noon
This figure shall supply me with a moral wherewith , for lack of a more appropriate one , I may wind up my sketch . He fears not to tread the dreary path before him , because his lantern , which was kindled at the fireside of his home , will light him back to that same fireside again . And thus we , night-wanderers through a stormy and dismal world , if we bear the lamp of Faith enkindled at a celestial fire , it will surely lead us home to that heaven whence its radiance was borrowed . At noon of an autumnal day more than two centuries ago the English colors were displayed by the standard bearer of the Salem train-band , which had mustered for martial exercise under the orders of John Endicott . It was a period when the religious exiles were accustomed often to buckle on their armor and practise the handling of their weapons of war . Since the first settlement of New England its prospects had never been so dismal . The dissensions between Charles I. and his subjects were then , and for several years afterward , confined to the floor of Parliament .