Men are carried along, in spite of themselves, by the doctrine or system which they embrace; their life principle, once adopted, has more force than their temporary wish or will. So Calvinism, of which Peter Bulkeley was a fervent disciple, with its constant stress laid on the worth of the individual man, led inevitably to democracy, no matter how much the innate aristocratic feeling of the English gentleman--the class to which Bulkeley belonged--might revolt thereat. It was the same in both countries, the mother and the daughter; Old England and New England found John Calvin leading them along towards the Commonwealth of equal rights and abolished privileges,--towards Sidney and Locke, Franklin and Jefferson, Lincoln and Gladstone. This, then, is the first historic lesson of Concord, as of all New England,--Democracy through Calvinism, in spite of recalcitrant gentry and reactionary ministers. Philanthropy, too, that modern invention, which may almost be said to have come in with the eighteenth century, and to have had Franklin for its first missionary, began to show itself in our meadowy town, whose very name prefigured it. The epitaph of Rev. John Whiting, parish minister here for twenty-six years (dying in 1752), records that he was “a gentleman of singular hospitality and generosity, who never detracted from the character of any man, _and was a universal lover of mankind_.” This would have been no compliment in Bulkeley’s time, when the saints were entitled to be loved, and sinners were excluded; but the eighteenth century set up a higher standard, which has been maintained till now, when the votaries of evolution and the survival of the fittest are teaching a return to the old doctrine,--only reversing it; for now it is the sinners whom we are expected to admire, and to hate the saints. The second historic lesson of Concord is like unto the first,--but more startling and brilliant. It was the lesson of Revolution, which has been thoroughly learned since 1775. The embattled farmers who, at yonder bridge, “Fired the shot heard round the world,” were conservative revolutionists, and as far from anarchy as from atheism. In the instructions given by this town to its representative in 1774,--or rather, in a report made in town-meeting, January 20th of that year, in view of [Illustration: THE FIGHT AT THE BRIDGE. REDRAWN FROM RALPH EARLE’S SKETCH OF 1775. 1. THE BRITISH. 2. AMERICANS.] the Boston Tea-Party,--it was declared as the voice of the town: “That we will, in conjunction with our brethren in America, risk our fortunes, and even our lives, in defence of his Majesty King George the Third, his person, crown, and dignity; and will also, with the same resolution, as his freeborn subjects in this country, to the utmost of our power and ability, defend all our charter-rights, that they may be transmitted inviolate to the latest posterity.”