would wish
that his country's existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the
power of going back to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin
obscured in the darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for other
emblazoning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her
genealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was with
intelligence, her first breath the inspiration of liberty, her first
principle the truth of divine religion?

Local attachments and sympathies would ere long spring up in the breasts
of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge. Whatever
natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and high efforts
obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a sort of
recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the esteem of
the Pilgrims,[8] and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither they
nor their children were again to till the soil of England, nor again to
traverse the seas which surround her.[9] But here was a new sea, now
open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed to
respond gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was already
assuming a robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter for the
living, ere they were summoned to erect sepulchres for the dead. The
ground had become sacred, by enclosing the remains of some of their
companions and connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a wife, had
gone the way of all flesh, and mingled with the dust of New England. We
naturally look with strong emotions to the spot, though it be a
wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where the
heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of laying
itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorable
inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness of
the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow to
our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousness
that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects of our affections.

In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with new
cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of future
generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The second
generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they were
bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around them,
and while they read the memorials o