On the other hand, the road runs up to Carlisle, city of the woods, which, if it is less civil, is the more natural.  It does well hold the earth together.  It gets laughed at because it is a small town, I know, but nevertheless it is a place where great men may be born any day, for fair winds and foul blow right on over it without distinction.  It has a meeting-house and horse-sheds, a tavern and a blacksmith’s shop, for centre, and a good deal of wood to cut and cord yet.  And

     “Bedford, most noble Bedford,
     I shall not thee forget.”

History has remembered thee; especially that meek and humble petition of thy old planters, like the wailing of the Lord’s own people, “To the gentlemen, the selectmen” of Concord, praying to be erected into a separate parish.  We can hardly credit that so plaintive a psalm resounded but little more than a century ago along these Babylonish waters.  “In the extreme difficult seasons of heat and cold,” said they, “we were ready to say of the Sabbath, Behold what a weariness is it.”—­“Gentlemen, if our seeking to draw off proceed from any disaffection to our present Reverend Pastor, or the Christian Society with whom we have taken such sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company, then hear us not this day, but we greatly desire, if God please, to be eased of our burden on the Sabbath, the travel and fatigue thereof, that the word of God may be nigh to us, near to our houses and in our hearts, that we and our little ones may serve the Lord.  We hope that God, who stirred up the spirit of Cyrus to set forward temple work, has stirred us up to ask, and will stir you up to grant, the prayer of our petition; so shall your humble petitioners ever pray, as in duty bound—­” And so the temple work went forward here to a happy conclusion.  Yonder in Carlisle the building of the temple was many wearisome years delayed, not that there was wanting of Shittim wood, or the gold of Ophir, but a site therefor convenient to all the worshippers; whether on “Buttrick’s Plain,” or rather on “Poplar Hill.”—­It was a tedious question.

In this Billerica solid men must have lived, select from year to year; a series of town clerks, at least; and there are old records that you may search.  Some spring the white man came, built him a house, and made a clearing here, letting in the sun, dried up a farm, piled up the old gray stones in fences, cut down the pines around his dwelling, planted orchard seeds brought from the old country, and persuaded the civil apple-tree to blossom next to the wild pine and the juniper, shedding its perfume in the wilderness.  Their old stocks still remain.  He culled the graceful elm from out the woods and from the river-side, and so refined and smoothed his village plot.  He rudely bridged the stream, and drove his team afield into the river meadows, cut the wild grass, and laid bare the homes of beaver, otter, muskrat, and with the whetting of his scythe scared off the