THE GUNS OF 75
One hundred and fifty years ago! (from 1925) The Battle of Lexington was
fought on April 19,1775; the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17. What emotions,
what echoes, what old historic memories stir in our hearts as we remember those
days and dates. When Lafayette held in his hand the musket which fired the first
shot of the American Revolution, he exclaimed: "This is the alarm gun of
liberty!" To England the war was an episode; to is it is an epic.
Time does not tarnish those events, nor distance dim the glory of days that
tried the stuff of which men are made. All that America means, all that it has
become, had its beginning at Lexington and Bunker Hill. It meant a new nation,
built upon a new basis, with a new relation of Church and State, a new
opportunity for mankind - the opening of a new era.
An oft-told story, taught us from our earliest years, it throbs like a
drum-beat in our blood, like the echo of the foot-steps of God in time. Emerson
said truly that the farmers who stood at Concord Bridge fired "A Shot Heard
Round The World." Its flash divided the records of man into before and after,
and its echoes will never die while men love liberty and value the rights of
man. It was the first act in a drama of history, but, somehow, it reads like a
record of our Family Bible.
For history, in its great meaning, is more than a series of events. It is an
unfolding of ideas, the fulfillment of a Divine purpose in time. Events do not
stand alone. They are linked together by a thread of cause and effect, a law of
seedtime and harvest. What went before explains what followed after. If we are
to know the meaning of the events we remember today, we must go back of the
immediate inciting causes to the facts and forces that lay behind. History is
philosophy teaching by example; it is theology acted out. Our sturdy forefathers
who emigrated first to Holland, and then to America, bore with them the seeds of
liberty. Those seeds nourished by the wise tolerance of the Dutch, they planted
in the fresh soil of the New World. They sought the New World in search of
liberty of conscience and freedom of worship. Let us never forget that our
independence was first religious, then political. Our democracy had a spiritual
foundation, our republic a sacred origin. Having breathed the air of religious
liberty, by a sure logic our fathers finally demanded the same liberty in
political affairs. They would gladly help pay debts incurred partly in their
behalf; but they refused to be taxed to that end, unless they were allowed to
have a voice in shaping the policy of state. It was the old, high British ideal,
forgotten by the motherland and defended by its sons.
The reigning King did not understand the Colonists. They were a long distance
from the homeland, and no longer under the mystic spell which waits upon
royalty. But they were loyal and law-abiding. As Franklin said, they were ruled
"At the Sole Expense of Pen and Ink;" but they could not be coerced. One
irritating act after another provoked anger, and, at last, alienation, until men
in America began to hate the land which formerly they had loved. The Boston Tea
Party, planned in old St. Andrew's Lodge, and carried out by Masons masked as
Mohawk Indian, was the last straw. the tension tightened, until finally the tie
of allegiance was broken and resentment flamed into revolt.
Early in 1775, news arrived that Parliament, in spite of the pleadings of
Pitt, Burke, and Fox; had rejected the petition of the first Continental
Congress, declaring that "Rebellion Existed in America." It did, though it might
have been averted, like nearly every war in history. On the night of April 18,
troops were sent by General Gage to seize the powder stored by the Sons of
Liberty at Concord, and to arrest as "Traitors" John Hancock and Samuel Adams,
who had taken refuge with Parson James Clark at Lexington. They set out
secretly, as they thought, not knowing how alert and watchful the patriots were,
and how well organized.
Lanterns hung out in the tower of the old North Church flashed the signal far
and wide, and Paul Revere and William Dawes rode through the night ahead of the
troops led by Major Pitcairn, rousing the people and giving the alarm. When the
British column reached Lexington they found a little company of" Minute-Men"
drawn up on the village green, under command of Captain Parker, who had given
the order: "Stand Your Ground, Don't Fire Unless Fired Upon. But If They Mean To
Have War, Let it Start Here." Major Pitcairn ordered the "Rebels" to disperse,
and they refused to move. A shot was fired, apparently without his order, then a
volley, and a number of minute men were killed and wounded. With a shout the
British marched off to Concord, took what military stores they found, rifled
some houses, and encountered a company of farmers.
Again the Colonists, under Major Butrick and Captain Davis, were ordered not
to fire unless fired upon. In double file they crossed the bridge and waited,
the young fifers playing the "White Cockade." When within a few yards of the
bridge, a shot fired by the British wounded one of their number, a volley
followed and two were killed. Then the minute men were ordered to fire - the
first fired gun of the American Revolution - and the British began to retreat.
As Emerson said in his Concord Hymn, April 19, 1836:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April breeze
unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard 'round
the world.
By this time the whole countryside was aflame with anger and excitement. Men
and boys came running, singly and in bands, and from behind hedges, trees, and
stone walls along the road to Boston; pouring shot into the retreating British
ranks, following them all the way until they were safe under the protection of
their guns.
Thus, without previous design, the war began, destined to change the history
of the world. Small events, born of human blunder, become great by virtue of the
idea and influences back of them, and initiate vast movements. The fight on the
village green and by the bridge was hardly more than a skirmish, but it used by
a Power other than human to institute the greatest republic on earth.
The battle of Lexington shut the British up in Boston, then almost an island
linked with the mainland by a narrow strip of sand beach. To the north lay the
peninsula of Charlestown, on which were two hills, Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill.
To the south Dorchester Heights overlooked the city. The American Army grew
rapidly, as men flocked in from all directions - ill-prepared in all save
courage. On June 17 they began busily to fortify Bunker Hill, and the British
attacked. Twice the Redcoats stormed up the hill only to be turned back. When
they made their third desperate charge they won, because the Americans had used
all the powder they had, and were forced to flee, leaving Warren, Grand Master
of Masons, dead on the hill. Lack of preparedness lost the battle - a lesson
never to be forgotten by those who are wise!
Yes. it is an old story, my brethren, as familiar to us as the alphabet; but
it is a story that makes our hearts beat fast, in which our gentle Craft had an
honorable part of which we have a right to be proud. It is the simple truth to
say that our ancient Fraternity - faithful, wise and heroic - presided in the
birth-hour of our Republic, as it guards its sanctity today. There are those who
would belittle its influence, but the facts stand. It was not an accident that
Washington and most of his Generals were members of the Craft. The story of the
War of the Revolution might have been very different had not its leaders been
bound together by the tie which Masonry knows how to weave between men, making
them brothers.
What followed we know as we know our family history. The genius of
Washington, the dark days of Valley forge, the crossing of the Delaware, the
coming of Lafayette, the final scene at Yorktown, the Constitution, the
far-flung Republic - it is a story and a tradition bequeathed to us in the
mystic continuities of inheritance. America was born - the last great hope of
humanity - created by the Will of God and heroism of man, dedicated to the
service of peace on earth and good will to men. As in its origin, so in its
history, our Republic is a Fraternal symposium, in which many races are being
built together into one community - an enterprise the full meaning of which we
do not yet realize.
If we celebrate our beginnings at Lexington, Bunker Hill and Yorktown, we do
so with no ill will toward the motherland against which our fathers fought,
wresting their liberties from an obstinate King and a truckling Parliament.
Since then, in the greatest of all wars, Americans have fought side by side with
Britons in an hour of common peril and high resolve, for the same principle for
which our fathers fired "The Shot Heard Round The World!" The old feud long
since gave place to friendship, to deepen and maintain that which is the first
duty of thoughtful men on both sides of the sea.
Yet, we do affirm the uniqueness of America, and we are bound by ties of
blood, history and Fraternity to keep our Republic true to its high tradition of
liberty under law. Today, remembering the brave days of old, when men poured out
their blood that their sons might be free, we give thanks to God for our
country, reverently invoking His Blessing upon its many races united in
brotherhood, upon its unconstrained religious life, upon its passion for
education, its cities shining in the sunlight. its countless homes, its pacific
spirit, and its promise of a future greater than its past.
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