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Religious Celebration of Endependence :

DISCOURSE

DELIVERED AT NORTHAMPTON,

ON THE

FOURTH OF JULY, 1827.

BY WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE,
PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN WEST SPRINGFIELD.

HARTFORD:

PRINTED BY GOODWIN & CO.

DISCOURSE.

EXODUS XIII. S.

AND MOSES SAID UNTO THE PEOPLE, REMEMBER THIS DAY, IN WHICH YE CAME OUT FROM EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE.

THE descendants of Israel were in bondage to the Egyptians, about a hundred and fifty years. When the fulness of time had come, God raised up Moses, and poured upon him the spirit of wisdom and might, and sent him forth to effect the deliverance of his people. At the threshold of the enterprise, Moses had to encounter the power and wrath of one of the most hardened monsters whom the world has seen; but Jehovah was with him, and by a miraculous and appalling agency, poured contempt upon all the efforts which were made to detain him and his people in bondage. The result was, that the Hebrew nation went out in triumph from the land of their oppressors; and God ordained that

their deliverance should be commemorated by an annual religious festival. It was an event in which all succeeding generations would of course be deeply interested; and hence the propriety of transmitting a knowledge of it to posterity, by some standing memorial.

Is there not some analogy, my friends, between that portion of the Jewish history to which I have adverted, and that part of the history of our own country, to which our attention is directed by the present occasion? There was a timeand it is within the remembrance of many of you-when the nation from which we sprang, stretched over us the arm of oppression. It pleased God to interpose--not indeed by miraculous agency, but by wonderful means for our deliverance. The day which decided our national destiny, by producing the Declaration of our independence, has, ever since, in its annual returns, been greeted with a national enthusiasm. It has been a day, with many, at least, sacred to high and heroic associations. The spirit of rejoicing has gone abroad among us; and we have seemed to breathe the fresh air of freedom.

The

gratulations of this great and free people have

poured into our ears; while the heavens have appeared garnished with more exquisite beauty, and the earth clothed with deeper verdure, as we have contemplated, in the bright light of this day, the prospect of our country's glory.

But, it must be acknowledged that the celebration of this anniversary has not always ministered to the best interests of our nation. Not unfrequently, it has been perverted to purposes of political jangling ;—for brandishing, even in the sanctuary of God, the carnal weapons of party spirit ;-for stirring up the worst passions. of human nature ;-for attempting, I had almost said, to pour mildew around that plant of freedom, which it should be the design of this occasion to cherish. And who does not know that vice has stalked abroad, on this day, with a more than commonly shameless front; as if the freedom, which the day commemorates, were only the liberty of doing wrong. So extensive have been the evils of which I speak, that it has been the opinion of many wise and good men, that not only the cause of virtue, but the cause of patriotism, was bleeding in consequence of these annual celebrations; and they have been ready

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