The citizen of the Northwest will be a freeman. No shackles will bind him, nor will he wear a lock upon his lips. To the emigrant from the Old World the crossing of the ocean is an act of emancipation; it is like the Marseillaise,—it fires him with new hopes and aspirations.
"Here the free spirit of mankind at length
Throws its last fetters off, and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
For like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long untravelled path of light
Into the depth of ages; we may trace,
Distant, the brightening glory of its flight,
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight."
I do not look with desponding eyes into the future. The nations everywhere,—in Europe and Asia,—the new and the old, are moving onward and upward as never before, and America leads them. Railroads, steamships, school-houses, printing-presses, free platforms and pulpits, an open Bible, are the propelling forces of the nineteenth century. It remains only for the Christian men and women of this country to give the Bible, the Sunday and the common school to the coming millions, to insure a greatness and grandeur to America far surpassing anything in human history.
It will not be for America alone; for, under the energizing powers of this age the entire human race is moving on towards a destiny unseen except to the eye of faith, but unmistakably grand and glorious.
I have been an observer of the civilization of Europe, and have seen the kindlings of new life, at the hands of England and the United States, in India and China; and through the drifting haze of the future I behold nations rising from the darkness of ancient barbarism into the light of modern civilization, and the radiant cross once reared on Calvary throwing its peaceful beams afar,—over ocean, valley, lake, river, and mountain, illuming all the earth.
Situated where the great stream of human life will pour its mightiest flood from ocean to ocean, beneficently endowed with nature's riches, and illumed by such a light, there will be no portion of all earth's wide domain surpassing in glory and grandeur this future Seat of Empire.
Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company.
GREAT CENTRAL ROUTE