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 A SEEION 
 
 PREACHED ON THE LORD'S DAY, 
 
 DECEMBER 22d, 1850, V 
 
 THE 
 
 TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 BY SAMUEL W. S. DUTTON, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE NORTH CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CT. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 NEW HAVEN: 
 
 A. H. MALTBY, No. 67 CHAPEL STREET. 
 1851. 
 
€^t M^nB nf Mm (iEttglEuL— EHiginu tljnr ruling inntiaB in 
 tljBir migrntinu. 
 
 A SEMOW 
 
 PREACHED ON THE LORD'S DAY, 
 
 DECEMBER 22d, 1850, 
 
 TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 vi^ 
 
 BY SAMUEL W. S.^|)'UTTONf, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE NORTH CHURCH, NEW HAVEN, CT. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 ft "-S-A-IJ) 
 
 NEW HAVEN: 
 
 A. H. MALTBY, No. 67 CHAPEL STREET. 
 1851. 
 
 L. V 
 

 Printed by 
 
 STORER & STONE, FRANKLIN OFFICE, 
 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
 /^ 
 
 '^¥- 
 
 •s 
 
S E E M N. 
 
 " Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt ; thou hast cast out the heathen and planted 
 it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled 
 the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it ; and the boughs thereof 
 were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs to the sea and her branches 
 to the river." — Psalm lixx, 8-11. 
 
 This is the twenty-second day of December — the month, 
 and the day, on which, in the year 1620, God led his pious 
 servants, the pioneers in the settlement of New England, to 
 the rock of Plymouth. So predominant was the religious 
 character of that movement of the fathers of New England, 
 and so beneficent have been its results in their bearing on 
 the kingdom of Christ in the world, that the consideration of 
 it is very appropriate to the services of the Sanctuary ; and 
 so rare is the conjunction of the Sabbath with this anniversa- 
 ry, justly revered by all true New England men, that I should 
 fail suitably to regard the openings and indications of Provi- 
 dence, did 1 not turn your minds to-day in the direction of 
 that great event, and the events associated with it in the 
 early settlement of this country. 
 
 The cause of this movement, the cause of the emigration, 
 of the colonists who came to Plymouth in 1620, of those 
 who came to Salem on Massachusetts Bay in 1628, of those 
 who came to Boston and its vicinity in 1630, of those who 
 came to Hartford and Saybrook in 1635, of those who came 
 to New Haven in 1638, and of the hundreds and thousands 
 who followed them during a few years after — the chief cause 
 of this emigration was religions. They came to this new 
 
and wild country, in the face of great perils and sufferings, 
 that they might here enjoy liberty to worship God, and to 
 promote piety according to the dictates of an enlightened 
 conscience — liberty which was denied them in England — 
 which they could not exercise there without suffering severe 
 punishments. 
 
 This position is very important, if we would rightly esti- 
 mate the character of the early New Englanders. It is one, 
 which, being entirely accordant with the truth of history, we 
 should insist upon ; for it has become quite common in some 
 quarters, either boldly to deny it, or to pass it by slightly ; 
 so that there seems to be some danger that it will be over- 
 looked or altogether set aside. On the one hand, some 
 writers, who sympathize with the church of England which 
 persecuted our fathers, are accustomed plainly to deny that 
 they were persecuted at all ; and on the other hand, some 
 orators, who care more for civil polity than for religion, and 
 more for civil than for religious freedom, are accustomed to 
 eulogize our fathers as the special apostles of civil liberty 
 or republicanism, as though that was their first and chief ob- 
 ject. But no truth is more completely established by history, 
 than that religion was the chief end for which they sought 
 this wilderness ; and that they cared for civil freedom chiefly 
 as a means to the freedom of religion. On this point, Daniel 
 Webster has well remarked — " Of the motives which induced 
 the first settlers to seek an asylum in this then unexplored 
 wilderness, the first and principal, no doubt, were connected 
 with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher degree of re- 
 ligious freedom, and what they esteemed a purer form of re- 
 ligious worship, than was allowed to their choice, or presented 
 to their imitation, in the old world." And probably no other 
 motive than this would have given them such enterprise, 
 courage, and endurance. If they had been mere republicans, 
 instead of zealous and conscientious Christians, they never 
 would have dared, endured, and done what they did. For 
 
the same writer well adds, " The love of religious liberty is 
 a stronger sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment 
 to civil or political freedom. That freedom which the con- 
 science demands, and which men feel bound by their hopes of 
 salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be attained. Con- 
 science in the cause of religion, and the worship of the deity 
 prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond almost all other 
 causes. It sometimes gives an impulse so irresistible that no 
 fetters of power or opinion can withstand it. * . * * Hu- 
 man invention has devised nothing, human power has com- 
 passed nothing that can forcibly restrain it when it breaks 
 forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it. Nothing 
 can check it but indulgence. It loses its power only when it 
 has attained its object. * * * If [^ \yQ allowed indulgence 
 and expansion, like the elemental fires, it only agitates and 
 purifies the atmosphere, v»diile its efibrts to throw off restraint 
 would burst the world asunder." 
 
 The historical proof that religious persecution drove our 
 fathers from Old to New England — that they came hither 
 from a desire for the freedom and prosperity of religion — can- 
 not be fully presented in a whole discourse, much less in a 
 single department of a discourse. A glance at the proof is 
 all that the present limits will allow. And such a glance will 
 be sufficient for those who are at all familiar with history. 
 
 The Reformation in England, the seeds of which were 
 sown by Wickliffe a hundred and fifty years before Luther's 
 time, and which received its final form and shape in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, it is 
 well known was incomplete. While it extended with some 
 thoroughness to the doctrines of the church of England, 
 reducing them to the form in which they are set forth in the 
 thirty-nine articles of that church, it affected only partially 
 the discipline, government and liturgy, which retained many 
 Romish features, deemed by many members of that church 
 very objectionable. For this reason there was a portion of 
 
6 
 
 that church, highly respectable in number, and eminent in 
 piety and learning, who favored a further reformation. These 
 were called Puritans. Among these were many who, from 
 conscientious scruples, declined compliance with the more 
 superstitious and hurtful remnants of the Romish worship 
 and discipline. These were called Nonconformists. During 
 the reign of Elizabeth, those ministers who declined to 
 conform to these objectionable rules or customs of the 
 church were liable to be, and many of the most useful and 
 able were, silenced and deprived of all their employments. 
 But, in 1603, on the accession of James 1st, who was edu- 
 cated in Scotland and professed to be a zealous Presbyterian, 
 the Puritans hoped that reforms in the church would be 
 made. But in this they were entirely disappointed. While 
 James was on his way to take possession of the throne, a 
 petition was presented to him, signed by nearly a thousand 
 ministers of the church of England, praying for the reformation 
 of certain abuses of the church. The result was a confer- 
 ence, during which James said he " would make them con- 
 form, or harry them out of the land, or hang them." Soon 
 a law was passed to the effect that whosoever should say any- 
 thing against the authority, government, or customs of the 
 church of England, or should separate from that church, or 
 allow that there was any other real church in England, 
 should bo excommunicated, and, in consequence, should be 
 incapable of collecting his just dues, might be imprisoned till 
 such time as he should make satisfaction to the church, and 
 when he died, should be denied Christian burial. The Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, Bancroft, with the approbation of the 
 king, adopted many measures on purpose to oppress the Pu- 
 ritans, and to sift them out of the church ; insisting on the 
 strict observance of all the saints' days and festivals of the 
 church, and on the use of all the objectionable articles of dress 
 which were associated in the minds of the people with Pope- 
 ry ; and obliging the clergy to sign the articles over again. 
 
with an additional avowal " that they did it from the heart." 
 Under his operations, in the year 1604, three hundred Puritan 
 ministers, who had not separated from the established church, 
 were silenced, imprisoned, or exiled. If a^ny one even peti- 
 tioned for any reformation, he could be fined at pleasure, and 
 was liable to be arraigned, as many in fact were, for felony or 
 treason. At one time the wliole body of the clergy of Lon- 
 don were summoned " to subscribe over again ;" but such 
 numbers refused that the churches were in danger of being 
 " disfurnished." In twenty-four counties, there were seven 
 hundred and forty-six of the clergy who refused to conform • 
 and it was estimated that, by these measures, from thirteen to 
 fifteen hundred of the ministers in the kingdom, were forced 
 into nonconformity. As a specimen of the persecution which 
 the Puritans were called to endure, take these familiar in- 
 stances — William Prynne, a lawyer, for writing a book against 
 plays, masques, balls, and other things of the kind, was ex- 
 cluded from his profession, was sentenced to stand in the pil- 
 lory, to lose both his ears, to pay a fine of five thousand 
 pounds, and to suffer imprisonment for life. A physician, for 
 having published a book which denied the divine right of 
 bishops, as an order superior to presbyters, was sentenced to 
 be excluded from his profession, to be excommunicated, to be 
 fined a thousand pounds, and to be imprisoned till he should 
 recant. Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scotch divine, the father 
 of the excellent Archbishop Leighton, for having published a 
 book against prelacy or episcopacy, was sentenced, by the se- 
 cret and despotic court of the Star Chamber, to pay a fine often 
 thousand pounds, to be repeatedly set in the pillory, to be re- 
 peatedly and publicly whipped, to have the features of his face 
 horribly mutilated, to be branded in the face with an S S, signi- 
 fying sower of sedition, and to be closely imprisoned for life.* 
 
 * The following account of the treatment of Dr. Leighton, is from the Life of his sod, 
 Archbishop lieighton. 
 
 " He was arrested early in 1629, hurntd to a wrefched cell m Newgate, low, damp. 
 
8 
 
 But the religious persecution which caused the fathers of 
 New England to leave their native country, cannot be better 
 illustrated than by a reference to the history of the very 
 church of the Pilgrims, which, two hundred and thirty years 
 ago to-day, landed on Plymouth Rock. That church was or- 
 ganized in the northern part of England, in the year 1602. 
 It was the result of what we should term, in these days, a 
 revival of religion. According to the account of Gov. Brad- 
 ford, one of the Plymouth colonists, under the preaching of 
 some godly and zealous ministers of the church of England 
 in that region many were awakened and converted. But as 
 soon as the work of God in them was manifest by their refor- 
 mation, they were scoffed and scorned by the profane multi- 
 tude; their ministers were urged to conform, and if they did 
 
 and without light, except what was admitted, along with the rain, from an aperture in 
 the roof, overrun with rats and other vermin. Here he lay from Tuesday night till Thurs- 
 day at noon, without food, and for fourteen days endured solitary confinement in this 
 miserable hole ; while his house, in his absence, was rifled, his books destroyed, and his 
 papers carried off. After sixteen weeks' captivity, he was served with an information of 
 the crimes with which he was charged, but he was sick and unable to attend, and from 
 the nature of his disorder, a fitter object of compassion than punishment, for the skin 
 and hair had almost wholly come off his body. 
 
 " Yet though thus afflicted, this aged, infirm divine, was condemned to a punishment 
 the stoutest ruffian could hardly have endured, which some of the lords of the court 
 conceived could never be inflicted on a dying man, and was only held out as a terror to 
 others : it was — to be degraded as a minister, to have his ears cut off, his nose slit, to be 
 branded in the face, to stand in the pillory, to be whipped at a post, to pay a fine of 
 £10,000, and to suffer imprisonment till it was paid ; the which when Archbishop Laud 
 heard pronounced, he pulled off his hat, and holding up his hands, gave thanks to God, 
 who had given the church victory over her enemies ! 
 
 " And it was mercilessly inflicted. On the 29th of November, in a cold frosty day, 
 he was stripped, and received thirty-six lashes with a triblo cord, after which he stood 
 during a snow storm two hours half naked on the pillory at Westminister, was branded 
 on one cheek with a red-hot iron, had one ear cut off, and one side of his nose slit: On 
 that day se'onnight, ere his sores were healed, he was taken to the pillory in Cheapside, 
 and underwent the remainder of his sentence. He was then carried back to prison, and 
 shut in for upwards of ten years until the meeting of the Long Parliament: when re- 
 leased from his miserable confinement, he could hardly walk, see, or hear. The Parlia- 
 ment reversed all the proceedings against him, and voted him six thousand pounds for his 
 great Bufferings and damages, and in 1642 gave him an appointment." 
 
 All this for publishing an argument against the episcopacy of the church of England ! 
 
not, were silenced; and the people were so harrassed by police 
 officers and commission courts, as to be greatly distressed. 
 At length they began, by the light of God's word, to see and 
 feel that they ought not to endure such tyranny, and to be so 
 hindered in their Christian life. ,-They, therefore, in the lan- 
 guage of Bradford's journal, " shook off this yoke of anti- 
 christian bondage, (separated themselves from the church of 
 England,) and, as the Lord's free people, joined themselves 
 by a covenant of the Lord, in a church-estate, in the fellow- 
 ship of the gospel, to walk in all the ways made known, or to 
 be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, 
 whatever it should cost them." Li other words, they formed 
 a Congregational Church. This was in 1602. On account of 
 its great increase, and the widely scattered abodes of its mem- 
 bers, this church was ere long divided into two. That one 
 of these two churches, which ultimately came to New Eng- 
 land, had for its pastors, Richard Clifton, a learned, venera- 
 ble, and fatherly old man; and John Robinson, a man of great 
 courage joined to great meekness and humility — a man of dis- 
 tinguished ability, learning, industry, candor, honesty, and 
 piety — a man, says one of his enemies, " of excellent parts, 
 and the most polished and modest spirit that ever separated 
 from the church of England." Their teacher and ruling el- 
 der was William Brewster, a man of high rank, who had held 
 offices of great trust under the government in his early years, 
 a man distinguished for character and capacity, for piety and 
 distinguished zeal. This church were so hunted and perse- 
 cuted on every side, that they could not continue in England- 
 Some were seized and imprisoned ; others had their houses 
 watched night and day, and with diiiiculty escaped. Most 
 were glad to flee, leaving their houses and means of support. 
 At length, after enduring six years of this intolerable perse- 
 cution, they resolved to emigrate to Holland ; because they 
 were informed that there was " freedom of religion for all 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 men ;" and notwithstanding they knew that they would be so- 
 journers in a strange land, among a people of a strange speech, 
 and would be obliged to gain a precarious livelihood by modes 
 of industry of which they were ignorant. But their persecutors 
 are unwilling to let them escape. The ports and harbors are 
 closed against them. They are obliged to hire mariners, at ex- 
 orbitant prices, to come to unfrequented places and take them 
 away by night. They are taken aboard, and then betrayed, 
 according to an agreement of the shipmaster with their ene- 
 mies; are put into open boats and rudely and indecently search- 
 ed ; are taken back into the town as a gazing stock; are strip- 
 ped of money, books, and goods, arraigned before the magis- 
 trates, and committed 1o prison. 
 
 The greater part having been released in the course of a 
 month, they soon make another attempt to escape to Holland. 
 They form an en_gageraent with a shipmaster from Holland, to 
 take them in at a distance from any town. The women, chil- 
 dren, and goods are sent to the place in a small bark. The 
 men go by land. The ship arrives — though a day after the ap- 
 pointed time, during vt-hich the little company were crowded 
 together, men, women, and children, with their baggage, on an 
 open, barren heath, exposed to severe cold and driving rain — 
 and aboat is sent to take off part of the men. They are no sooner 
 aboard than a great company of armed men rush upon those 
 who remain, and take them prisoners, and also the women and 
 children, whose bark had got aground ; and the ship master, 
 in fear, makes sail with the portion whom he has taken aboard. 
 They, after encountering a violent storm for seven days 
 with imminent danger of shipwreck, are landed in Holland, 
 without money or change of clothing, separated from their 
 wives and children, and the men associated with them : who, 
 after being dismissed from the custody of the officers of 
 justice, were at a distance from home, without shelter, pro- 
 tection or friends. But to relate how they were at length 
 united in Holland would occupy too much time. 
 
11 
 
 " As this scene passes before us (says an eloquent orator*) 
 we can hardly forbear asking, whether this be a band of 
 malefactors and felons flying from justice ? What are their 
 crimes that they hide themselves in darkness ? To what 
 punishment are they exposed, that to avoid it, men, women 
 and children thus encounter the surf of the North Sea, and 
 the terrors of a night storm ? What induces this armed 
 pursuit, and this arrest of fugitives of all ages and sexes ? 
 Truth does not allow us to answer these inquiries in a manner 
 that does credit to the wisdom or justice of the times. This 
 was not the flight of guilt but of virtue. It was an humble 
 and peaceable religion flying from causeless oppression. It 
 was conscience, attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule 
 of the Stuarts. It was Robinson, and Brewster, leading off 
 their little band to find shelter on the shores of a neighboring 
 continent." , 
 
 It has been the disingenuous policy of those whose preju- 
 dices and associations lead them to depreciate the Puritans, 
 and to asperse their motives, perseveringly to confound the 
 principles for which they suffered, with some of those trivial 
 occasions and tests in which they might have yielded compli- 
 ance, perhaps, without any infidelity to conscience. It is not 
 denied that there were those among them who took unneces- 
 sary occasions for non-conformity. But the testimony of 
 innumerable witnesses among the friends and enemies of 
 divine right in Church and State, makes it one of the plainest 
 truths of history, that real liberty of conscience did not exist 
 in England at this time ; and that a multitude of her sons, 
 among the noblest in mind and truest in heart, were severely 
 persecuted for conscience' sake, and " for righteousness' sake." 
 To deny, as some do, in the face of a multitude of such facts 
 as have been just stated, that there was any persecution of 
 the Puritans, and to assert that they left home, country and 
 
 • Daniel Webster. 
 
12 
 
 friends because they would not preach m a surplice, or make 
 the sign of the cross in baptism, or marry with a ring, is to 
 falsify the plainest facts in history, and to defame those of 
 whom the world was not worthy. It was for th^ supremacy 
 of God's icill, and of the human conscience — the principles 
 for which Baxter and Bunyan, Leighton and Prynne, and an 
 army of martyrs suffered in mind, body and estate ; which 
 Milton so boldly avowed, and in such majestic words vindi- 
 cated and sustained — it was for these principles that our 
 forefathers broke every tie that made home and country dear, 
 and not for any philosophical abstraction, nor for any narrow 
 and bigoted superstition. 
 
 I am aware that the facts related in this discourse have 
 become in some degree familiar to the well informed. For 
 the researches of the historians of our day have done much 
 to reveal the touching story of the wrongs and hardships, the 
 heroism and patience of our beloved ancestors. But in these 
 days, when the principles which led. them to such acts of 
 courage and self sacrifice, are assailed with fresh vigor ; and 
 the doctrines which they justly hated and opposed even unto 
 exile and death are asserted anew ; it becomes us to study 
 their example with new diligence, and to ponder the lessons 
 of their most instructive history.* 
 
 The founders of these New England colonies abundantly 
 declare (and their conduct verifies their words) that they came 
 here for the sake of religion— cd^me here, because they had 
 not in their own beloved home freedom to worship God, and 
 to promote his kingdom according to their honest judgment 
 of his will — came here to have Christian liberty and rest ; 
 and came, not only to enjoy religion themselves, but to extend 
 
 * If any wish to see full pmof of the truth of the historical statements in this dis- 
 course, respecting the persecution of the Puritans, and the religious motives which 
 actuated them in their departure from England, let them consult Bradiord's Journal, 
 Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, Neale's History of the Puritans, Macauley's History 
 •of England, and Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. 1. 
 
13 
 
 the kingdom of Christ in its purity and power. Yes, the 
 founding of these New England commonwealths was the 
 work of devoted piety. It was a movement such as the world 
 has never seen of Christian enterprise, wisdom and heroism. 
 Those colonists were eminent servants of God, seeking a 
 sphere where they might freely do his will. And God's hand 
 was plainly seen, guiding, sustaining and blessing them. That 
 hand was especially seen, directing the weather-beaten May- 
 flower — unable now to survive another gale, with no pilot 
 acquainted with the rock bound coast, or its channels and 
 roadsteads — leading her to almost the only place where she 
 could safely come— within that cape, Avhich seemed to have 
 extended its mighty arm of rock and sand, on purpose to 
 encircle and protect her. 
 
 There was an incident before the landing of the Pilgrims, 
 which well illustrates the firmness and strength of their relig- 
 ious principle. " It was the beginning of winter, on that 
 bleak shore. They were now to find a landing place. The 
 boat was unshipped, but it needed repairs, and sixteen weary 
 days elapsed before it was ready for service. Amid ice and 
 snow, it was then sent out, with some half dozen pilgrims, to 
 find a suitable place to land. The spray of the sea froze on 
 them, and made their clothes like iron. Five days they wan- 
 dered about, searching in vain for a suitable landing place. 
 A storm came on ; the snow and the rain fell ; the sea swelled ; 
 the rudder broke ; the mast and sail fell overboard. In this 
 storm and cold, without a tent, a house, or the shelter of a 
 rock, the Christian Sabbath approached — the day which they 
 regarded as holy unto God — a day on which they were not 
 to "do any work." What should be done ? As the evening 
 before the Sabbath drew on, they pushed over the surf, 
 entered a fair sound, sheltered themselves under the lee of a 
 rise of land, kindled a fire, and on that little island they spent 
 the day in the solemn worship of their Maker. On the next 
 day their feet touched the rock — the sacred landing place of 
 the Pilgrims." 
 
14 
 
 The chief object which I had in view is now accomplished, 
 viz : to show, or rather to remind you, that the great motive 
 which brought our forefathers to New England was a relig- 
 ious one. They left a home very dear to them, because they 
 were not free there to obey God. They came through man- 
 ifold perils and hardships, to the perils and hardships of an 
 untried wilderness and among heathen savages, that they 
 might freely obey God ; might cultivate their own piety in 
 peace ; and might found institutions whose main object should 
 be to secure and promote religion in its purity and power, to 
 hand it down to posterity, and to extend it in the earth. 
 Civil liberty loas with them the means to an end : which 
 end 2cas religious freedom and j^^'osperity. That they 
 should have organized republican government was not strange, 
 after they had formed Congregational churches: for a Con- 
 gregational church is a model of a republic. 
 
 It would be well, if there was time, to dwell upon the in- 
 tellectual character of the early New Englanders in the va- 
 rious colonies ; and remind you that they were men not only 
 eminent in piety, but eminent, many of them, in culture and 
 learning ; fitted to shine with equal luster among the intel- 
 lectual luminaries of any land. It would be well to consider 
 the foundations and institutions which they laid and estab- 
 lished here ; the provision which they made, first of all, for 
 the purity, prosperity, and permanency of religion ; the provis- 
 ion which they made for the education of all the people, by 
 schools — wedding together schools and churches ; and the pro- 
 vision which they made for the more finished education of those 
 who should practice in the learned professions, especially in 
 the ministry — provision made by them at great sacrifice, in 
 establishing and sustaining colleges. 
 
 It would be pleasant, also, if there was time, to glance at 
 the results of the heroic and Christian enterprize of our 
 fathers, who founded these colonies — at the change which has 
 taken place here in two hundred and thirty years — at the 
 
15 
 
 magnificent growth to which their feeble and painful, but wise 
 beginnings have attained. [Surely it must gladden their 
 hearts to look down and behold it!] But you are familiar 
 with pictures of our country, extending from ocean to ocean ; 
 fast filling up with descendants of the early settlers, and with 
 refugees from the oppression, poverty, and fearful social in- 
 equalities of the old world — a land abounding in churches, 
 and schools, and colleges — a land all glorious, except one dark 
 spot, with freedom — a land, which, though cursed with many 
 forms and degrees of wickedness, is nevertheless more nearly 
 under the dominion of Christ than any other — a land, the 
 glory of whose future, if God forsake us not, surpasses the 
 power of any prophet-poet to foretell or portray. 
 
 It will be better for us, however, to occupy the few mo- 
 ments which remain, in considering some lessons which the 
 subject teaches. 
 
 We should be grateful to God for such an ancestry. 
 
 They were indeed noblemen in Christ's kingdom, heroes 
 in the Christian army, God's chosen instruments in conferring 
 countless blessings upon the world, and especially upon us. 
 What we are and enjoy as a people ; what we do for the 
 benefit of the world by the far shining light of illustrious 
 example, and by the power of active and voluntary endeav- 
 ors ; is owing, under God, to them. Such a parentage is the 
 noblest and most beneficent of all inheritances. To think 
 of such fathers, the meditation on their virtues and deeds of 
 holy heroism, and on their parental relations to us, is a con- 
 tinual fountain of beneficent influence upon our hearts and 
 lives. They seem to stand among us, venerable, godly, and 
 benevolent men ; and with paternal faithfulness and love, to 
 rebuke our faults, and encourage our virtues. They were 
 men of prayer. Their prayers often went up for their coun- 
 try and their posterity. Those prayers surround us, even 
 now — a wall of defence from evil, perennial conductors of 
 
16 
 
 good. May God give us grace ever to be grateful to him for 
 our inheritance in such a parentage. 
 
 But in order to be thus grateful for our ancestry, we must 
 cultivate reverence for them, and a just appreciation of them. 
 
 We shall not otherwise be duly grateful for this inheri- 
 tance. We should be studious of their history, and familiar 
 with their trials, their struggles, their persecutions, their 
 mighty works, and their Christian virtues. We should, in a 
 proper manner, but effectually, meet those denials of their 
 peculiar merits, and those aspersions on their character, 
 which the envy and prejudice of ungenerous and unjust sec- 
 tarianism have made so common. We should cherish the 
 memory of their worth, so that the consciousness of our alli- 
 ance with their excellence will ever operate with power to 
 elevate, ennoble and sanctify us. We should embalm their 
 sublime virtues in story and eloquence, in poetry, painting 
 and sculpture. We should mark and adorn their graves with 
 appropriate monuments. We should not, indeed, be blind 
 to their faults, lest we imitate them. For there is a loyal- 
 ty to truth, higher and better than any loyalty to friends 
 or even to parents. They had, indeed, manifest faults. But 
 these faults were, for the most part, the universal faults of 
 the times, and were less in them than in most others. They 
 were, in the most important features of improvement, far in 
 advance of their age. They are truly and eminently worthy 
 of our admiration and reverence. There can be no surer sign 
 of our degeneracy, no surer precursor of our downfall, than 
 a lack of reverence and affection for an ancestry like our Pil- 
 gritn Fathers. 
 
 The lesson ought also to come home to our hearts, dili- 
 gently to cherish such institutions as they established. 
 
 Churches, free-schools, well endowed colleges — let us see 
 to it that these are maintained in vigor and excellence within 
 our more immediate sphere of influence. And, widely as 
 our aid can reach through our land, especially in the more 
 
17 
 
 newly organized and more destitute commonwealths which 
 are stretching on towards the Pacific, let us establish church- 
 es, schools and colleges, for the intellectual, moral, and Christ- 
 ian culture of the whole nation. This is the Puritan policy 
 and wisdom. 
 
 Finally, let us learn to imitate the virtues of our fathers. 
 
 Let us not be like the proud but degenerate Jews, who 
 built the tombs of the prophets, and honored their memory, 
 yet practised the very iniquities which the prophets de- 
 nounced, and neglected the duties which the prophets en- 
 joined. Our fathers were chiefly anxious for the honor of 
 Christ and the prosperity of his kingdom. For this they 
 could dare and do anything. Let us imitate their example. 
 They had a fear of God above all other fear. They were, 
 indeed, good subjects of human government ; teaching sub- 
 jection to "the higher powers ;" never forcibly resisting hu- 
 man authority, except in cases of justifiable revolution. But 
 they maintained the supremacy of God's law, and the su- 
 premacy of conscience. They would undergo any penalty 
 rather than do anything which God forbids ; they would suf- 
 fer any punishment rather than neglect to do, under any human 
 prohibition, what God commands. And, surely, it will not be 
 amiss for us to study and imitate, in this respect, also, their ex- 
 ample. They had a regard for religion which far transcended 
 their regard for civil affairs. In that too we need to study and 
 follow their example ; for herein truly we fall far behind it. 
 They had a love for Christ which was far above their love for 
 the world, far above all their loves. May it be so with us ! 
 May the God of our fathers let fall upon us the mantle of our 
 fathers, so that we shall be their true children, and he shall 
 be our God ! 
 
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LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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