MONDAY LECTURES BY REV. JOSEPH COOK. FIFTH SERIES. THEGA DEC 80 BODLEIANY London: R. D. DICKINSON, FARRINGDON STREET, E.C. 265 i. 733. CONTENTS. PAGE Prelude.-Romanists and the Common Schools. THE ASCENT OF LIFE; OR, THE INCARNATION THE CULMINA- Prelude. Spoils and Frauds as Cause and Effect in Politics. 121 Prelude." The Political Power of Romanism in American Cities." MIRACLES, PROPHECY, AND INSPIRATION; OR, OLD TRUTHS Prelude.—The Diminishing Influence of Channing's Negations. AFTER EMERSON, WHAT? OR, THE CONSEQUENCES OF CONCORD THEISM. PRELUDE. THE INDIAN QUESTION. CALL the roll of the names associated with this building-John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, James Otis, George Whitefield, George Washington. I venture to say that there is not one of these historic souls that does not sympathize with this Indian chieftain; for his demand is precisely what theirs was, that a labourer should be allowed to dispose of the results of his own work. One hundred and four years ago this house was packed to suffocation, and the steps of this platform were covered by British military officers, who threatened death to any speaker who should celebrate the patriotism of those who did not like the Boston massacre. An orator named Joseph Warren entered by the window behind me. During his address at this spot a British officer, seated on the steps at the side of the pulpit, held up some pistol-bullets in his open palm, to intimidate the young man ; but Warren dropped upon them a white handkerchief, and the occasion passed without his assassination, and, indeed, by the breadth of a hair, without tumult. The bullet that killed Warren lies in yonder case. I beg leave to set in contrast two sentences, one from Warren's oration on that occasion, and another from the speech of an Indian maiden, who is on my left-an educated representative of her people. "Every man,” said Warren before that hushed house, “has a right to enjoy what is acquired by his own labour. It is evident that the property in this country has been acquired by our own labour. It is, therefore, the duty of the people of Great Britain to produce some compact in which we have explicitly given up to them a right to dispose of our persons and property. Until this is done, every attempt of theirs, or of those whom they have deputed to act for them, to give or grant any part of our property, is directly repugnant to every principle of reason and natural justice."* You know that these are the principles on which our fathers fought the Revolution. This is an excellent statement of the great doctrine that there should be no taxation without representation. The basis of the philosophy of our fathers in the Revolution was simply the proposition that every man has a right to enjoy what is acquired by his own labour. Value had been added to the lands of Massachusetts by the toil of the colonists. Kiug George undertook to tax Massachusetts, and our fathers stood upon this basis of natural right, and refused to pay a penny, because they had not been consulted as to the tax. I wish to begin my defence of the plundered Indians by some incontrovertible proposition, and I commence exactly where Joseph Warren did, by the assertion of the natural right of every man to dispose of the fruits of his own labour. I open a recent newspaper of this city, and turn to a report of a speech • Warren's Oration in the Old South Church, Boston, March 5th, 1775. VOL. V.-PART XIV. 1. B |