j/rxsu \lJUjyuyrnJ A^dOyVi "T^^rvo, ch \,y< • i^ , Class ELki_ Book_^3Vll UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ).ST OFKICKS -CHAMI'AKIN AND t'KHANA. AN ADDRESS Forefathers' Convocation, SUNDAY, DECEMBHR 13, 1896. The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life, PRESIDENT DRAPER. (lAZICTTE PKINT. CIIAMPAKiN. ILL /'V20f The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life. "Yea, when the frownhig- bulwarks That g-uard this holy strand Have sunk beneath the trampling- surgre In beds of sparkling- sand. While in the waste of Ocean One hoar3- rock shall stand. Be this its latest leg-end: — HERE, WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND."' The Pilgrim literature of recent years lias been marked by a discussion of the question whether Eng- land or Holland contributed most to the formation of Pilgrim character, and through that character to the institutional life of the New World. That discussion is a fascinating and not a fruitless one. The average citizen finds interest in it though he still refuses to grant that there is much question about it. The his- torical student enters into it with enthusiasm and sees some new light. It seems strange, indeed, that that discussion has been so long delayed. The delay indi- cates how long it takes for a people to put away its desires and its prejudices and study history with an unbiased disposition to elucidate the truth. It is not too much to say ihat out of this discussion it is gradually becoming apparent that English thought has done but scant justice to the decided impulses which the heroism and the progress of the people of the "Low Countries" contributed at the very beginning to the trend and tone of organized society in America, and that some part of this contribution came by the way of Cape Cod, even if the greater part did enter by the way of Sandy Hook. We will, however, avoid being drawn into that dis- cussion today. We will go back to "1620," that talis- manic date in the life of the Old World as well as of the New, and recount the simple and pathetic story which it brings up to us. The facts which are neither con- troverted nor involved are all-sufficient for us, and the honor which their repetition pays to the plain men and women who made that date great in human history is but a slight indication of the feelings which come to all true Americans at the annual recurrence of Fore- fathers' Day. The greater part of the eastern Massachusetts coast is shaped not unlike the outer rim of the external human ear. From Cape Ann at the north and front of this rim to Cape Cod at the south, it is an air-line dis- tance of forty-five miles. Many capacious and mag- nificent harbors lie within these capes. Boston ex- tends her great, strong arms nearly around Massachu- setts Bay, well up at the northern part of the large enclosure of the ocean. Plymouth, the oldest of New England towns, with a thrifty and cultured population of nine thousand people, looks out to the eastward upon Plymouth Harbor which is well down to the southwest- ern part of the enclosure. From Boston to Plymouth it is an air-line distance of thirty-seven miles. The shore is traversed by both steam and electric roads. From Cape Cod to Plymouth, across the water, it is twenty-five miles. One is better prepared to enter into the spirit of things at the old town if he goes down from Boston by steamer, or enters from the open ocean, notes the contour of the coast, studies the settlements and objects upon the shore, floats over the wide ex- panse of water and follows the path which the May- flower took into the harbor of Plymouth. It will require more hours to do this, but one will not see the •'blue hills of Milton," get the bracing sea air. pass the Gurnet twin lights, look upon the Plymouth and Stand- ish monuments, and contemplate the great occurrences which that shore has witnessed, without being thank- ful that he took the time to enter the harbor through the narrow winding channel, much in the form of the letter "S," from the same direction and in about the same way that the Forefathers did. Let us try to go back to their time and look at these people in their far-away homes, — so much farther then than now, and follow them in their courageous journey, so full of sorrow yet so full of enduring tri- -umph, over the sea. History first finds them, but not until more than two hundred years after the fact, in the northern part of Not- tinghamshire, about forty miles from the eastern coast of Old England. Here they, and a few like them, had separated from the rest of the world upon religious matters and, gathering together a few kindred spirits from several neighboring villages, had, at Scrooby, organized a small congregation of Christians called Separatists, or Brownists, and known later as Inde- pendents in England and as Congregationalists in America. They were the small third party of English Protest- antism and of the English politics of that day. Prot- estantism had very naturally and appropriately taken its name from the protests of its people against the authority as well as against many of the doctrines and much of the practice of the Old Mother Church of Rome. English Protestants had become divided into three classes. We must distinguish between them if we would gain any understanding of the conditions which induced, and the motives which actuated the migration, first to Holland and then to America: or, indeed, if we would comprehend the early religious and political history of our own land. The first class were Conformists; that is, rigid and cheerful adherents of the ritual, and forms and ceremonies of the Gov- ernmental Church of England. Indeed, they were going farther than following the ritual and observing the ceremonies of the Established Church: they were com- ing to look upon the King as not only the earthly head of the State Church, but as the infallible representa- tive of the Living God, with divine authority over all temporal and political matters, which it would be high treason to call in question. The second class were Non-Conformists, Purists or Puritans. They were "reformers"' within the English Church. They were opposed to the showy vestments which were worn, and to many of the practices and ceremonies which were observed in the services of the Church. They denied and repudiated the divine authority of the King. But while they were for purifying they had no thought of leaving the Church. The Puritans were wrestling with the Ritualists or Conformists for the control of the English Protestant Church, and there is no great dearth of reason for believing that ambition was as potent as principle in determining their course. It surely is not too much to say that when they gained the power to control they commonly fell into the same ways of which tiiey complained so bitterly when they were in the minority. The Separatists were so called because they i in that city, it was granted with the following endoisement upon the petition, viz: "The Court in making a disposition of this present memorial, declare that ihey refuse no honest persons free ingress to come and have residence in this city, provided that such persons behave themselves, and submit to the laws and ordinances: and therefore the coming of the Me- morialists ivill he aijreeable and welcome. This is done in their Council House, 12th February 1699." Surely this action tells a very large story. It is a little significant, but not strange, that the time of their sojourn in Holland is almost identical with the twelve years' truce agreed upon with Philip which fol- lowed the first Spanish recognition of the Netherland Republic. With the prospect of renewed hostilities they were forced to elect whether they would engage in the common defense, with the practical certainty of being absorbed into the Dutch life, and of losing their identity as an English society, or would migrate to a far-away land where they could retain the language, the customs and the common law, and fly the flag of old England, and yet secure the freedom of thought and manner of worship which religious and political frenzy denied them in the Mother-land. They had lived peaceably with the Dutch, and their new home had given them better advantages, aside from religious freedom, than they had previously enjoyed. They were hard-by the first commercial city of the world. They had lived under the shadow of a national univer- sity. They were among a people more largely engaged in maritime pursuits and enterprises, and in manufac- tures involving skilled labor, than any other people up- on the globe The war had sharpened intelligence, leveled classes, and worked a marvelous material de- velopment. Education had flourished and the masses were beginning to get a good foot-hold in aflPairs. The Pilgrims were profited by these things, and they en- gaged in the vocations of the people, rendered honora- ble service, paid their debts, and avoided controversy. They were self-respecting, and public officials have left records which show that they were much respected. They welcomed to their circle strangers of any shade of religious faith who could fall in with their manner of worship. For reasons which were obvious, they were exclusive in their social and religious life But children were growing up, and growing up with feel- ings not altogether akin to those which had come with their fathers from their old homes, and, what seemed worse to them, they persisted in falling in love with the children of the Dutch. Their business relations with the people all around them necessarily became more and more intimate. The renewal of the war would call every man into the service. If the war should go against them Holland would become a Spanish prov- ince, and they dreaded Spain even more than England- Their exclusiveness and their identity as an English society were in danger. They must soon become a part of the Dutch people or they must move to a more isolated home. They discussed long and earnestly; they could not agree: they separated into two very nearly equal parts; but they disagreed in love. The natural affection for their native land, their mother- 10 tongue, and for the traditions and aspirations of the English nation, led one party to decide that they must go. But others, even including John Robinson, their great pastor, would stay behind: perhaps, if all went well, they would follow in later time. That party which would go bargained with a com- pany of English adventurers to transport them to America, ihe new, the unknown world. This company was to procure them chartered rights in lands that were without market value and hardly worth the ask- ing. For this they agreed to give the company half of all the profits in traffic, fishing, tilling the ground, and other labor of all kinds, in their new home, for the period of seven years. They were to have goods in common; four days in the week they were to labor for the joint account, and two for themselves. At the end of seven years each planter was to have the house he had built and the garden he had tilled. They were to sail from the nearest port, Delft Haven, in the "Speed- well" for Southampton, and there gather up a few English friends, and then in the "SpeedwelT" and the "^Mayflower"* start on their long journey. Things being ready a day of fasting was observed and then, in the evening, both sections of the congre- gation set out for Delft Haven, fourteen miles distant, spending the whole night together in song and prayer, with '• friendly entertainment and Christian discourse." The time for parting came in the morning. That part- ing must separate friends and neighbors who were to each other more than friends and neighbors, and in many cases it must break families for life. They realized it and " for the abundance of sorrow they could not speak." Falling upon their knees, Robinson entreated God's protection, they silently embraced each other, then one part turned back to lose its identity in twenty-five years among the Dutch, and the other part passed over the gang-plank and under the English flag, to gain unparalleled fame as the fathers and mothers of a great new State of worldwide significance, and to n give inspiration to the brightest and broadest and most beneficent new civilization in world history. Bradford says: "So they left that goodly and pleas- ant city which had been their resting plac(^ near twelve years: but they knew tliat they were Pihirims." They were hardly on their way before they began to be subjected to a system of robbery and treachery which was to continue through many years and to which they were to submit in patience until they had many times paid the pound of flesh nominated in the bond, and until they were strong enough to put an end to the disreputable cupidity of their task masters. It was more than twenty-five years before the little Pil- grim Republic could say it owed no man anything. First they were forced to sell provisions to raise £60 to pay certain port charges before they could sail, and which did not properly devolve upon them. Setting sail, they were out four days when the " Speedwell " was reported to be leaking dangerously All bore up for Dartmouth and ten days were spent in unloading and repairing her from stem to stern, when she was pronounced entirely sea-worthy. Starting again, they were three hundred miles upon their journey when the captain of the "Speedwell"' again reported her leaking and insisted upon putting back to the English Ply- mouth, and then, although no leak was found, refused to again undertake the journey. He was resorting to treachery to avoid his agreement to carry them to America and remain with them a year. Time was vital, however, and so it was arranged that the "Speed- well" should be abandoned and return to London. Eighteen of her passengers returned with her, the re- mainder crowding into the "Mayflower." Fully six weeks after the departure from Leyden the " May- flower," with her precious freight, made her third and final start, and it was to be more than two, long, bitter months before she was to sight the shores of the New World. While she is slowly making her way amid sunshine and storm over the great deep, let us study her pas- 13 sengers a little more closely. How they had been win- nowed by repeated separations from the common herd ! At old Scrooby they had separated from all the world around them; going from there, the less daring stayed behind; they had left fnlly half their number, and surely not the most courageous half, at Leyden; those who started and became discouraged had returned at the last moment with the captain of the " Speedwell;" the remaining ones were surely cast in an heroic mould, and the blood of an hundred kings was not more royal than was theirs. There were ooe hundred and two passengers upon the vessel, seventy-three males and twenty-nine females. There were fifty-nine adults, eleven hired employes or apprentices, and thirty -two children. Nearly all were blessed with plain, old-fashioned English names. One-tifth of the males bore the simple name of John, and almost as many more had that of William or Edward. Catherine, Elizabeth, Dorothy, Mary, and Ann predominated among the other sex. There were no Lizzies or Bessies or Mollies among them. They were very commonly below middle life, and but one couple, so far as is known, was above fifty years of age. Concerning the individuals, the chief interest centers in the names of Carver, Brewster, Bradford, Standish, Fuller, Howland, Hopkins and Alden. Would that we could stop to speak a word of each one of them! They do not need it, for history and literature will keep them green in the grateful memory of a mighty nation and of the world through all generations, but perhaps we might be profited thereby. On Saturday, November 20, 1620, the Indians on the outer shore of Cape Cod were able to discern a sail piercing the rim of the eastern horizon, for that morn- ing the long-deferred, magnetic cry of "Land, hoi" rang out from the masthead of the "Mayflower." The English company had secured certain land rights for them from the Virginia Company, whose territory was to the south, but of very uncertain limitations. The 13 vessel was at once put S. S. E., for it was the purpose to go to the mouth of the Hudson, or below. Encoun- tering shoals at evening, the vessel put back for clear water, and passed the night. It was represented now that it was dangerous to attempt the southern passage. The coast was well known to mariners however, and the captain was a veteran. In any event, it was deter- mined to put into Cape Cod Harbor and continue in the ship until they could construct habitations upon the shore. A month was now passed in exploring the shores and journeying upon the land in quest of a safe harbor and a suitable situation for a town. They coasted in the shallop of the ship over the waters and journeyed upon the land for days together, seeking the best location for their future home. The safe harbor, the eastern outlook from a sloping back-ground, the natural advantages for defense, the quality of the soil and the "very sweet brook" and the "many delicate springs'" as Bradford called them, decided the matter, and they brought the Mayflower upon the last twenty- five miles of her great voyage, past the point where the twin Gurnet lights now stand, and where it is said that Thorwald the old Norse chieftain found his grave, with a Christian cross at the head and foot, six hundred years before, past Saquish Point and in full view of Captain's Hill, around the most wonderful natural breakwater on the Atlantic coast, and made her fast in tne harbor of Plymouth. It was Thursday, December 31, the shortest day in the year. It had been five long months since the start at Leyden. They had been transplanted from bright Slimmer in the Old World to stern winter in the New. Too well they knew that. "The breaking- waves dashed hig-h On a stern and rock-bound coast.*" Undaunted, they marked out "The Street" just north of the brook and running from the shore back to the abrupt hill. They decided assignments of land by lot. They waited for the Sabbath to pass, and on the fol- lowing Monday morning began the building of the rude 14 cabins which marked the first town of Plymouth. What wonder that that street is "Leyden Street." Nearest the shore and on the left was the "Common House," and then beyond, on the same side, were six humble n^sidences. Across the street were five more, includ- ing the governor's more roomy if not more stately home. At the end of the street, on the hill, stood the structure which served for fort and church together, and nearest it, for obvious reasons, was the abode of Standish. The accommodations seemed meager indeed and close planning was necessary. The company was separated into households so that all were measurably provided for. But, in a way they knew not, there would soon be more room. Four had died upon the vessel after she reached the harbor. The fair young wife of Bradford, only twenty-one, had been drowned while lie was away searching the site of their new home. Before the warm days of another summer nine husbands and wives had found burial together. Five husbands had been left widowers and one wife a widow. But three couples I'emained unbroken, and but two were not called upon to mourn some member of their families gone. Five children lost both parents, three others were fatherless and three more were motherless. The first year fifty-one persons, exactly half their number, went to final rest and were laid together on Cole's Hill close by their homes, and their graves were obliterated lest the Indians should learn how weak the colony was and should fall upon and utterly destroy it. Yet, when the Mayflower returned to Old England in the w^armer April days, while they doubtless went to the hill tops and with breaking hearts and tearful eyes, as Bough- ton's famous picture portrays to us, watched her white sails sink below the eastern horizon, not one of them returned in her. Feebly, but heroically and surely, the spirit of American institutions had gained foothold in the New World, and the march of empire was not to be backward and over the sea, but to the westward. When this little company came sailing into the har- 15 bur of Plymouth, they had a new nation with them. They had established it in the cabin of the Mayflower. Disappointed in not reaching the Hudson or the Dela- ware, wliere they assumed their patent from the Vir- ginia Company would confer landed rights and impose English law. some of them reasoned that there would be no authority and no rights upon the soil of New England, and that they must at once establish a gov- ernment for themselves. Therefore they called all of the adult males to the cabin and adopted and sub- scribed to a compact to "solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and com- bine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our best ordering and preservation and the furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, con- stitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the gen- eral good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." Then they made John Carver governor for a determinate time, to end with their calendar year. Here was a pure democracy with a written constitu- tion, upon the basis of manhood suffrage. It was the first known instance of the kind in human history. Bancroft says it was the birth of popular constitution al liberty. The limitations of the hour forbid that we shall fol- low the narrative longer, and perhaps reveal the fact that I have already yielded too much to my own inter- est in the details of the fascinating story. But there are some suggestions of a general character which seem pertinent to the occasion, for which I must ask your kindly patience. In the first ten years the colony had, speaking rough- ly, increased to five hundred souls, and in the following ten years as many more had been added. But in the last ten years a settlement of the highest importance had been llioroughly established on Massachusetts Bay, forty miles to the north of it. In that time 1(5 more than twenty thousand English people had made new homes in Boston. They came in the eleven years when Charles governed England without a parliament, only to make the tyranny of the king sharpen religious hate, stir the mind and nerve the arm of the commons, and clear the road to his prison and his doom. They ceased coming when the long parliament had gathered, taken up gov8rnment in the name of the people, de- veloped Cromwell and the Ironsides, and brought cabi- net minister and bishop, and finally the king himself, to the bar, and then sent them to the block. These new neighbors were old acquaintances in a way, for they were Puritans, representatives of one of the two leading parties in English Protestantism and English politics. No word of ours can, even by implication, be made to do otherwise than yield honor to the spirit of English Pui'itanism. No greater or more heroic spirit ever breathed among men. Without intending it, and al- most in spite of itself, it has been the most potent fac- tor in the growth of individuality, in the upbuilding of character, and in the evolution of popular liberty. Its coldly logical creed sharpened the faith of men and made of the faithful the best fightei's the world has ever seen. For the cause they espoused they could cheerfully die, but never yield. Sincere, undoubting, dreadfully in earnest, singing and praying and preach- ing and fighting together, they made the fields of Naseby and Dunbar and Marston Moor grounds which inspire the progress of the human race, for upon them they taught the Stuart kings and all the world together the grim lesson that if there are divine rights among men they are inherent in the people and not in the kings And so the Puritan stock was a good one to enter into the composition of a new nation, but the Puritan spirit must be chastened and moderated before it could give the artist touch to the spirit of liberty across the sea. It was to be a softened Puritan character, as exemplified in the Pilgrim at Plymouth, rather than the austere typ(% unchanged and unadapted, as seen in the Ironsides at the Bay, which was to breathe not only the spirit of Christianity as they interpreted it, but also of independence, of equality, of liberty, and of nationality into American life, and by these great marks to distinguish it to all the people of the world. The Puritan was in a very large sense a Dependent. He was a devout adherent of the English State Church. Independence from it was sacrilege to him. Its doc- trine was his law and gospel. He diflfered with some of its practices, but when he could control its action he was content. And, truth to tell, when he was in the majority his way was not so very different from the way of the Conformists when they were in the ma- jority. No other man was ever so fond of having his own way as this Puritan father of ours, and when he could be in charge of the procession he was not much discomfited by vestments and ceremonies. He was an unquestioning supporter of the English State as well as of the English Church. His opposition to the House of Stuart was religious, but it was political as well as religious. But his opposition to the king never led him into opposition to the State. It was in his mind to control and not separate from the State. He was an excellent leader, but not so good a follower. He liked to lead and he expected to control the people about him. He never thought of seceding until after he had taken his next degree. It never occurred to him to permit his opposition to bishop or king to lead him beyond the advantages the state or the church could bestow, and frequently he had ideas of getting to be bishop or king himself. The Pilgrim was an Independent. He had long before gone out of the English Church. He loved the language and the common law, and of course he loved the hills and the valleys, the high-ways and the struc- tures of Old England. But he was not allowed to look upon the hills and follow the highways without sur- rendering his freedom, and that he would not do. Long ago he had left the English Church and State 18 behind. Of late he had crossed the wide sea to keep the language and retain the law of the Mother-land, while he organized a Church without asking leave of any one, and set up an English State all by himself. In thought and act the Pilgrim was thoroughly an Independent himself, and the rightful founder of an Independent State. The Puritan had no understanding and no conception of equality of all men before the law. He had been familiar with class distinctions and he did not dislike them. Indeed, he had never known any other way. There were many men and women at the Bay who belonged to the gentry. They brought with them to the New World the English passion for landed pos- sessions. Each man of them wanted a domain for himself and his descendants. I am not saying that he was the worse for this, but only that he was not crying for the corner-stone principle of <^ur American national life. The first school the Puritan State in Massachu- setts set up was a college after tlie English plan, to train the sons of the higher classes for the offices of the Church and State. There was little thought of educa- tion for the childfen of the poor. It was naturally so, but it ii'as so. Governor Winthrop frequently talked of the "common people." As good an authority as Charles Francis Adams says: "The common people were whipped and set in the stocks when they misbe- haved themselves. The gentry were fined and admon- ished." One of their criminal statutes reads: "No man shall be beaten with above forty stripes, nor shall any true gcntleynnn, nor any man aiual to a gentleman, be punished with whipping, unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life vicious and profligate." The suffrage was limited to the people of his liking. It is not strange that it was so, but it remains that it was so. The Pilgrim, on the other hand, loved the common brotherhood and put all upon an equal footing. He had seen more of the world and it had widened his outlook and changed his feeling. From the beginning he put 19 the suffrage upon the basis of manhood. He had seen what his Puritan brother had never seen, the equal division of estates among all the children. He put faith in the mass and, after untrammeled discussion, he steered his course by the will of the greater number. He was the best early representative 6f that American spirit which puts all native-born or adopted children of the Republic upon a common plane and bestows the highest rewards upon the most assiduous and the most deserving. The Puritan was a bigot. He was an exceedingly interesting bigot, it is true He was a timely bigot and he had a very salutary influence upon individual and national life, both in England and America. But he was a bigot all the same. The Puritan did not cotne to Massachusetts to establish religious liberty. That was the last thing he wanted for any but himself, and his demands were moderate in his own direction He came to establish a theocratic State, and for a considerable time he accomplished what he undertook. Citizenship was limited to church membership. In discipline he was unreasonably severe. He taxed his ingenuity, and it was great, to make Hell dreadful and scare people into Heaven. He was not uneducated, but he was highly superstitious. He saw omens for good or evil in the most ordinary occurrenc^^s. Capital offences were numerous in his State and he would punish when he was so disposed, law or no law. His will was law. He knew no such thing as toleration. All who were not Puritans were of Satan, and he would have none of them. He was not over-charged with pity. His fear of witchcraft, comets, and the visitation of a material devil was consuming His theology was logical and severe, and for it he crucified the flesh. His manners were strained and his life steady and exact, his spirit unyielding, his worship altogether sincere and entirely uninterrupted, and, withal, his doings made for char- acter, for intellectual activity and for progress. The Pilgrim was a Puritan, but he had taken a post graduate degree. He was in advance of Puritan 20 thought. He was a Puritan in character, but he was a Puritan subdued. He had been chastened by his sor- rows. He had lived for twelve years in a land where there was intellectual freedom and complete religious toleration The laws which he made in his new State were more liberal than in any other State upon the earth. He made but eight capital crimes. There were more than two hundred in England at the beginning of this century. He executed his laws fearlessly and with certainty. When it was necessary to show the savages his strength and teach them a lesson his retribution was appalling. In personal morality he was no less exacting than his neighbor forty miles away. He wel- comed all sects if they would earn their own living and conform to his civil law, and he not only welcomed them but he gave them a part with him in making and administering the law they were expected to obey. Standish, the strong right arm of his little State, was not of his Church, and there is some reason to think he was a child of the old Mother Church of Rome. The Pilgrim hung no witches and was remarkably free from superstition, for his day and age. He had made much progress in courtesy and in generosity. Father Druillette, a French Jesuit, in his journal refers to his pleasant entertainment by Bradford, when he visited Plymouth,^ nd speaks of his thoughtfulness in providing a fish dinner because it was Friday. The ears of the Baptist were safe at Plymouth. Roger Williams says: "That great and pious soul, Mr. Winslow, melted and kindly visited me and put a purse of gold into the hands of my wife for our support." The Puritan was not given to liberality and toleration, but the Pilgrim was, and to a degree in advance of his time The conditions at the Bay did not permit the building of an independent nation. The traditions and thought, the alliances and sympathies, the interests of the officials and the preaching of the clergy were all against it. This was emphatically true after the Puritan party got the upper hand in English politics. But the wind never ceased to blow the other way at Plymouth. The 21 Pilgrim had no relations to divert his thought from an ultimate nationality of his own, and upon the lines which he had been following: since the old days when he was cheated and robbed and imprisoned and scat- tered abroad, by English power, even in his attempts to gain refuge across the North Sea. The Puritan theocracy served its time and its pur- pose in the plan of the Almighty and then broke doA^n, and we are glad of it. American air would not sustain it. The trend of life in the New World was against it. When, seventy years after the landing, the two colonies became one they moved forward on lines projected at Plymouth, and steadily and surely towards indepen- dence and nationality. Time and exigencies made Separatists of the American Puritans. They all moved together toward a great climax, that climax an English nation substantially upon the plan started in the cabin of the "Mayflower"' and established upon the rock at Plymouth. There was never any alliance of State and Church in tlie Old Colony. The civil and military organizations were always separate there. All who led well-ordered lives were welcomed and the suffrage was univer.^al. Piety was common and the reign of the law was su- preme. They had been the first to combine sovereignty and liberty in one plan. This was the plan upon which a new nation would grow. It was incompatible with the religious and political conditions which prevailed over the sea, and it was out of joint with the plan of government in the Mother-land. Separation was log- ical and inevitable. Brewster and Bradford and Win- slow and Standish were the men whose spirits inspired Otis and Franklin and the Adamses and Henry and Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton and John Marshall and all the other patriots of the Revolution and fathers of the Constitution. The famous declara- tion by w^hich the American people became a nation, assumed sovereignty and attained independence, was the logical and imperative sequence of Separatism germinated at old Scrooby, nourished in the Nether- lands and matured at Plymouth. We should never cease to congratulate ourselves and thank God that we live in a great and happy day. For lis, at lea.st, the old conditions, the old troubles, and the old questions have passed away. We speak of them now only to illumine the present. The divine rights of kings have given place to the divine rights of the peo- ple. We make and administer our own laws and we all stand equal before the law. Church and State are completely dissociated. Thought and speech are un- hampered. Worship, in whatever form, in the great Cathedral or by the Salvation Army on the cold pavement of a great city, is not only unquestioned but always respected. The old Roman Church and the younger Protestant Church, Reform- ists, Conformists, Non-Conformists, Puritans and Sep- aratists, Presbyterians and Quakers, the disciples of Luther and of Wesley, of Ignatius Loyola and of Henry of Navarre, Jews and Gentiles, follow their own religious ideas while they gather in peace under one great flag. Better than that, they find plenty of room and they stim- ulate each other to better thinking and to good works. They rejoice in each other's progress and they grow in fraternal regard. And so the common intelligence ad- vances and the spirit of the Living God marches on to the redemption of mankind. And what scene so typical of all this as this mixed company, discussing and approving these things, on a Sunday afternoon, under the roof of an American State University? No matter from whence we come, we are all glad that we live in this day and in this fair land. Human events have been divinely directed. As we witness the heroism and feel the pathos of the past, we place a higher value upon the heritage which the fathers handed down to us. As we value our inheritance surely we will not forget the men and women gone before. We will see that manhood is above nationality^ that the touch of nature which makes all the world LofC. kin is above dogma, and tliat oneness with tlie (xod of the Universe is above the artificial works of men. We will recall contributions to our American institutions and our national life by men and women representing many nations, speaking many languages and devoted to many creeds. We will revere them all. Surely we will not forget the Dutch. We will respect and honor English Puritanism and, perhaps above all the rest, we will lavish our gratitude upon those past-masters of English Puritanism, the sturdy yet gentle men and women, who were Pilgrims in the "Mayflower"' and our National Forefathers at Plvmouth .'3f f(OV 30 1900 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 069 177 A t