C. W. Lyons S. J.
ORATION
THE AMERICAN MIND
BY
REV. CHARLES W. LYONS, S. J.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITY GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS OF BOSTON
IN FANEUIL HALL, ON THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVENTH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
OF THESE UNITED STATES, JULY 4, 1923
CITY OF BOSTON
PRINTING DEPARTMENT
1923
THE AMERICAN MIND.
Fourth of July Oration, 1923.
By Rev. Charles W. Lyons, S. J.
In the evolution of any life, whether it be thatof an individual or of that corporate moral unionwe know as society, there are times when it seemsfitting and proper to pause from the whirl of incessantactivities, turn aside from accustomed lineof thought, and let the mind run sweetly and lovinglyover a treasured past.
And today our beloved country, in the fulnessof her achievement, with the memories of onehundred and forty-seven years, one hundred andforty-seven golden years, lived only that her childrenmight grow, as from eternity the Creator had destinedthem to grow, in the full security of rightsthat are inalienable.
Today our beloved country turns to us childrenof a later generation and pleads that we followthis generous impulse of nature, and tarry for themoment, while she lives over again the thoughtsand emotions and heroic sacrifices that gave herbirth.
They were not new thoughts or unknown emotions.As John Quincy Adams so well remarked[Pg 4]in his scholarly discourse on the Jubilee of theConstitution: “The Declaration of Independenceand the Constitution of the United States are partsof one constant whole, founded upon one and thesame theory of government, then new not as atheory, for it had been working itself into the mindof man for many ages, but it had never before beenadopted by a great nation.”
Moses, as narrated in Deuteronomy, had chargedthe judges in Israel: “There shall be no differenceof persons; you shall hear the little as well as thegreat; neither shall you respect any man’s person,because it is the judgment of God.”
Aristotle had taught that, “the State is notmerely an institution for repressing vice, but anecessary formation for the full development ofhumanity.”
In the Magna Charter the germ of true liberty andequality is seen in the pledges of the king to hispeople: “We will not set forth against any freeman,nor send against him, unless by the lawful judgmentof his peers and by the law of the land; to no onewill we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay rightor justice.”
The mediæval councils, the military orders, theguilds, followed centuries after by the contract ofthe Pilgrim Fathers made in the cabin of the “Mayflower”in which they “covenanted and combinedthemselves into a civil body p