OF PATRIOTISM; OR, HISTORIC INCENTIVES TO VIRTUE AND IN PROSE AND VERSE, WITH NOTES. Dedicated to American Youth. BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON, U.S.A., LL.D., AUTHOR OF THE "BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION," 66 INDIAN KD HARVARD LIBRARY Copyright, 1894, BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY. University Press : PREFACE. A SINCERE desire to contribute toward a higher grade of thought and sentiment among the youth of America has prompted the preparation of this volume. Incentives to virtue and good citizenship have had expression in prose and verse, throughout human experience. The imagination and reason have been tasked to find words sufficiently terse, dramatic, and eloquent, by which to give to that expression a deep and abiding effect. Our own language has not failed to furnish the medium for a clear comprehension of all such literature and history. Themes so grand and inspiring find a quick response in the minds of youth. To re-fashion memorial utterances in simpler forms would only dishonor their source, and rob them of both beauty and value. Hence, a partial vocabulary of significant words has been added. Even this might seem needless, since even the Newsboys on our streets announce, daily, the latest tidings from all foreign as well as domestic countries; and many youth know more of geography, current history, and political economy to-day than their fathers did at manhood's full maturity. Young America catches quickly the meaning even of "hard words," if inspired by motive. This volume seeks to minister to this real capacity and enterprise, and quicken the search after knowledge that will make him most useful and happy. All passionate utterances of the periods when brethren were temporarily estranged, are excluded; but all material has been welcomed which breathes the spirit of genuine American independence, intelligent liberty, right obligation, and the Union restored. The theory of the compilation has rested upon three simple ideas. First, Human history is a Unit; and all events bear relations, B. C. or A. D., and illustrate corresponding thought and action. Hence, Hebrew, Roman, Grecian, and all other records are invited to testify of the universal trend of patriotic aspiration, and of one invariably constant factor, that of the recognition of one Supreme Creator, Benefactor, and Guide. Second, Home must stand as the nursery of those pure emotions which expand into patriotic exercise; so that the domestic affections and true patriotism must develop exactly in proportion as home is honored, and responsibility to one Almighty Father enters into the mastery of individual life. Third, Peace is the essential condition of rational happiness; and permanent honors belong only to heroes, who, like Joshua, Gideon, and our own Washington, have made war tributary to peace, refusing all transitory rewards of personal aggrandizement and power. Acknowledgments of hearty co-operative sympathy and endeavor are elsewhere tendered. A sense of responsibility for impressions sought to be made, inspires the hope that this contribution to the patriotic sentiment of the times will be accepted in the spirit of its preparation, and be attended with the divine blessing. Henry Barrington HYDE PARK, MASS., May 30, 1894. |