University of Virginia Library

II.—THE APOSTLE TO THE NEW WORLD.

We are with the Past again.

Yes, we are yonder—far over the Ocean of Time, where the Ages like
Islands of eternal granite, rear their awful forms.

At this hour on the shores of the Delaware, just where the glorious river
rich with the tribute of mountain and valley, widens into a magnificent bay,
at this hour along yonder shore, on the slope of a gentle ascent blooms a
fair village, whose white houses rise in the summer air from among gardens
and trees. Away from this hamlet spreads fields, golden with wheat, or
emerald green with Indian corn; away among these fields rank marshes
wind here and there, in all the luxuriance of their untamed verdure; away
and away from marsh, and field, and coast, and bay, green woods arise, their
thick foliage sweeping into the summer sky.

A pleasant village, a glorious country, a green island, and a lordly bay.

Such it is now. But we will back into the past. We will wander into
the shadows of ages. We will stand face to face with the dead.

There was a day when no village bloomed along this coast, nor white-walled
farm-house arose from among the orchard trees. There was a day
when standing on this gentle ascent, you might look forth, and lo! the
waves were dashing to your feet. Yonder is the green aisle, yonder far
away, the dim line of land which marks the opposite shore of the bay, and
there, heaving, and glistening, and roaring, the wide waters melt by slow
degrees into the cloudy sky.

Look to the south! You behold the level coast—white sand mingled
with green reeds—the wide-spreading marsh—the thick woods, glorious
with oak, and beech, and chesnut, and maple. Enclosed in the arms of the
green shore, the bay rolls yonder, a basin of tumultuous waves.

It is noon: above your head you behold the leaden sky. It is noon, and
lo! from the broad green of yonder marsh a pale column of blue smoke
winds up into the clouds. It is noon, and hark! A shrill, piercing, hissing
sound—a footstep—a form! A red man rushes from yonder covert,
bow in hand, while the stricken deer with one proud bound, falls dead at
his feet.

A column of blue smoke from the marsh—an arrow hissing through the
air—a red man's form and a wounded deer? What does all this mean?
Where are we now?

Hist! my friend, for we are now in Indian land. Hist! for we are now
far back among the shadows of two hundred years.

Yet we will watch the motions of this Red Man. He stoops with his
hatchet of flint upraised, he stoops to inflict the last blow on the writhing
deer, when his eye wanders along the surface of the bay. The hatchet

drops from his hand—he stands erect, with parted lips and starting eyes,
his hands half-raised, in a gesture of deep wonder.

He stands on this gentle ascent, the waves breaking at his feet, the proud
maple spreading its leaves overhead. He stands there, an Apollo, such as
the Grecian artist never sculptured in his wildest dream, an Apollo fashioned
by the Living God, with a broad chest, faultless limbs, quivering nostrils,
and a flashing eye. No robes of rank upon that tawny breast, ah, no! A
single fold of panther's hide around the loins, graces without concealing, the
proportions of his faultless limbs.

Tell us—why stands the lone Indian on this Delaware shore, gazing in
mute wonder across the sweep of yonder magnificent bay.

Look, yes, far over the waters look! What see you there? The bay,
its waves plumed with snowy foam: yes, the rolling, dashing, panting bay,
rushing from the horizon to the shore. Look again, rude Red Man; what
see you now?

The Red Man cannot tell his thoughts; his breast heaves; he trembles
from head to foot.

Strange—yes, terrible spectacle!

A white speck gleams yonder on the horizon; it tosses into view, on that
dim line where waves meet the sky. It enlarges, it spreads, it comes on
gloriously over the waters!

The Red Man standing beneath the giant maple, chilled to his rude heart
with a strange awe.

That white speck is dim and distant no longer. It is nearer now. It
spreads forth huge wings of snow-white; it displays a massive body of jet-black;
it comes on, this strange wondrous thing, tearing the waves with its
beak. Beak? Yes, for it is a bird, a mighty bird, sent by Manitto from
the Spirit-Land, sent to save or to destroy!

Gloriously over the bay it comes. Larger and larger yet it grows.
White and beautiful spread its fluttering wings over the dark waters.

The Red Man sinks aghast. He prays. By the rustling in the leaves,
by the voice of his own heart, he knows that Manitto hears his prayer.
The White Bird comes for good!

Leaving the rude Indian to gaze upon the sight of wonder with his own
eyes, let us also look upon it with ours.

A noble ship, dashing with wide-spread sails over the waters of the Delaware
Bay! Such is the sight which two hundred years ago, excited the
wonder and awe of the rude Indian, who never beheld ship or sail before.
Ship and sail had tossed and whitened along this bay full many a time before,
but the Indian dwelling in the fastnesses of impenetrable swamps, had
never laid eyes upon this wondrous sight until this hour.

It is near the Indian now. It comes dashing over the waters toward the
Island, triumphing over the waves, which roar and foam in its path. Look!
you can see the people on its deck, the sailors among its white wings.

And now the anchor is cast overboard; there is the rude chant of the
sailor's song; and a boat comes speeding over the waters, urged along by
sinewy arms.

Yes, while the noble ship rides at anchor, under the shelter of yonder
isle, that small boat comes tossing over the waters. It nears the spot
where the Indian stands; he can see the bearded faces and strange costume
of the sailors, he can see that Form standing erect in the prow of the boat.

That Form standing there under the leaden sky, with the uncovered
brow, bared to breeze and spray! Is it the form of a spirit sent by Manitto?
The Indian sees that form—that face! He kneels—yes, beneath the
maple tree, by the bleeding deer, tomahawk in hand he kneels, gazing with
fixed eyes upon that face. As the boat comes near let us look upon that
face, that form.

A man in the prime of life, with the flush of manhood upon his cheek,
its fire in his eye, attired in a brown garb, plain to rudeness, stands in the
prow of the boat, as it comes dashing on.

And yet that Man is the Apostle of the Living God to the New
World.

Yes, on a mission as mighty as that of Paul, he comes. His coat is
plain, but underneath that plain coat beats a heart, immortal with the pulsations
of a love that grasps at all the human race.

He is an Apostle, and yet his eyes are not hollow, his cheeks not gaunt
and cadaverous, his hair not even changed to grey. An Apostle with a
young countenance, a clear blue eye, a cheek flushed with rose-bud hues,
a broad brow shadowed by light brown hair, a mouth whose red lips curve
with a smile of angel like love.

An Apostle with a manly form, massive chest, broad shoulders, and bearing
far beyond the majesty of kings.

He stands in the prow, his blue eye flashing as the boat nears land.
Splash, splash—do you hear the oars? Hurrah—hurrah! How the
waves shout as they break upon the beach.

The boat comes on, nearer and nearer. A swelling wave dashes over
the dying deer, whilst the spray-drops wet the face of the kneeling Indian.

The keel grates the sand.

For a moment that man with the fair countenance and chesnut hair,
stands in the prow of the boat, his blue eyes upraised to God. For a moment
he stands there, and behold! The clouds are severed yonder. A
gush of sunshine pours through their parting folds, and illumines the
Apostle's brow. In that light he looks divine.

Say through those parting clouds, cannot you see the face of the Saviour
bending down, and smiling eternal love upon his Apostle's brow?

For a moment the Apostle stood there, and then—with no weapon by his
side, nor knife, nor pistol, nor powder-horn—but with love beaming from
his brow, that man stepped gently on the sand.

The Indian looked up and saw that face, and was not afraid. Love,
gentleness, God—these were written on that face.

Was it not a beautiful scene?

The kneeling Indian, his knife sunken in the earth, the dying deer by
his side, looks up with a loving awe gleaming from his red face. The
Apostle standing there upon that patch of sod, the surf breaking round his
feet, the sunlight bursting on his brow. The bearded sailors, their faces
hushed with deep awe; while their oars hang suspended in mid-air.— On
one side the leafy maple—on the other the river, the ship, the island, and
the wide extending bay.

And then the blue sky, looking out from amid a wilderness of floating
clouds, as though God himself smiled down his blessing on the scene.

That was the picture, my friends, and O, by all the memories of Home
and Freedom, paint that picture in your hearts.

Columbus, with his eye fixed on land—the land of the New World—
Pizarro gazing on the riches of Peru, Cortez with the Temples of Montezuma
at his feet—these are mighty pictures, but here was a mightier than
them all.

Mighter than that historic image of Columbus gazing for the first time
on land? Yes! For Columbus but discovered a New World, while this
Apostle first planted on its shores the seed of a mighty tree, which had lain
buried for sixteen hundred years, beneath an ocean of blood.

The shade of that tree is now cast abroad, far over this Continent, far
over the World. That tree was called Toleration. In the day of its
planting, it was a strange thing. The Nations feared it. But now watered
by God it grows, and on its golden fruit you may read these words:

“Every man hath a right to worship God after the dictates of
his own conscience.”

For a moment, spell-bound, the Indian looked up into the Apostle's face.
Then that Apostle slowly advancing over the sod, beneath the shade of the
Maple tree, clasped him by the hand, and called him Brother!

Soon a fire flamed there upon the sod. Soon columns of blue smoke
wound upward, in the thick green leaves of the Maple tree.

Roar O, surf! roll ye clouds! beam O, sun! For now beneath the
Maple tree, on the shores of the Delaware, the Apostle in the plain garb
shares the venison and corn of the rude Indian, sits by his side, while the
red woman stealing from the shadows, prepares the pipe of peace, as her
large dark eyes are fixed upon that manly face.

Around scattered over the sod, were grouped the stout forms of the
sailors. In the distance the ship, like a giant bird, tossed slowly on the
waves. The summer breeze bent the reeds upon the green isle, and played
among the leaves of the Maple tree. The sky above was clear, the last

cloud huge and snowy, lay piled away, between the water and the sky, on
the distant horizon.

It was a calm hour.

The Pipe of Peace was lighted—its smoke arose, curling around the
beaming face of the Apostle, while the red man looked upon him in rude
love, and the woman, her form thrown carelessly on the sod, her long hair
showering in glossy blackness to her waist, gazed in his blue eyes with a
mute reverence, as though she beheld the Messenger of God.

That Apostle built a Nation without a Priest, without an Oath, without a
Blow. Yet he never wronged the poor Indian.[2]

That Apostle reared the Altar of Jesus, on the Delaware shore, and
planted the foundations of a Mighty People, amid dim old forests. Yet he
never wronged the poor Indian.

He died, with his pillow smoothed by the blessings of the rude Indian
race. To this hour the Indian Mother, driven far beyond the Mississippi,
driven even from the memory of the Delaware, takes her wild boy upon
her knee, and tells him the wild tradition of the Good Miquon.

My friends, when I think of this great man who in a dark age, preached
Toleration, or in other words, the Love of Jesus, a dream rushes upon
my soul.

One night in a dream, I beheld a colossal rock, a mountain of granite,
rising from illimitable darkness into bright sunshine. Around its base was
midnight; half-way up was twilight; on the very summit shone the light of
God's countenance.

A voice whispered—This awful rock, built upon midnight, girdled by
twilight, with the light of God's face shining upon its brow, this awful rock
is The History of the World.

Far down in blackest midnight, I beheld certain lurid, horrible shapes,
going wildly to and fro. These, said the voice, these are the butchers of
the human race, called Conquerors.

Half-way up in the dim twilight, a multitude of Popes, Reformers, Pretended
Prophets and Fanatics, were groping their way with stumbling footsteps,
darkness below and twilight around them. These, said the voice, are
the numerous race of Creed-Makers, who murder millions in the name
of God.

But far up this terrible rock,—yes, yonder in the eternal sunshine, which

broke upon the highest point of its summit, side by side with Saint Paul,
and the Apostles, stood a commanding form, clad in an unpretending garb,
with a mild glory playing over his brow; that form, the Apostle of God to
the New World, William Penn.