II. SERMON AT THE FARIBAULT CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL OF THE
INAUGURATION OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1789-1889.


"Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called
the name of it Ebeneser, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."--
1 SAMUEL vii. 12.


No words are more fitting on this Centennial day. One hundred years ago
George Washington was inaugurated the first President of the United
States. Words are powerless to express the grateful thoughts which
swell patriot hearts. Save that people whom God led out of Egypt with
His pillar of fire and His pillar of cloud, I know of no nation whose
history is so full of the bounty of God. This country was settled by
Englishmen. They were bound by ties of affection to the mother country.
They were not rebels, they were loyal, God-fearing men. The English
crown had violated rights which were guaranteed to them by the Magna
Charta, which brave barons, headed by Bishop Stephen Langton, had wrung
from King John and which under God has made English-speaking people the
representatives of constitutional government throughout the world. It
was not until every plea for justice had been spurned, their sacred
rights trampled upon, and the warnings of the wisest English statesmen
unheeded, that the American colonies resolved to be independent and
free. On the 5th of September, 1774, fifty-five delegates, from eleven
colonies, met in Smith's tavern, Philadelphia, and at the invitation of
the carpenters of that city adjourned to their hall. Questions arose as