Before me lies a bundle of
these sermons, rescued from sixscore years of dust, scrawled on their
title-pages with names of owners dead long ago, worm-eaten,
dingy, stained with the damps of time, and uttering in quaint
old letterpress the emotions of a buried and forgotten past.
Triumph, gratulation, hope, breathe in every line, but no
ill-will against a fallen enemy. Thomas Foxcroft, pastor of
the "Old Church in Boston," preaches from the text, "The
Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad."
"Long," he says, "had it been the common opinion, _Delenda
est Carthago_, Canada must be conquered, or we could hope
for no lasting quiet in these parts; and now, through the good
hand of our God upon us, we see the happy day of its accomplishment.
We behold His Majesty's victorious troops treading upon the high
places of the enemy, their last fortress delivered up, and their
whole country surrendered to the King of Britain in the person of
his general, the intrepid, the serene, the successful Amherst."
The loyal John Mellen, pastor of the Second Church in
Lancaster, exclaims, boding nothing of the tempest to come:
"Let us fear God and honor the King, and be peaceable subjects
of an easy and happy government. And may the blessing of Heaven be
ever upon those enemies of our country that have now submitted to
the English Crown, and according to the oath they have taken lead
quiet lives in all godliness and honesty.
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