Texas in 1850. By Melinda Rankin. Page: 68 of 196

TEXAS IN 1850.

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itself in the judgment of the world, among the great
things which God gives great souls power to do. To
found a state upon a waste earth, wherein great numbers
of human beings may live together, and in successive
generations socially and in peace, knit to one
another by numerous ties, great and small, wherein
they may enjoy, improve and heighten social life, may
reclaim and decorate the earth, invent and polish the
arts, plant, nurture, and beautify the virtues of the
soul! to do this, is great.'
"Much greater is the planting of a great nation as
these pilgrims did it, being a church of Christ, out of
the true and great Christian motive, the will and glory
of God, and the love of unborn generations, so that
each son and daughter might sit under their own vine,
with no church or state, King or bishop to make them
afraid to the end of time.
"Certainly, in planting the best elements in the world,
upon the Rock of Plymouth, things in heaven and things
on the earth were united: faith, with hard sufferings,
love of God and posterity, with the giving up of goods
and comforts, which, except in the planting of the
primitive church, has never had a parallel. All these
things uniting in the Forefathers have concentrated in
them the great elements, and brought them near the
summit of all greatness on earth.
" To adopt an illustration of their own, 'Puritanism
was planted in the region of storms, and there it grew.
Swayed this way and that, by a whirlwind of blasts, all
adverse, it sent down its roots below frost or drought