from Boston but the battle of Bunker’s Hill was the first 
great battle. I daresay you have read all about it. I stood upon the 
top of Breed’s Hill for it was not on Bunker’s Hill, which is a quarter 
of a mile distant that the battle took place, but on Breed’s Hill. 
It is a small hill and if you were to see it you would wonder that 
the American soldiers would ever have thought of making a stand 
there, but God put it into their hearts to fight and they stood their 
ground very bravely and killed and wounded nearly one thousand 
of the British and the news spread over the whole of the United 
States that only a small number of the Americans, with old shabby 
guns had shot (and killed) a great many British and that gave courage 
to Americans in other parts of the United States. War is a bad 
thing but if one nation attempts to make slaves of another nation 
it is lawful to take up arms and drive them away. 
I will now tell you what I saw and heard yesterday. In the 
morning about daybreak the people of Boston fired off a great many 
cannon and rang the church bells for about half an hour. About 
nine o’clock the Sunday Schools were assembled together in great 
number in one of the largest churches in Boston and had their cele- 
bration. At eleven o’clock the volunteer companies and young men 
formed a procession, that is walked in a long row down to one of 
the churches and there heard an oration delivered. Then at twelve 
o’clock the officers of the city and more elderly gentlemen met at the 
State House and walked in a procession down to the Old South Church, 
