Sherman Genealogy - Including Families of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, England, Some Descendants of the Immigrants Captain, John Sherman, Reverend John Sherman, Edmund Sherman and Samuel Sherman, and the Descendents of Honorable, Roger ... #223658

Of every worthy stock the most degenerate sons cherish the names of those from whom by an authentic lineage they trace their honorable descent. With zealous affection and a pious reverence they explore all sources of knowledge respect ing their lives, their characters, their motives, their acts. In a spirit neither arrogant nor envious, they are yet jealous for a just estimate of the virtue and the power which marked the founders of their line; careful that no malign or reckless influ ence shall distort the record, or obscure the remembrance, of their deeds; earnest in the determination that their latest des cendants shall lose nothing of the heritage in these great names, in the course of its descent. Nor should it be for a moment supposed that the spirit of our institutions and the structure of our society, which have discarded the hereditary transmission of rank and power, discouraged even the succession of wealth, and made ridiculous the culture of a vulgar family pride, have at all weakened or diverted the force of those natural ties which connect us alike with our ancestry and our posterity, and sus tain and protect, as a perpetual and imperishable possession, the glory and worth of our forefathers.