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 "THE PILGRIMS OF THE ROCK.' 
 
 
 ORATION, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 AT THEIR SECOND ANNIVERSARY 
 
 On the 22(1 December, 1845. 
 
 JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, 
 
 ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS. 
 
 ^-t^-t^t^ ®|S® ^•/v^w. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN C. CLARK, 60 DOCK STREET. 
 
 1846. 
 
" THE PILGRIMS OF THE ROCK." 
 
 AN 
 
 ORATION, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 AT THEIR SECOND ANNIVERSARY 
 
 On the 22d December, 1845. 
 
 JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, 
 
 ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS. 
 
 JK«ys>^#^®f^^^r»y^?~;^~A:p-r-r ' \ .'. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN C. CLARK, CO DOCK STREET. 
 1846. 
 
 OLH.e. 
 

 3^ sr^s 
 J 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1845. 
 To Joseph R. Chandler, Esq. 
 
 Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the Board of Officers of the Society of 
 the Sons of New England, held this day, it Avas unanimously 
 
 "Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be presented to Joseph 
 R. Chandler, Esq. for the eloquent Oration delivered on the occasion 
 of our Second Anniversary, and that he be requested to furnish a 
 copy for publication." 
 
 In behalf of the Societ)"", I take pleasure in communicating to you 
 the above resolution, trusting you will comply with the request 
 therein contained. I have the honour to be. 
 
 Very respectfully. 
 
 Your ob't. servant, 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK, 
 
 Recording Sec'ry. 
 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 26, 1845. 
 Dear Sir, — I have the pleasure to acknowledge your note, con- 
 veying a request of the Officers of the Society of the Sons of New 
 England, that I would present for publication, the Oration which I 
 had the honour to deliver at their recent Anniversary. The ad- 
 dress, though hastily prepared, is the property of the Society, and is 
 with deference, submitted to their disposal. Please to convey to the 
 gentlemen whom you represent, my thanks for their kindness. 
 I am, with great respect. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 JOS. R. CHANDLER. 
 
 John Hancock, Esq. Secretary 
 
 Of the Society of tlie Sons of New England. 
 
THE PILGRIMS OF THE ROCK. 
 
 It was the evening of the Christian Sabbath; all Nature 
 seemed to have rested from even the work of praise, and to 
 have stood in silent l)eauty, musing its adoration. 
 
 The posthumous splendour of the retiring sun was gor- 
 geously stretched along the western sky; and in the east the 
 snow on the lofty headland seemed to liquefy in the retiring 
 light which the shadows of evening had chased slowly up its 
 sides; here and there around, jutting points of land were 
 tinged with the hues of the western sky, or lofty isolated hills 
 lifted themselves up from the plain in solitary grandeur, 
 while embosomed hy these was a brood bo}^, whose beautiful 
 waters were mirroring the gush of the Northern Aurora, or 
 reflecting the first lustre of the stars that were struggling into 
 visible existence through the fading glory that lingered in the 
 vault above. 
 
 On the outer edge of this beautiful sheet of water, under 
 the lee of one of the many islands which then dotted its sur- 
 face, lay a small shallop, the appendage of some larger mer- 
 cantile vessel; its appointments were meagre at best, but a 
 recent storm Iiad swept away its masts and sails and rudder, 
 and the little barque lay a sheer hulk, scarcely affording shel- 
 ter from the piercing cold of a December night; yet, up from 
 that almost wrecked shallop went notes of joy and thankful- 
 ness for deliverance, and prayers for the safety of those whom 
 the worshippers had left a little behind ; prayers for the safety 
 of their companion pilgrims; for the comfort of the aged, the 
 preservation of the wise, and the support of the weak. Their 
 hearts and their affections were turned to the pilgrims they 
 
6 
 
 had left in the Mayflower; their spirits went to commune 
 with the crowded tenants of that Ilcaven-preservcd ark, where 
 lofty thoughts occupied the leader-men; where holy musing 
 fixed the mind of the pious mother, while the wave rocked to 
 sleep the sea-born and the sea-borne infant, whose only lulla- 
 by had been the tempestuous winds of the storm-enduring 
 coast. 
 
 The day had ceased, — the voice of prayer and the notes of 
 praise were hushed in the little shallop, and the first Sab- 
 bath of the Pilgrims in Plymouth bay had been spent in holy 
 rest and hearty worship. 
 
 On the morrow the inmates of the shallop surveyed the 
 coast, marked the channel, and then, on the 22d of Decem- 
 ber, 1620, as we reckon time, they landed upon a projecting 
 rock, and amid the ice and snow that had gathered upon its 
 surface, they bowed in thanksgiving to Him who had directed 
 them to a home by his providence, and made the winds and 
 the storms the ministers of his will for their guidance. 
 
 Mr. President, Officers and Members 
 
 of the Society oftlie Sons of New England, 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — 
 
 To celebrate tliis landing, to mark our appreciation of the 
 motives by which the actors were influenced, and to derive 
 profit from a contemplation of their virtues, have we come up 
 hither this afternoon. 
 
 We stand in the light of great names; and while we chal- 
 lenge for them the highest praise that has ever been bestowed 
 upon the founders of a nation, we think ourselves able to trace 
 up to them (as the source, or at least the channel,) those prin- 
 ciples which fixed the true liberty of man on the foundation 
 of virtue, and perpetuated freedom by the saving influences of 
 piety. We aficct to claim for these men no exemptions from 
 the infirmities and imperfections of human nature, but we do 
 believe that the errors in their conduct and plans which arc 
 now manifest, were then not perceptible to others, nor sus- 
 
pected by themselves; and without incurring the risk of ex- 
 cusing uncharitableness, or pleading for intolerance now, we 
 may admit it is not impossible that the rough moral climate 
 in which the Fathers lived, may have rendered necessary some 
 protection of the delicate principles they were rearing, as some 
 of the most pleasant fruits are guarded by nature with thick 
 and hirsute envelopes. 
 
 To judge correctly of the character and influencing motives 
 of the first settlers of Plymouth Colony in New England, we 
 must understand something of the history of the times in 
 which they lived, something of the political and social con- 
 dition of men; and could we descend into their family rela- 
 tions, and fully appreciate all the peculiarities of their domes- 
 tic connexions, we should be yet better qualified to form a 
 judgment of their acts, and refer those acts to their true mo- 
 tives. The political relations of man may change often and 
 greatly, without affecting his conduct so much as a trifling 
 movement in his domestic positions — there, at the centre, the 
 least change works important aberrations at the extremity of 
 the radii, and society has been convulsed, and governments 
 disturbed, by circumstances that have had their origin in the 
 narrowest relations of life; and philosophers and historians, 
 astonished at the results, have vainly sought for the motive- 
 cause, or pleased themselves with erecting theories of causes 
 and effects, upon the movements, wishes, and fate of the ru- 
 lers of nations. 
 
 The public change of religion in England, begun by Henry 
 VIII. and consummated by Elizabeth, was marked by extra- 
 ordinary convulsions, that had their origin not more in the 
 opposition to certain doctrines generally prevalent and almost 
 universal, than in the ceremonies and insignia by which the 
 exposition of those doctrines were illustrated; and the forms 
 and ceremonies came to be insignia of the doctrine, and the 
 hostility to a creed was manifested by violence towards the 
 outward ceremonies and decorations of its officers. 
 
 The consummation of the change under Elizabeth was short 
 of the requirements of many ; the revolution of opinion had 
 
8 
 
 gone beyond the revolution in enactments and ceremonies; 
 and the power which had cfTected the change that was admit- 
 ted b}'^ the government, was composed of a few who wished 
 to alter, and of many who wished to destroy. The conserva- 
 tives lield the government, and woulcl he quiet; the destruc- 
 tives had the ear of the people, and were restless and labo- 
 rious. 
 
 The movements of the discontented were, however, only 
 with direct reference to their views of religion; they never 
 professed nor intended political hostility to their rulers. 
 Then llic divine riglit of the sovereign was generally admit- 
 ted, and the "Lord's anointed" scemoil to be excinpled from 
 the antagonism of men who lacked the sacred unction; yet 
 where the church is a part of the Slate, oj)eu hostility to its 
 requirements assumes the comj)lexion of treason; and those 
 who inveighed against the authority of the prelates, came to 
 be considered as cliargeable with open action against the go- 
 vernment, while they perhaps considered themselves as only 
 asking for their share of benefits of tliat reformation which 
 they had aided to achieve. Tlie spirit of Luther had been 
 manifest in the early periods of the religious revolution in 
 England, but the doctrines of Calvin were operating in the 
 minds of the later movers; and these were proclaimed with 
 such an unction, that all the ordinary accessaries of church 
 establishments seemed to be not only of indifferent value, but 
 they came soon to be regarded as cumbrous appendages, that 
 retarded the action of tlie mind, and liindered the progress of 
 those great truths that are above all appreciation — truths that, 
 in early promulgation, warrant a neglect of all ordinary ap- 
 pearances, and dispense with those conventional arrangements 
 that may be appropriate to the maintenance of the forms of 
 religions, when the spirit has been allowed its perfect work, 
 untrammelled, unclogged, unimpeded. 
 
 The spirit which was operating at the time to which I al- 
 lude, was not one roused by a question of tithes or of political 
 restrictions; it was not to be allayed by a concession which 
 saved a contribution from limited incomes, or released the 
 
9 
 
 complainants from those obligations that had from time im- 
 memorial been imposed upon them, and which they had 
 never refused to discharge. The disquiet was caused by the 
 restrictions upon the exercise of religious opinions long pre- 
 valent throughout the kingdom, though not always openly 
 avowed; opinions which had been rather adopted than pro- 
 mulged, and which had really begun to assume form, dis- 
 tinctness, and a creed-like shape, when men were invited to 
 weigh the difference between the ancient religion of the king- 
 dom, and that which had been allowed by Henry VIII., mo- 
 dified and moulded into " form and pressure" under Edward 
 VI., and revived under Elizabeth. Those who asked the 
 people to think for themselves, when Edward, their monarch, 
 was scarcely allovved the privilege, little thought how the 
 many had been thinking; still less had they calculated the ex- 
 tent to which their own permission reached; and when the 
 Virgin Queen had disposed of those who had distinguished 
 themselves by cruelty under her sister's administration, and 
 of those who had refused to renounce the religion which 
 Mary had encouraged and sought to establish, she turned to 
 the establishment of a church of which she was to be the 
 head, and was startled at the too obvious truth, that the most 
 zealous opponents of her sister's reign had, in the liberty of 
 private interpretation, reached the conclusion that the forms 
 which an established church required, were unfriendly to 
 their spiritual progress, and that a liturgy was a hindrance of 
 hearty devotion. 
 
 The spirit v*?hich sought to force a conformity by the fires 
 of Smithfield was not quenched, and a Court of High Com- 
 mission had authority to propound an oath to the non- 
 conforming priest or layman: if he took the oath; he was 
 convicted upon his own statement; if he refused, he was im- 
 prisoned for contempt. I need not tell an audience assem- 
 bled in this country, in the nineteenth century, that this 
 mode of dealing with the consciences of the people, while it 
 served to ensure a conformity to a church, was soon to call 
 into existence an opposition that would be strengthened in its 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 hostility to tlie religious establishment, that sustained itself 
 by persecution, — and in time would inquire into the necessity 
 of submitting to the political dominancy by which the religious 
 intolerance was sustained. The progress of this hostility was 
 slow, but sure; the people lacked the daily press to rouse the 
 better class to an open assertion of their rights, and to stimu- 
 late the multitude to vengeance for their wrongs — but it came 
 in time. In Elizabeth's ear, the few whispered their belief 
 in a church without a bishop — over the headless trunk of 
 Charles, they proclaimed their confidence in a state without a 
 king. 
 
 The class of citizens, generally, who opposed the religious 
 arrogance of Elizabeth, and who demanded greater simplicity 
 in worship, more pui'ity of life in the worshippers, were, in 
 contempt for their virtue, denominated Puritans — a name 
 not then invented, nor first applied ; for in the early ages of 
 Christianity, classes of dissenters, who aflected singular aus- 
 terities, were called Cathari, or Puritani. " Heretics," at va- 
 rious stages of Church history, will be found thus designated; 
 and when the name of Puritans was applied to members of 
 the Church of England, and others of that nation, for noncon- 
 formity with requisitions of the established church, it was 
 supposed that they had been by the designation devoted to 
 immediate dissolution; but the time had passed when a name 
 could destroy. The term Quaker became sanctified by the 
 purity and goodness of those on whom it was bestowed; and 
 the Methodists flourished with unparalleled vigour, under the 
 title which had been borrowed to ensure to them the world's 
 contemj)t. 
 
 The death of Elizabeth was looked to, as the end of perse- 
 cution, when it was known that James of Scotland would suc- 
 ceed to the British throne. But the new monarch seized 
 upon all the appendages of British royalty, and was as proud 
 of being at the head of the church, as at the head of a king- 
 dom; and he anathematized not only those who could not 
 conform to the prescribed rules and ceremonies of public 
 worship, but he anathematized also, the very idea of tole- 
 rance, as an encouragement to damnable heresy; — "1 will 
 
11 
 
 make these Puritans conform themselves," said this pedantic 
 monarch, " or I will harry them out of the land, or I will do 
 worse." 
 
 He was, providentially, saved the guilt of doing worse; he 
 drove from the pulpit hundreds of the ministers of the Gos- 
 pel, and then he harried priest and people out of the land. 
 
 In 1608, a band of Puritans left England for Holland. I 
 will not recite the evils to which they were subjected in 
 making their escape, nor the suflerings they endured while 
 sojourning among the Hollanders. The restless, the aspiring 
 spirit of the leaders of the Puritans, was not satisfied with the 
 position they occupied in the Netherlands; they had no share 
 in the government under which they lived, and they were 
 wounded by the consequences of the very freedom of opinion 
 allowed to others, and which allowed them to think, speak, 
 and worship, as they desired. To them, let us say it in justice 
 to our Fathers, to them it was not enough to be allowed to 
 worship as they believed; they desired to be beyond the in- 
 fluence of antagonist creeds; they dreaded the laxity that was 
 growing up under the boasted universal toleration of Holland; 
 and they, as men who had left a beloved home, felt mortified, 
 that instead of acquiring distinctness of position, they were 
 being fast absorbed in the institutions around them, and that 
 before long they would be merged in the population of the 
 country that had given them refuge. They loved their native 
 country, they loved their government; and since they could 
 not enjoy the privileges of worship at home, they felt dis- 
 posed to seek that advantage with the sacrifice of as few at- 
 tachments as was compatible with its attainment; they conse- 
 quently made arrangements to emigrate to the New World, and 
 enjoy the pleasure of considering themselves subject to the 
 civil laws of the Parliament of England, without conforming 
 to the religious requisitions of its church. 
 
 Something of the wishes for conventual life, which had 
 actuated others, and which were prevalent at that time, seemed 
 to mingle in the motives of the Fathers; and they may be 
 considered as having sought the western world with a view 
 
12 
 
 of this separate sociality, by which alone their hierarchical 
 views could be established, and the benefits of the State upon 
 church government fully developed. 
 
 With these views they left Holland, where they had re- 
 sided about twelve years, to emigrate to some part of the Bri- 
 tish possessions in America, having in view the vicinity of 
 the mouth of the Hudson river; and after various disturbing 
 circumstances, disappointments, and treachery, the INIayflower, 
 Captain Jones, left Plymouth, England, on the 6th of Septem- 
 ber, 1620, with one hundred persons, beside the officers and 
 crew of the vessel. Adverse winds, and ill-comprehended 
 currents, set the ship farther north than her destination; and 
 after trials by sea, and among the islands in the vicinity of 
 Cape Cod, they cast anchor in the harbour at the extremity 
 of that promontory, on the 11th of November; and having 
 passed the vast ocean and a sea of trouble, says a historian, 
 " before preparations as to further proceedings, they fell down 
 upon their knees and blessed the Lord, the God who had 
 brought them over the vast and perilous ocean, and delivered 
 them from all dangers and miseries thereof." 
 
 The leaders of this expedition were not men to waste time 
 in idle recreations; they had before them a business of infi- 
 nite import; and while some explored the interior of the 
 Cape, a party was sent in a shallop, a boat brought over in 
 the Mayflower, to search for a suitable landing place, upon 
 which to set up their rest. Proceeding along the indented 
 coasts of the Cape in their open boat, the party entered what 
 is now denominated Plymouth Bay, on Saturday, in a violent 
 storm; spent the Sabbath as a day of sanctified rest; on the 
 morrow landed on the "Forefathers' Rock," explored the 
 edge of the Bay, and on Thursday returned to the May- 
 flower at the Cape. On the ^Monday following, the pil- 
 grims landed, and commenced the town of Plymouth, the first 
 Christian community in New England — the parent or leader 
 of nearly all that have followed. There was commenced the 
 practice of those virtues which create as well as bless a nation; 
 there religion was made the basis of morals; there the indi- 
 
13 
 
 vidual was merged in the community; there science bent itself 
 to labour; and there, amid the storms and frosts of pitiless 
 winter, delicate and beautiful woman suffered the pain and 
 anguish that only woman can suffer. There, amid the crj' of 
 the famished wolf, and the howl of the jealous savage, the Pil- 
 grim emigrant leaned upon the charged and pointed cannon, 
 and worshipped the God of peace. There the blood of the 
 aged congealed in the rigour of the terrible cold of the cli- 
 mate; and there, when the sun of early spring had melted 
 away the snowy covering of the earth, the broken soil told 
 that/or^^-/oMrof the hundred that arrived had found a refuge 
 from the blasts of the north, and the arrow of the savage; — in 
 three months, nearly half of all who landed had ceased from 
 their labours. 
 
 One circumstance in the deeply interesting events of the 
 first month's residence of the Pilgrims in Plymouth is worthy 
 of our memory. While the company were making military 
 arrangements against the Indians that hung upon the borders, 
 and seemed to threaten the destruction of the community, a 
 savage, almost naked, came among the settlers, fearless, confi- 
 dent, and rash: he stood upright, and, to their astonishment, 
 exclaimed, "Welcome, Englishmen." Though there was 
 nothing miraculous in all this, yet such a salutation, from the 
 first lord of the soil they had personally encountered, must 
 have seemed auspicious to the Fathers; and had fancy been 
 allowed a scope at such a time, the stranger savage, with his 
 startling exclamation, might have been construed as the ge- 
 nius of a mighty people come to look at the graves of his 
 fathers, and in the name of the Great Spirit to bid welcome 
 those who were to be rulers, and to commend to their respect 
 the dust of the great, with which the soil was teeming. Few, 
 indeed, of that squalid race, comprehended much of the dig- 
 nity of national existence. One tribe, however, nobly as- 
 serted their rights, and with all the strategy of war, and all 
 the arts of diplomac}^, sustained their substantive existence, 
 till cruelty drove them from their sunny vales into hidden re- 
 treats of the almost pathless morasses; and treachery, dark 
 
14 
 
 treachery, there gave up to the vengeance of the whites the 
 lofty-minded sachem of a decaying but noble tribe. Fancy 
 may have exaggerated the savage virtues of the children of 
 Massasoit, who successively held the sceptre which their 
 father relinquished with death; but truth itself awakens admi- 
 ration for the lofty sentiments of royal dignity which burst 
 the swelling heart of Alexander, as he was dragged a captive 
 from his people, and threatened with a durance which is 
 worse than death to an Indian chief. And who will not drop 
 a tear of regret over the Wampanoag, the brother and suc- 
 cessor of Alexander, the gallant and the noble Philip, who 
 rallied his own tribe and his neighbours, to defend their 
 soil, their people, and their rights, from the encroachments of 
 those whose presence seemed to waste away the Indian tribes, 
 as the rising sun dissipated the mists that hung upon their 
 border swamps? 
 
 The question, as to the motives of the Fathers in emigra- 
 ting to this country, is easily settled. History, unprejudiced, 
 fair and admissible, tells the story; and in the hasty sketch 
 which I have already given, may be found the means of judg- 
 ing of the question. The people of the congregation of the 
 Rev. Mr. Robinson, the Pilgrim Fathers, and those whom 
 they invited to share in their enterprise, left Holland, because 
 neither social nor political advancement could be obtained 
 there, and because the tolerance of the government, especially 
 towards the sect of which the Fathers were members, seemed 
 to weaken the efforts for religious attainment, and they turned 
 their faces towards the New World, and towards Virginia, the 
 general name of the portion of our country south of Connecti- 
 cut, with a view of founding a colony, not of establishing a 
 nation — of setting up a social edifice that should lean to Eng- 
 land for support, while it should stand upon its proper foun- 
 dation. They could scarcely be called a trading colony, 
 though they accepted the patronage of a company esta- 
 blished for trade, and if ever a combination was formed 
 to extend religion by emigration, this handful of professors 
 may be considered as associated for that purpose, — not to carry 
 
15 
 
 the Gospel to others, not to teach all nations, not to convert 
 heathens, or reconvert Christians, but to take with them their 
 views of the Gospel, their ideas of Christianity, their form of 
 church government, and to establish a sect or society, where the 
 social or even political ruling actions should be derived from 
 the code of the religious government; where the church 
 siiould not only be superior to the state, but the state itself 
 should be with the church, and of the church. I have already 
 said that the Fathers evidently had in view a conventual life, 
 not monastic, of course, for they came to spread their opi- 
 nions without converting others, — but a religious community, 
 governed by rules as strict as those which were professed by 
 the religious orders of the continent of Europe at that time, 
 and having this in view, they were not slow to prepare the 
 code to which all were to submit, nor backward in applying 
 the penal portions of the enactment to those who violated its 
 requisitions. 
 
 I think it scarcely necessary to advance any historical facts 
 in proof of this; the history of the early movements of the 
 emigrants show what they desired, and their conduct before 
 and after their arrival on this continent, proves that they had 
 resolved on giving Puritanism a fair trial; of seeing whether 
 religion was indeed "profitable unto all things." 
 
 With this view of the motives of the Fathers, we are pre- 
 pared to find them intolerant of teachers of opposite doctrines. 
 We are prepared to hear, that they searched out opinions at 
 variance from their own, and made them a ground for rigor- 
 ous visitation. They left England because their opinions 
 were not tolerated — their nonconformity was made a penal 
 offence, and they departed from Holland, partly because the 
 neglect to support these opinions by penal enactments, de- 
 noted an indifference to creeds which often results in skep- 
 ticism. 
 
 Thus moved, the Fathers deemed themselves called on to 
 propound what they considered apostolical doctrines and rites, 
 and to prepare for their establishment and observance in the 
 New World. They did not contemplate interference with 
 the rights and opinions of others. They had not in view the 
 
16 
 
 subjection of any man to their dominancy; nor the disturbance 
 of any political or social body, by the proclamation and obser- 
 vance of their rules ; and when they had been driven from 
 their route for Virginia, toward the untrodden shores of that 
 extremity of New England, they felt that Providence had 
 favoured the principal, the religious, object of their emigra- 
 tion. 
 
 When, therefore, they found one of their own number de- 
 parting from the rules of the association, they did not inquire 
 what would have been that man's rights in England, or under 
 English laws, but they brought him before their own magis- 
 trates, and caused him to be dealt with according to the laws 
 and ordinances of the association; for we may scarcely call 
 it a colony — nothing but the formal profession of regard to 
 the British, seemed to connect it with the government under 
 which the people were born; and few small governments of 
 Europe, even at the present time, can boast of so many attri- 
 butes and acts of sovereignty, as distinguished the colony of 
 Plymouth for several years. 
 
 I have, I confess, made these remarks to meet the charge of 
 intolerance and persecution, which is preferred against the 
 little colony, upon its conduct towards professors of other 
 sects. They felt, and they proclaimed the fact, that they had 
 sought that obscure corner, in which to enjoy certain opi- 
 nions; and especially to try the experiment of a species of 
 hierarchy, in which all political powers should emanate from 
 the church, and be administered by members thereof; and, 
 consequently, all doctrines and opinions hostile to that church, 
 would become treason to their state. The stranger, who came 
 among them with opinions at variance from their own, was 
 examined to know the extent of his heresy — was admonished 
 of the spiritual and political dangers from his creed — and 
 finally, if unyielding, was banished the colony: his return 
 was, of course, a violation of a statute, to be punished accord- 
 ing to the severity of its provisions. It is true, that the Pil- 
 grims considered a departure from their platform, on some of 
 the disputed and complex theories of theology, touching the 
 
17 
 
 operation of God, and the nature and character of his dealings 
 with sinful or repentant or forgiven man, as of much greater 
 moment, than an open profession of belief in what they had 
 deemed a settled, established heresy. And while a sojourner 
 who might avow a belief in the necessity of Episcopal ordi- 
 nation, would, after the rites of hospitality, be dismissed be- 
 yond the line of the Pilgrims' authority, the stranger cast 
 upon their shore, was invited to become one of the commu- 
 nity, though he openly professed his belief in the doctrines of 
 the church of Rome. Nay, he continually, during his life- 
 time, displayed upon his dress the outward signal of that be- 
 lief, and dying, directed it to be placed upon his breast, when 
 they laid him in their consecrated earth. 
 
 Strange — it may seem — very strange, that so intolerant of 
 the shades of their own creed, they should have admitted 
 among them one of such an opposite belief. But the Fathers 
 were wise men, and wisdom dwells with prudence; they were 
 wise to discern that the peculiarities of an opposite creed, if 
 not enforced by rites and ceremonies, would, from the very 
 opposite distinction of theirs, work no evil upon their esta- 
 blished faith and habits, while shades of difference would 
 blend with the hues of their own belief, and impart something 
 of the peculiar colouring in the amalgamation. 
 
 This worldly prudence, this careful foresight of the Fathers, 
 a kind of acuteness sometimes discernible in the conduct of 
 their descendants, was doubtless manifested in the encourage- 
 ment which they gave a learned practical physician and sur- 
 geon to abide in a small community whose inmates were 
 constantly exposed to sickness and injuries that daily called 
 for the ministration of medical and surgical science. 
 
 But I shall be asked whether the Fathers did not violate 
 the great Christian principles of religious liberty — did they 
 not persecute? or, if not openly, did they not keep alive a 
 spirit of hostility towards other sects, inconsistent with Chris- 
 tian charity? 
 
 I stand the eulogist of the Fathers; the humble advocate of 
 their claims to the admiration of the world for their lofty vir- 
 c 
 
18 
 
 tues and their Christian graces. I hope to sliow that from 
 them were transmitted the virtues that have blessed the na- 
 tion; that have made the region which they inhabited the 
 Mecca of the freeman's heart; whither devout pilgrimages 
 are made to strengthen faith in human excellence, and to 
 purify the virtue of patriotism. 
 
 I plead with grateful, selfish love, for the fame of the 
 Fathers, which is part of the patrimonial inheritance of "the 
 Sons of New England." I stand up for the glory of the rock 
 that received these ocean-pilgrims, the rock whose name has 
 become the exponent of all the patriotic virtues and the home- 
 ly affection with which I invest the ancestors through whom 
 we are; and which the world acknowledges to have found a 
 genial home in that pilgrim land, and faithful cultivators in 
 the pilgrim host. I stand here to challenge the honour of 
 these for ourselves, and to proclaim them to the world. And 
 yet, when the question is put — " these Pilgrim Fathers, who 
 sought a distant clime to cultivate piety, and worship God in 
 peace, were they intolerant of the creed of others?" 1 pause — 
 not to deny the charge implied, not to answer in the nega- 
 tive — amicus Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis amica Veritas. 
 The Pilgrims were our ancestors, their descendants were our 
 fathers, and they taught and practised love of kindred and 
 love and awful reverence to all of ancestral race: but they 
 left the sweets of home; they encountered the dangers of the 
 sea; they established themselves in the solitude of the wilder- 
 ness, that they might worship tlie God of trulh in spirit and 
 in truth. Truth, then, and a love of truth are the best ho- 
 mage which I can pay to the best virtues of the Pilgrim Fa- 
 thers; and their own light which they handed down to us, I 
 turn back upon them, and expose the single imperfection of 
 their character, and grant them intolerant. From policy and 
 consistency the Fathers were intolerant. 
 
 I have sought to show on what ground the Fathers might 
 be considered intolerant, and to excuse, if not justify, that in- 
 tolerance, before I made the confession in that regard. We 
 must judge of men by the light in which they stand; not al- 
 
19 
 
 ways by that in which we are placed. The illumination that 
 is about us, often renders more opaque the darkness that is 
 around others ; to judge correctly of men of other times, we 
 must transport ourselves to their position — must see by their 
 light, judge by their means of ascertaining right, and compre- 
 hend exactly the prevalence of correct moral principles around 
 them. No men, more than the Fathers, could afford to allow 
 us to strip away from them all that belonged to the time in 
 which they lived, and to judge them by what belonged 
 equally to all times; but we owe it to our own times, and to 
 a grateful sense of what Providence has allowed us to derive 
 from the virtues of the Pilgrims, to give them the benefit of 
 the adverse circumstances in which they were placed, and to 
 allow their advocate to plead those circumstances in extenua- 
 tion of what, in our light, is discovered to be erroneous. 
 
 In conceding what we do with regard to the intolerancy of 
 the Fathers, we must, I repeat it. not forget the times in 
 which they lived, nor the circumstances in which they had 
 been trained. We cannot doubt that the great principles of 
 the rights of man, his social, political, and religious rights, 
 were labouring in their breasts, and operating through their 
 lives, while a portion of their conduct was influenced by some 
 opinions inconsistent with those lofty motives, some lingering 
 of the old elements that remained unsanctified by the opera- 
 tion of the new. 
 
 But we must not plead the errors in the conduct of the 
 Fathers against the purity of their principles; we must not 
 allow their treatment of the natives to lead us to deny their 
 general philanthropy, nor their severity towards other sects 
 to doubt the general charity of their hearts. 
 
 There is in the bosom of every pioneer or reformer in 
 morals and religion, a lingering attachment to some portion of 
 what he has left; and the heart and the affection, even the 
 judgment itself, sometimes pay tribute to their early object, 
 long after the faith is pledged to another: nay, I do not know 
 but such a lingering attachment, such a blending of the last 
 of the old with the first of the new, may be necessary to a 
 
20 
 
 proper use of the latter. Men often err in policy, who are 
 right in principle; and they sometimes adhere to the ma- 
 chinery, long after they have left the measures, of a party. 
 
 High claims are made upon the gratitude of the present 
 generation to the Pilgrim Fathers, for the permanent bless- 
 ings which have resulted to us from the establishment of the 
 true principles of civil liberty, with the foundation of Ply- 
 mouth Colony. The advent of the Pilgrims is regarded as 
 the introduction to this continent of those piinciples which 
 led to our national existence, and which, by reaction, lighted 
 up the flame of liberty on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 The motives of the Pilgrims are often inferred from a re- 
 markable document which they all signed on board the May- 
 flower — a species of magna charta, which seemed to ascertain 
 and insure the right of all, while it recognised a perfect equa- 
 lity of those rights in every member of the community; and 
 this document is often quoted as the germ of our Declaration 
 of Independence, and the foundation of our national constitu- 
 tion. Allow me to read it. 
 
 "DOCUMENT. 
 
 "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are under- 
 written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King 
 James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ire- 
 land, king, defender of the faith, &c., having undertaken, for 
 the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and 
 honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first 
 colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these pre- 
 sents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of 
 one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a 
 civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, 
 and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, 
 do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws and 
 ordinances, acts, constitutions, and ofllces, from time to time, 
 as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general 
 good of the colony, unto which we promise all due subjection 
 
21 
 
 and obedience. In witness whereof, we have hereunto sub- 
 scribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th day of September, 
 in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of 
 England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland 
 the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620." 
 
 This was an instrument prepared on ship-board, and in- 
 tended to give authority , while it proclaimed right. I dis- 
 cover in it, indeed, the sentiments of Christian men, seeking 
 the peace and harmony of their confederacy, and exhibiting a 
 remarkable tact in insuring from all an acknowledgment of 
 the rights of the new magistracy to prevent the violation of 
 any ordinance enacted or adopted. 
 
 The Pilgrim Fathers were, in theory, monarchists; they 
 had strong faith, an inherent unexamined faith, in the divine 
 right of kings; they fled away, indeed, from the authority of 
 King James, because he attemoted to enforce the act of con- 
 formity; but had that monarch proclaimed hostility against 
 Episcopacy, and a preference for the Independents, his royal 
 prerogatives would have found its stoutest supporters in the 
 emigrants. 
 
 They left England, not because there was a king with al- 
 most unlimited power, but because that king did not exercise 
 that power in their behalf. The compact which we have just 
 read, was no more intended for a proclamation of democracy 
 or republicanism, than are the articles of agreement between 
 mercantile partners. The paper was as between so many 
 subjects ; and their allegiance to the king is as promptly ac- 
 knowledged as their dependence on God; nor is there any 
 reason to believe that these Pilgrims contemplated a transfer 
 of their allegiance, or looked for any modification in the pre- 
 rogatives of the sovereign. The theory of republicanism 
 could have had but few charms for them; they had known 
 nothing of it in England, and all that they had read of the re- 
 publics of early times, or of those of Italy of later date, could 
 scarcely have moved in them a desire to try the experiment 
 which would cost so much to begin, and which, from all pre- 
 
22 
 
 cedents, they must have believed was destined to a turbulent 
 life and an early death. 
 
 Yet from that race of men sprung the stern asserters of hu- 
 man rights. On the very territory where they colonized, 
 grew, and still exists, the purest principles of practical repub- 
 licanism. The practice commenced indeed with the Fathers, 
 and with every enlargement of the little circle that swelled 
 out from the rock, was an extension of this principle. The 
 necessities of their situation compelled the Fathers to select 
 their rulers and officers from some special adaptation of the 
 qualities of the person to the duties of his station. And this 
 supposes a change whenever the duties changed their charac- 
 ter, or the abilities lost their application. Office was not only 
 a trust and a responsibility, but it implied augmented labour. 
 And the true theory of republicanism then seemed to be de- 
 veloped in practice, which the necessity of the colony de- 
 manded. 
 
 The cold, uninviting climate, and the unproductive soil of 
 Plymouth Colony attracted no scion of aristocracy to a lieuten- 
 ancy or governorship over this people; and it is a remarkable 
 fact, that the colony passed from infancy to youth, from the 
 gristle to the bone, without the interference of the crown, 
 without the vampire visitation of delegated officers, without 
 the habits or presence of one come to rule that he might live. 
 This circumstance, you will perceive, was most favourable to 
 the growth of republican habits; and while the colonists were 
 constantly admitting the rights of the king, acknowledging 
 his authority, " making mention of him in their prayers," 
 ,they were silently, but steadily becoming so republican in all 
 their manners and customs, so republican in all their political 
 and social developments, that when at length they had ac- 
 quired enough consequence to provoke the interference of the 
 crown in their behalf, they had contracted such a habit of 
 self-government, and such a distaste for sharing their earnings 
 with those who only came to rule, that their nonconformity 
 in politics, in the colony, was a worse evil than their noncon- 
 formity in religion at home. 
 
23 
 
 You will perceive that tliough I address tlie Sons of New 
 England, I speak only of the Fathers of the " Old Colony," 
 and the time will not suffice for me to do more than even hint 
 at these patriarchs. 
 
 xA-nd so different were the objects of many of the emigrants 
 to other parts of New England, the founders of different por- 
 tions of Massachusetts Colony for example, so different their 
 mode of procedure, that while some general characteristics 
 are common to all who came within the first quarter of a cen- 
 tury after the landing in Plymouth, still there -was a marked 
 difference in the Plymouth people in the mode of government, 
 their objects, their plans, their connexion with the natives, 
 and their treatment of Europeans of other creeds. 
 
 The people of Plymouth were rather intolerant than perse- 
 cuting, although some instances of the latter may be adduced; 
 yet it is evident that even these cases seemed to be justified 
 more by the circumstances and conduct of the persecuted than 
 were those of Massachusetts Colony. My remarks, though 
 susceptible in many cases of general application to the Fathers 
 of New England, are, however, meant specially for those of 
 the first immigrants to that portion of the country. 
 
 We have admitted that the Pilgrims were intolerant in re- 
 ligion, and that they were monarchical in their political creed. 
 
 How then came that section of tlie country redolent with 
 the sweets of Christian charity, and whence sprung the repub- 
 lican institutions which seemed by more than a century to 
 anticipate the best work of the American Revolution? 
 
 The Pilgrims were not, as they have been represented, men 
 of obscure condition and uninformed minds. Many of them 
 were of elevated position in society; some had achieved ho- 
 nours in the stricken field; and almost all of them were men 
 of such attainments as would give them rank among the learn- 
 ed even of the present day. Miles Standish possessed the 
 boldness of a soldier with the military skill and attainments 
 of a commander. Carver had the dignity, the coolness, the 
 precaution, the self-command, that made him fit to be a go- 
 vernor; and Bradford, the gentle and the learned, would have 
 
24 
 
 shone in any assembly of modern days. But all these men 
 had been brought up in the influences of monarchy; they had 
 not inquired into the powers of a man whose rights were said 
 to be divine. The great contest in which they had shared 
 from their youth upward was, not as to what should be the 
 form of secular government, but what should be the form of 
 worship. And when they left England, it was because they 
 deemed the right of James to rule there a divine right; and 
 they desired to seek a place where, without denying his poli- 
 tical prerogatives, they need not be troubled with his religious 
 power. 
 
 They established their government, it has already been 
 stated, on the great principles of human equality, so far as it 
 regarded those who joined the compact. They included their 
 allegiance to their king, because as he was not present, they 
 had no right to divest him of a single attribute of his kingly 
 office. Mark how justice mingles in the inceptive acts of the 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 When they landed, they proceeded according to their con- 
 stitution; the only difference among them being that of office, 
 bestowed by the vote of all; and gradually, in the absence of 
 kingly interference, they established among themselves as 
 perfect a republican system as could be devised, and this not 
 with any such end in view. The object proposed was the 
 establishment of a colony, in which their religious views 
 should be carried out; the end obtained was the establish- 
 ment of Christianity, the infusion of its spirit into every 
 office and institution among them, and the development of a 
 system of republicanism, that recognised and subsequently 
 protected the rights of man. 
 
 I shall be told, perhaps, that trying the Fathers by the great 
 standard of moral rights, allowing them the benefit of their 
 motives only, we cannot claim for the Pilgrims any credit for 
 the religious charity they cultivated, or the republicanism 
 they established. 
 
 I ask nothing for the Fathers beyond their deserts, and my 
 admissions this afternoon in their regard might be cited 
 
25 
 
 against me as evidence of my indifference to their fame; but 
 1 am too proud of the credit of that noble band of men to 
 shrink from any defence which their conduct may require; 
 quite too proud to ask for their fame a single addition from 
 acts or motives of doubtful propriety. Let us look at the 
 truth. The Fathers projected a government, with a fixed de- 
 termination to establish it in righteousness; they recognised 
 the powers of a foreign monarch, but they admitted neither 
 hereditary nor perpetual offices among themselves; they 
 talked of a king, and many of their proceedings bore the out- 
 ward impress of monarchical institutions, but when the time 
 arrived for the king to enforce disagreeable authority, and 
 thus disturb that system of equal rights which had been in 
 practice, it was found impossible to attain the object. The 
 habits and feelings of the people were altogether republican, 
 however the government may have been denominated; and 
 the struggle, consequent upon the determination of the king, 
 was not on the part of the colonists, that they might break 
 the yoke of authority, — but on the part of the executive, that 
 he might apply that yoke to necks that had not been accus- 
 tomed to its weight. Whatever, then, may have been the 
 plans of the Pilgrims in their political or their religious insti- 
 tutions, it is evident that their own virtues, their constant re- 
 gard for the rights of each member of their community, and 
 their careful administration of all their ordinances, led to the 
 establishment of that republicanism which they never pro- 
 claimed, and to the admittance of that tolerance to others, 
 which they had deemed unjust to themselves. 
 
 The Fathers came to extend the limits of monarchical power, 
 but their virtues produced a perfect republic; they landed, to 
 hedge themselves about with religious intolerance, but their 
 piety produced enlarged charity. 
 
 They sought a refuge in the wilderness from the persecu- 
 tion and evils with which they had been surrounded; and 
 their advent was the means of diffusing life, prosperity, liber- 
 ty and happiness, where they abode. As the sacred ark that 
 was deposited for safety in danger, procured blessing and pros- 
 1) 
 
26 
 
 perity on all the possessions of Obed-edom, so did the virtues 
 of the Fathers go forth upon the land, and the moral and phy- 
 sical wilderness was made to blossom like the rose. 
 
 Far back in other centuries, we have seen the spirit of 
 human right labouring for expression; here and there utter- 
 ance was given, but in language as unfamiliar to the mass as 
 was the handwriting upon the wall of the Chaldaic king; and 
 if there had appeared a prophet to translate the words in 
 which the forereaching voice had uttered the awful sentence, 
 men would have started at the annunciation, as did Belshaz- 
 zar at the Hebrew's explication. Yet adown the current of 
 years that spirit has passed, from time to time flashing out 
 upon the uncomprehending darkness of human intellect. — 
 Hundreds, inspired by its sacred illumination, had called upon 
 their fellows to come up from the grave of despotism — but 
 there has been no response. Often has a nation seemed tra- 
 vailing with the mighty throes of liberty. Italy has appeared 
 ready to become the nursing mother of human rights. Eng- 
 land has promised to supply the heirship of man's immortal 
 inheritance, when some adverse events have prevented the 
 fulfilment of the desire, and quenched the untimely hope of 
 nations. These vast conceptions belonged to the world of 
 thought beyond the seas; there and there alone could such a 
 woi'k begin, but there too the great dragon of despotism stood 
 ready to destroy the offspring of the freedom of thought; and 
 blessed was the mother of that freedom that could flee away 
 into the wilderness, — do we speak irreverently when we add, 
 " where she had a place prepared of God?" 
 
 This spirit of liberty, this sense of human rights by which 
 the Fathers were influenced, and the deep principle of piety 
 which mingled in all their plans of action, were great ingre- 
 dients in the means of success. But it has appeared to me 
 that there was one other, often overlooked, always underrated; 
 one, without which all others would have been ineffective. 
 The spirit of liberty would have been grieved by the acts of 
 licentiousness; the sense of human rights would have been 
 blunted by a want of sympathy with others; and the deep 
 
27 
 
 principle of piety woi^d have sunk into ascetic gloom, for 
 want of some relieving light upon the dark shades of their 
 stern character. 
 
 He who attempts to illustrate the virtues of the Fathers — he 
 who seeks to explain the means of their ultimate success — or 
 he who would point out the cause of the influence of their vir- 
 tues on succeeding ages, must not pause at their piety; must 
 not rest at the commendation of their respect for human 
 rights; must not be satisfied with- an exhibition of their Chris- 
 tian, heavenly virtues: these were all means, all instruments, 
 all partial causes; but the spirit of liberty would have been 
 quenched, their piety would have wrought no extensive good, 
 and the eflfects of the Fathers' pilgrimage would have ceased 
 with the life of those who left the Mayflower, if all had not 
 been blessed, sanctified, preserved, by woman's attractive 
 charms, woman's changeless love, woman's enduring faith. 
 
 They deeply wrong that pilgrim band, who represent the 
 men cold, ascetic, insensible to social delights and domestic 
 joy. They deeply wrong those sainted mothers, who with- 
 hold from them the highest praise which unstained virtue, 
 which strong affection^ which self-sacrifice can demand. We 
 talk of the endurance of the Fathers; their self-abnegation; 
 their painful departure from their homes and their native 
 land; their endurance of the miseries of a crowded ship; and 
 their support of suffering on an inclement shore: these, in- 
 deed, deserve our admiration, demand the homage of our 
 thanks. But who yet has done justice to their companions; 
 who has calculated the pangs of the young wife, drawn by 
 domestic affections and wife-like obedience away from the 
 home of her infancy, away from the blessing of her parents 
 and the graves of her ancestors? — who has comprehended the 
 misery which woman, delicate woman (for these women were 
 delicately educated) — who has comprehended the miseries 
 which these delicate women must have endured, crowded into 
 that small vessel; miseries beyond the threatenings of the 
 storm above, and the terrors of the deep below? who has cal- 
 culated the mental suffering? I speak not in such a case of 
 
1 
 
 28 
 
 the physical pain; but who has calculated the mental suffering 
 with which the pilgrim wife fulfilled the destiny of her sex, 
 and in that crowded vessel became the mother of the first- 
 born of that pilgrim band? 
 
 Who has ventured to depict — who could comprehend the 
 untold sufferings of the pilgrim mothers in the first months of 
 their dreadful residence in that clime, amid the storms of snow 
 and hail, with scarcely a partition between them and tempes- 
 tuous heaven; when da}'^ by day they went forth and laid in 
 the frozen earth the body of some loved one of their flock, 
 and smoothed down the soil over the coffinless remains, lest 
 the tumulus which affection should heap up, an altar over the 
 sacred relics below, should indicate to the savage a means by 
 which affections could be outraged afresh, and a new bitter- 
 ness be added to sorrows for the dead? 
 
 Man stood in all these evils contending against their influ- 
 ences, buffeting them with "heart of controversy," deadening 
 the pain of an attack by the efforts to avert and avenge the 
 blow. He stood amid the perils of the present, sustained by 
 a hope that the future was full of reward. 
 
 But woman, whose credit is passive virtue, stood uncom- 
 plaining, unshrinking, without the chance of effort, without a 
 thought of remuneration; looking to the dispensations of Pro- 
 vidence, and devoted to the scene around her. No vista 
 opened the future to her; she stood meek, but firm, ready to 
 receive, but not to return an injury; to bear, but not to re- 
 venge a wrong; to endure, not to murmur at evil; fixed, sus- 
 tained, motionless, wrapt in the present. 
 
 It was their power to endure, and the quenchless love with 
 which endurance WTOught, that lighted up tlie home of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers; that made cheerful the else wretched abode; 
 that compensated for the sacrifices, and toils, and the dangers 
 abroad, and awoke a sense, as it created a cause, of gratitude 
 in the heart of the husband; and, as he kneeled to ask the 
 protection of Heaven, he felt that at his side there was the oc- 
 casion for thanksgiving and praise. 
 
 It was this influence that mitigated the severity of the 
 
29 
 
 creed; it was this that moved the sternness of manners, that 
 tended towards stoicism; it was this that made that colony 
 not merely the abode of lofty principles, but the nursing 
 mother of home affection. 
 
 I deem it a right to state, that almost all the charges of er- 
 rors brought by the world against the Puritan Fathers, are 
 drawn from the record which those Fathers, or their imme- 
 diate descendants, made of their own proceedings. It is true 
 that some may say, these confessions only go to prove either 
 that they were indifferent as to public opinion, or else at- 
 tempted to conceal the worst by an affected confession of 
 minor wrongs. This is not candid. The simplicity and 
 straightforwardness of all the accounts which we have from 
 the early settlers, go to prove that they recorded events as 
 the}'^ occurred, without much thought of the opinion of pos- 
 terity; and we may adduce this very simplicity of narrative 
 and admission of errors, as a proof of the truth and cor- 
 rectness of the statement. The kind of argument I now use, 
 is freely applied by critics to any biographical or historical 
 work; and it has been used by high authority as a prima 
 facie argument of the truth of the New Testament history. 
 
 But at worst, the statements which the Fathers make of the 
 proceedings which we now condemn, go to prove that such 
 conduct was consistent with the spirit of the age in which 
 they lived; and if not justifiable by the best customs of the 
 present times, were sustained by the practice, and perhaps 
 permitted by the precedents, with which they were familiar. 
 They would not have recorded that of their own conduct 
 which was an outrage upon established maxims. Those who 
 do wrong knowingly, know too much to perpetuate the me- 
 mory of their wrong. And while we claim for our ancestors 
 the credit of anticipating, by their practice, the benefits which 
 were slowly developing themselves elsewhere, we confidently 
 refer all their errors to the customs, opinions, and economy of 
 the times in which they lived; and we demand for them the 
 charity which such a fact may justify. In return, let us not 
 be unmindful that other communities of the times of our 
 
30 
 
 Fathers, and earlier times, have an equal claim upon our cha- 
 rities; and when about to condemn the conduct of those com- 
 munities, let us not forget the consideration which we invoke 
 for our ancestors. 
 
 The spirit of persecution is one that follows closely on the 
 heels of sectarian zeal, wherever manifested, and it is Protean 
 in its forms and exercises. The waters that are brought to 
 quench the flames at the martyr's stake, may be directed, by 
 mischievous engines, with force sufiicient to confer a martyr's 
 crown. Public sentiment, and the growth of a knowledge of 
 human rights, will banish the faggot and the cord, and purge 
 the general statute that authorized their use. But still bigotry 
 will track its victim into his social haunts, and set ward and 
 watch upon his domestic habits: and coldness will supply the 
 torture of the quenched flame, and conventional proscription 
 do the work of the dungeon and the rack. 
 
 Persecution has not ceased, nor will it ever cease, till man 
 shall learn that the spirit of Christianity is a spirit of forgiv- 
 ing love; that it sanctions no violence but that for direct de- 
 fence; and it imputes even the aggression of the trespasser to 
 an ignorance of the evil which he perpetrates. The temper 
 of the disciple who would draw a sword in the times of diffi- 
 culty, is noted as a beacon for avoidance; while the example 
 and precepts for imitation are in the language and conduct of 
 the Master, who bowed in meek endurance — with the prayer 
 for forgiveness — " for they know not what they do." 
 
 Shall we not be proud of our descent? Do we not well to 
 celebrate the advent of people prepared like these to found an 
 empire and sustain it by virtue? It is easier to condemn the 
 faults of the Pilgrims than to imitate their virtues. And, in- 
 deed, men would be more likely to sacrifice their principles, 
 than to encounter what they endured to establish and enjoy 
 those principles. The error of their course was a want of faith 
 in the efficacy of their own creed; they distrusted the power 
 of their own principles; they had not learned how invulnera- 
 ble is truth, how much more she suffers from the inconve- 
 nience of her own armour, than from the slings of her anta- 
 gonists. 
 
31 
 
 They, however, in boldly avowing their own creed, gave 
 an example of candour to their descendants; and while we 
 find our fathers seeking to partition off the waters of truth for 
 their own enjoyment, let us be ready to trace the stream, to 
 trace it wherever it may meander, to trace it upwards to its 
 glorious source, to be bold and constant in our inquiry, and 
 to have no fear as to the effect of the response. Whatever 
 truth may be, and wherever she may be, she will never shame 
 her friends; she will sustain herself without the necessity of 
 violence, and in time vindicate her cause, and reward her fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 Plymouth bay is as beautiful now as when the Fathers 
 found it; and December's sun shines on no more lovely scene. 
 The evening twilight is as soft and gentle as when it was first 
 reflected from the green waters below. Some islands that 
 once dotted the surface of the bay, and some jutting promon- 
 tories, that seemed to separate important portions, have been 
 gradually abraded by the constant attrition of the sweeping 
 tides, and all the mass of waters, once divided by these inter- 
 vening objects, have flowed and blended into one beautiful 
 sheet, that receives into its bosom the twinkling of the winter 
 Pleiades, and mingle and reflect the varied light of the heaven 
 above. 
 
 And this day, there stand on the margin of that bay, thou- 
 sands of the good, the great, and the beautiful of our land; 
 doing homage to the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers of the 
 Mayflower. Since the advent of the Fathers, indeed, the gen- 
 tle action of reason, of truth, and Christian love, has softened 
 down and appeased the feelings which were offended at the sa- 
 lient points of creeds. And now, from that sanctified rock, 
 in holy communion with our present exercises, there goes up 
 in perfect union and unbroken harmony, one choral hymn of 
 praise to the God of our common Fathers; and there, at this 
 moment is replenished, the ever-lighted lamp of gratitude, 
 which pours back its rays upon the past, and lights forward 
 the pathway of patriotism and religion. 
 
LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 069 210 4 % 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 I II II nil III 
 
 014 069 210 4 9 
 
 Conservation Resource» 
 Lig-Free® Type I