G8 K6T3 ORATION DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, DECEMBER 21, 1895, THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY LANDINQ OF XHK PIIvGRIMS, GEORGE F. HOAR. Prbss of Rufus H, Darbv, Washington, D. C, 1895. Qass_J_k^ Book— ^H^ 13 r-i^yz ORATION DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, DECEMBER 21, 1895, THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY LANDING OF ^W& PII^GRIMS, GEORGE R HOAR. Press of Rufus H. Darbv, Washington, D. C, J895. ^/^JT. •o ORATION. Surely that people is happy to whom the noblest story in history has come fiown through father and mother by the unbroken traditions of their own firesides If there be one thing more than anotlier for which we have to thank God on this anniversary, it is that the tale we have to tell is a familiar house- hold slory. The thoughts which are ap- propriate to the day are commonplaces. Every generation since the Pili;rim landed here has held his memory dear. The light of later days, thai has dispelled the intellectual darkness of his time, gives new luster and added nobility to his simple and reverend figure. So far as honor can be paid by the ut- terance of the lips, or by the tender affec lion of the heart, his descendants have never failed in what is due to the Pilgrim. The faults of other founders of States have not been forgotten. They have been kept alive in human memory, not only by the jealous criticism of men of other blood, but by the severe judgment of his- tory. The founder of Rome, the Norman Conqueror of England, the Spaniard in the South, the Cavalier of Jamestown, the settler of the far West — even the Pur- itan of Massachusetts — is known in his- tory quite as much by his faults, or by his crimes, as by his virtues. Puritan and Cavalier, Royalist and Roundhead may be terms of honor or terms of re- proach. But the word Pilgrim is every- where a word of tenderest association. There Is no blot on the memory of the Pilgrim of Plymouth. No word of re- proach is uttered when he is mentioned. The fame of the passenger of the May- flower is as pure and fragrant as its little namesake, sweetest of the flowers of spring. He is the stateliest figure in all history. He passes before \is like some holy shade seen in the Paradiso in tlie vision of Danie. Certainly you have not failed in dur honor to the Pilgrim's memory. You have given him, in every generation, of your best. No incense, no p igeant, no annual procession, no statue — though Phidias were the sculptor — no temple — though the dome were rounded by the hand of Angelo — can equal as a votive offering the imperishable oration of "Webster. It is the one best offering which could be laid on the Pilgrim's shrine. That majestic eloquence, if not equaled, has been worthily followed by the consummate grace of Everett, the more than oriental imagination of Choate, the stately dignity of Winthrop. Here, too, has stood Sumner — Sumnor of the white soul — to lay his wreath on the Pilirrims' altar in right of a marlj'r spirit, lofty and undaunted as their own. You may well believe that if a competition with tliese masters were expected to day, I might — as might any living man — shrink from the comparison. But it is not from human, it is not from living lips that you are ex- pecting the lesson of this occasion. You are here to listen to the voices of the dead; to meditate anew tlie eternal truths on wliich your fathers founded the State. This imperial people, if it is to bear rule over a continent, must listen to the voice of which David spake with dying lips — '' The Rock spake to me." You are here to hearken to the voice of the rock. The most precious earthly reward of a well spent life is the gratitude and love of children. Surely the Pilgrim has had that But he looked to no e irthlj' re ward, however precious. "They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dear- est country, and so quieted their spirits." How few of them there were. There were but forty eight men who landed upon the rock. But forty-one names ate signed to the compact. Of the twenty men who survived the first winter, there are, according to Dr. Palfrey's estimate, not more than eleven — one less than the n\unber of the Apostles — who are favor- ably known. The rest are either known unfavorably or only by name. Surely the parable of the mustard seed, than which, as Edward Everett said, "the burning pen of inspiration, ranging Heaven and Earth for a similitude, can I'm I nothing more appropriate or expres- .-.ive to which to liken the Kingdom of God." is repeated again. "Whereunto shall we liken it, or with what compari- son shall we compare it? "It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. " But when It is sown it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." Though the heavens be rolled up as a scroll, this story is worthy to be written upon the scroll. Though the elements shall melt with fervent heat, this pure and holy flame shall shine brightly over the new heavens and the new earth. It is no story of what other countries have deemed great. There is no royal escutch- eon, no noble coat armor, no knightly shield. But they bore the whole armor of God, their loins girt about with truth, having the breastplate of righteousness; their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; taking the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Let no man fancy that because they were few in cumber, these men were in- significant. You know the history of heroism better than that. It is Leonidas with his three hundred, and not Xerxes with his ships by thousands, and men in nations, that has given the inspiration to mankind for two thousand years. There fell of the English side, at Agincourt, but twenty- nine persons — Edward, the duke of York, the ear' of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketley, Davy Gam, esquire ; None else of name ; and oi all other men. But five and twenty. But somehow Davy Gam, esquire, has hovered over the English lines on a hun- dred fields of victory, from Cressy to Quebec, from Quebec to Waterloo. '* Cest toujours le meme chose," said Napoleon when he yielded himself prisoner. That spirit came ashore at Plymouth. It cross- ed the ocean to abide. It takes no ac- count of numbers and needs no numbers for its victories. O God, Thy arm was here, And not to us, but to Thy arm alone. Ascribe we all. Take it, God, For it is only Thine. Miles Slandish, whom an accomplished descendant well calls the Greatheart of the Pilgrims, with his little army of four- teen men, inspired with this spirit, was a power mightier than all the hosts of Xer- xes. They fought for a stake more pre- cious than that of Marathon or "Waterloo, as Christian freedom is of higher value than Grecian civilization, or than the em- pire of Europe. The court was of a dig- nity that no Areopagus could equal. The little Senate consisted of but nine men. But if "as making laws under the first written Republican constitution, which held in itself the fate of all others. I wish to speak of the men who landed on Plymouth Rock on the day whose an- niveisary we celebrate ; — of what they were, what they brought with them, of the republic they founded, what they left to their posterity that now remains, and what is hereafter to abide. Other contri- butions, wliether for good or evil, to that composite life and character which we call America, will not lack due consider- ation elsewhere. Some of them were made in the very beginning, at James- town, at Salem, at New York, at Balti- more, under the spreading elm at Phila- delphia. Others are of later time. Some of them have come in our own time, from Ireland, from England, from (Germany, from Canada, and from that Northern hive whose swarm first brought the honey of freedom to the island of our ancestors. They have not lacked, and will never lack, due honor. But it is to this one alone that this day belongs. The topic may perhaps seem narrow and local. It may be said of the Pilgrim quality what your admirable chronicler, Mr. Russell, says of the Mayflower: " A pleasing fic- tion obtains with some good people here- abouts, viz., That this little flower is pe- culiar to this section of the country." But to me, looking forward as best I can into the future and seeing how they have already leavened this nation of ours, the subject seems sometimes as large and broad as if I were to undertake to speak of the consequences of the creation of Adam and Eve. The commonwealths which were united in 1692 and became the province of Massa- chusetts Bay are still blended in the popu- lar conception. Their founders are sup- posed to have the same general cliarac- teristics, and are known to the rest of the world by the common title of New Eng- land Puritans. I suppose this belief pre- vails even in New England, except as to a small circle of scholars and the de- scendants of the Pilgrims who still dwell in the Old Colony, and who have studied personally the history of their ancestors. Many of our historians have treated the two with little distinction, except that the suffering of the Pilgrim, the dangerous and romantic voyage of the Mayflower, the story of the landing in December and the hardship of the first winter have made, of course, a series of pictures of their own. Even Mr. Webster, after narrating as could have been done by no other chronicler who ever lived, these picturesque incidents, proceeds in his oration of 1820 to discuss the principles which lay at the foundation of the Puri- tan State, and which were, in the main, common to both communities. Yet the dwellers of Plymouth know well the diflference between the Pilgrim that landed here and the Puritan that settled in Salem and Boston. The differ- ence was as great as would have been if the members of the established church had been driven into exile, and one colo ny founded by Jeremy Taylor, or George Herbert, and one founded by Bancroft or Laud. If the anti slavery men of our later day had shaken the dust off their feet against the Constitution and the Union, and gone to some unoccupied island in some remote and barbarous archipelago, the difference would scarce- ly have been greater between a colony founded by Waldo Emerson, or Samuel May, and one founded by Garrison or Parker Pillsbury.or Stephen Foster, than that between tlie men of Plymouth and the men of Salem. Both were Englisli- men. Both were, as they understood it, Calvinists. Both desired freedom. They had the tie of a common feeling, of a common persecution, of a common faith, and of a common hope. I wish I could add, descendant as I am of theMassachu chusetts Puritans in every line of descent that I can trace since the time when the name was first heard, the tie of a common and equal charity. The compact on board the Mayflower was the beginning of a State. Another State was begun at Salem by the company who came over with Eudicott. There were marked resemblances in the quality of these two communities, as would be expected from the similarity of their ori- gin. There were likewise marked differ- ences, as would be expected from the in dividual character of the men who most largely influenced them. There were doubtless men in the Puritan state pene- trated by the Pilgrim's spirit. John Win- throp himself, the foremost single figure in the Massachusetts colony, would have been in all respects a loving companion to Bradford, and a loving disciple to Rob- inson. But it must, I think, be admitted that while Bradford was an example and representative of the prevalent spirit of Plymouth— a spirit that finds its expres- sion in the teaching of Robinson — Win- throp was a restraint and a repression of the intolerance of the Massachusetts col- ony. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, author of the Body of Liberties, whicii, though it was never printed till within the memory of some of us, served, practically, as Constitution and Bill of Rights to Massa chusetts until 1684, if not until 1780, says in the Simple Cobbler of Aga- wam: "It is said men ought to have liberty of conscience, aad that it is perse- cution to debar them from it. I caa rather stand amazed than reply to this. It is an astonishment to think that the brains of men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance. No practical sin is so sinful as some error of judg- ment; no man so accursed with indelible infamy and dedolent impenitency as au- thors of heresies." Now compare this with the farewell counsel of John Robinson, reported by Winsiow: "We are, ere long, to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our face again. But whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged us before God and His blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ; and if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of His, to be as ready to re ceive it as we were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was very confi- dent the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His Holy Word. " This is the Pilgrim's declaration and, if we do not read the world's history amiss, the world's declaration of religious independence. Let it stand forever by the side of the immortal opening sen- tences of the Declaration at Philadel- phia. They are twin stars, ever shining in the great constellation of the Northern sky, pointing to that etenial Polar star of truth which hath no fellow in the firma ment. There were beautiful and pure souls in the Puritan State, for whose translation into the blessed society of the immortals there seemed nothing of a gross mor- tality to be pruned away. Winthroo is still our foremost example of a Christian ruler, till the coming of Washington. The second John Winthrop was a worthy son of such a father. The claim of his accomplished descendant that no purer or nobler or lovelier character can be found in the history of Connecticut, whether among Governors or among governed, than that of the younger Win- throp, may safely be enlarged to include any State that ever existed. The Win- throps were Christian gentlemen, fit for the companionship of Bradford and Brewster, and there can be no higher praise. There were, as you know, evil men in the company of Pilgrims. But still, the character of the Pilgrim finds its perfect portraiture in Bradford's ex- quisite phrase — " God's free people " ; while the word Puritan calls up to the imagination a sterner, harsher, earthllar image. Blackstone said, " I came from England to escape the Lord Bishopd ; and I cannot join with you because I would not be under the Lord Brethren." The Puritan brought with him to Salem much of the spirit which had driven him from England. His experience had been an experience of persecutions. What Milton calls the "fury of the Bishops" was still raging. Severity applied to men of English blood begets severity and defiance. " What wonder if in noble heal, ' Those men thine arms withstood, Betaught the lesson thou hadst taught, And in thj' spirit with thee fought, Who were of English blood." There was a yearning for Christian unity botli by Puritan and Pilgrim. The leaders of both Colonies were English gentlemen. They were attached by many tender ties to the Church of England. The farewell letter to the Massachusetts Company, which Mr. Winthrop thinks was written by his ancestor, is a cry of the heart. The love for that dear Mother, the Church of England, " from whence we rise, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we have obtained in the common salvation, we have received in her bosom and sucked it from her breasts," was stirring in the bosom of John Robin- son also. Doubtless if the persecution had ceased, the division would have ceased. Edward Winslow says: "The foundation of our New England planta- tions was not Scliisme, division or separa- tion, but upon love, peace and holinesse ; yea, such love and mutual care of the church of Leyden, for the spreading of the Gospel, the welfare of each other, and their prosperities to succeeding gene- rations, as is seldom found on earth." The Puritan had a capacity for an hon- est, hearty hatred, of which I find no trace in Pilgrim literature. Indeed a personal devil must have been a great comfort to our Massachusetts ancestors, as furnisliing an object which they could hate with all their might, without viola- tion of Christian principles. The experience of the Pilgrim at Ley- den had been an experience of peace. There was much in Holland to shock the strictness of our Fathers. They viewed, undoubtedly with great disfavor, the thought that they or their children should be blended with either the political or the religious life of Holland. But they were received at Leyden w^ith an abundant welcome and hospitality. Among the most valuable lessons which trained them for the founding of their State, are the lessons learned under Holland. The softening and liberalizing influence of those eleven years on Robinson himself is clearly to be discerned. Massachusetts united Church and State in the beginning, admitting none but freemen to be Church members. Church and State were always separate in Ply- mouth. There was never any "soul liberty " advocated or vindicated by Roger Williams that did not exist at Ply- mouth. Certainly, he did not leave Ply- mouth on compulsion. " That great and pious soul, Mr. Winslow," he says, "melted and kindly visited me, and put a purse of gold into the hands of my wife for our supply." There is no danger that we shall ever forget what the children of the Puritans have to say in reply. They had to pre- serve their State from danger within and without, from foe spiritual and from foe temporal. The little company, with the Atlantic on one hand, their only wall of defence against tlie liatred of King and Prelate, and the forest, home of the sav- age and the wild beast on the other ; it was like a forlorn hope, it was like a for- lorn hope of au army on a night march, to which even an uncautioiis whisper might be ruin. We do not forget, too, that the Puritan's intolerance and super stition were, with the single exception of his brother at Plymouth, the intoler- ance and superstition of all mankind ; and that, with the single exception of his brother at Plymouth, he was the first of all mankind to cast them off, Puritan- ism is a character, a force, and not a creed. Let others, if they like, trace their lineage to Norman Pirate or to Rob- ber Baron. The children of the Puritan are not ashamed of him. The Puritan as a distinct, vital and predominant power, lived less than a century in England. He appeared early in the reign of Elizabeth, who came to the throne in 1558, and departed at the restora- tion of Charles II, in 1660. But in that brief lime he was the preserver, aye, lie was the creator of English freedom. By the confession of the historians who most dislike him, it is due to him that there is an English Constitution. He created the modern House of Commons. That House, when he took his seat in it, was the feeble and timid instrument of despotism. When he left it, it was what it has ever since been, the strongest, freest, most venerable legislative body the world had ever seen. When he took his seat in it, it was little more than the register of the King's command. When he left it, it was the main depository of the national dignity and the national will. King and Minister and Prelate, who stood in his way, he brought to the bar and to the block. In that brief but crowded century he made the name of Englishman the highest title of honor upon the earth. A great liistorian has said, "The dread of his invincible army was on all tlieinhabi- tantsof the Island." He placed the name of John Milton hiiiii on the illustrious roll of the great poets of tbe world, and the name of Oliver Cromwell hitihest on the roll of English sovereinns. The his- torian might liave added that the dread of this invincible leader was on all the inhabitants of Europe. Puritanism crossed the sea with Winthrop. It planted Massachusetts and Connecticut. It fought thewar of the rebellion. The spirit of Eni,dish Puritanism was transformed into the spirit of American liberty. Tiie saviour of the English Conslilution was the creatorlof the Constitutions of America, and, in a later day, was their saviour also. It put down the rebellion. It abolished slavery. It kept the National faith. In spite of the other elements — Scandinavian, German', Italian, Celt, that are blending with our national life, under our free hospitality, it was never, in my judgment, more powerful than at this hour. The children of the Puritan are willing to accept any challenge to a discussion of his character and his title to the respect of mankind, from any antagonist, east or west, north or south, at home or abroad, from prelate or from conventicle, from churchman or from infidel, from foreigner or from degenerate offspring. There are some modern revilers of the Massachusetts Puritans, who have sprung from Puritan loins. I should like to ask them what thej'^ make of the single fact of the founding of Harvard College. But one of the highest titles of Plymouth to honor is the fact, that, as the two com- 'munities became blended, the spirit of the Puritan was subdued and softened by the spirit of the Pilgrim. I am not unmindful that there is one high authority for an opinion which, if accepted, would deprive John Robinson of his highest glory and would even rob the event we celebrate of much of its splen dor. Dr. Dexter, the historian, the champion, the lover of New England Congregationalism, thinks that John Robinson was speaking of Church govern- ment only, and did not mean to say that there was to be expected from the word of God any further light on the essentials of Christian doctrine or of saving faith. Every student of the great things of American history, every son, every lover of the Pilgrim, must cheri.shthe memory of Henry M. Dexter. The occasion should not pass without a word of honor for his name. What we know of the life of the Fathers at Leyden, and what we know of their origin in England, is due to him, I am not sure but more than to all other investigators put together. It if not surprising that this born champio»- and combatant should have refused to concede, even to the authority of John Robinson, that the faith to which he was born and bred did not contain, as ex- pressed in its venerable formulae, the whole counsel of God. The learned doctor says: " I conceive it to be quite impossible for any candid person to read carefully Robinson's defence of the doc- trine propounded by the Synod at Dort, without reaching the conclusion that the Leyden Pastor was in entire agreement Avith the Synod, not merely in the articles of faith which it has formulated, but in that animus of infallibility and inexposure to essential future modification, in which it held them." I have read the volume carefully and with so much of candor as God has vouchsafed to me. While, un- doubtedly, it affirms and most vigorously defends that Calvinistic faith wiiicli the writer, and the men of his congregation, held, and which the Fathers brought with them to Plymouth, the faith which has wrought for so many ages such wonders for humanity, a faith which has lieen held dear by so many martyrs of liberty, and so maiay of the great builders, in the old times, and in the new, who have builded States in Christian liberty and law, the faith of the founders of Re - publics in Switzerland, in Holland, in England, in New England, yet I can find in that great argument no animus of in- fallibility, and no claim that the light which is to break forth from the w.)rd hereafter may not illuminate them also, and that it will not penetrate the great temple of Christian doctrine instead of being stayed in the porches and ap- proaches. The preface to the defence of the Synod at Dort itself to my apprehen- sion, states ascieai'ly, if not as eloquently or tersely, the doctrine of the farewell address. Speaking of the substance of faith and the very essence of salvation, he rebukes his antagonists for thinking that they have seen the whole of God's truth. "It is true we ought not," he says, "to look on our things alone, as if we alone had knowledge, and conscience, and zeal, and souls to save: 'but every man also on the things of others,' though in some things differing from them, as having these things, as well as we: and therewith considering, that many eyes see more than one, and that specially having, as so many spectacles, the advan- tages of knowledge of tongues, and arts, with daily travail in the scripture, which in us are wanting. And thus serving Qod, in all modesty of miad, and being sincere in the truth In love, we shall be much fitter, both to help others, and to be helped by them In the things agree- able thereunto." In these words John Robinson sounds the keynote of his distinctively theolo- gical treatise, which he put to press in 1624, four years after the departure of the Pilgrims and only a year before his death. He was speaking not of Church government or ritual or form, or cere- monial, but of predestination, of elec- tion, of the law of conscience, of the fall of Adam and God's foreknowledge and truthfulness, of original sin, of baptism, of the covenant with Abraham and of a new and better covenant, of the five points of Calvinism, of the Declaration of the Synod, a declaration made by men who differed essentially, in ritual and church government, from him and from each other. And it is of these that he de- clares that we are not to look, not to think on our things alone, as if we alone had knowledge, but every man also of the things of others, aa having eyes to see as well as we, and advantages of knowledge of tongues and arts, with daily travail in the scripture, " which in us arc wanting," and calls upon his people "to serve God in all modesty of mind, and so to be fitter both to help others and to be helped by them." Dr. Dexter well says, " We have too much judged the Puritans, and too much allowed the world to judge them, in the light of our generation instead of the light of their own; forgetting and help- ing others to forget out of what a horror of thick darkness they were scarcely more than commencing to emerge." It is the glory of John Robinson that he was conscious of the darkness of his time, for, "saith he." as Winslow reports, "it is not possible the Christian world can come 80 lately out of such thick anti-Christian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once." The sublime utterance of John Robin- son would become not only tame but petty and ludicrous and ridiculous, if we were to add to it any phraseology which would limit its meaning, in accordance with Dr. Dexter's suggestion, John Robinson would have dreaded nothing more than to have led any weak brother astray. If he could but have seen in that prophetic vision into which his soul was lifted and wrapt in the mingled agony and joy of the day of parting at Delft Haven, how countless generations dwelling in and ruling a con- tinent larger than Europe would hearken to the lofty music of that utterance, how they would rejoice in it as itself the au- roral light of the new day that was to break forth from the word of God, he would, if Dr. Dexter be right, have has- tened to add: "Mistake me not, my brethren dearly beloved. This relateth only to the fashion of vestments; to the posture of the body in prayer; to the authority of eldera, and the virtue conveyed by the imposition of hands. The horror of thick darkness, through which the world hath passed, and is yet passing, still givelh ligtit enough for everything beside. In all es- sential things, the whole counsel of God, though unknown to Abraham and the Fathers, to Moses and the Prophets, to all mankind before the Saviour's coming, and to the vast majority of mankind ever since, is fully known to me and to the Synod at Dort. No modesty of mind leadeth me to think I can be helped by others, or that the advantages of knowl- edge of tongues and arts, with daily travail in the scripture, which in us are wanting, availeth aught in these things." It is no rash conjecture that the first spirit whose pure companionship our ex- cellent Dexter would have sought in the realm where he has gone, was the spirit of John Robinson. He would have already learned his mistake before their meeting. As Beatrice said to Dante of Saint Greg- ory— " Wherefore, as soon as lie unclosed his eyes. Within this heaven, be at himself didsDoile." Dr. Thomas Fuller, whose wit has pre- vented his getting the credit due to his profound wisdom, was born in 1608, with- in a mile of Robert Browne and not far from the cradle of the Pilgrims at Scrooby and Austerfleld. He was a clear eyed and not unsympathetic observer. He says of the Pilgrims in his Church His- tory: "They laid down two grand ground- works on which their following fabric is to be erected : " First. Only to take what was held forth in God's word, leaving nothing to Church practice or human prudence, as but the iron legs and clay toes of that statue whose whole hand and body ought to be pure gold; "Second. Because one day teacheth another, they will not be tied on Tuesday morning to maintain their tenets of Mon- day night, if a new discovery intervene." Holland, as the researches of recent writers have shown, exercised a large in- fluence on civil and religious liberty in England. The traces of this influence appear in the Puritan commonwealth. All the Protestant Reformers in Europe who Kjitcted Episcopal uuiUoriiy cuuali- tuted oae brotherbocnl, and hud a large iofluence od eacli other. All of them re- garded HoUaad as their champion and defender. But the Pilgrims of Plymouth bore to Holland a relation borne by no other. She had been for 13 years their sanctuary, their home, their school, their university. Governor Bradford says, " They re- solved to goe into the low countries where there was freedom of religion for all men." The Pilgrim brought from Hoi land an experience of freedom, civil and religious, then unknown elsewhere on the face of the earth. Schiller said, " Every injury inflicted by a tyrant gave a i ighl of citizenship in Holland." The church of the Pilgrim had its di rect connection with Christ. There was no human link between. If He were not its rock, it had no foundation. If He were not its Father, it had no paternity. If He were not its support, it had no strength. If He were not its root, it was not planted in the soil. The church planted at Scroo by and Austerfleld, rooted at Leyden, transplanted to Plymouth, was a band of Christians independent of any earthly power, as direct an emanation from the spirit of Christ as the church first formed at Antioch. There were but two places on earth at that day where such a church could abide. One was Holland and the other the unbroken wilderness of Amer- ica. Robinson's definition of a church is this : "A company consisting though of but two or three, separated from the world whether unchristian or anti christian, gathered unto the name of Christ by a covenant made to work in all ways of God known to them, is a church, and so hath the whole power of Christ." I do not know that there is any discus sion of the principles of civil liberty in Pilgrim littrature. They make no com- plaint of merely political oppression. Their enemy was the hierarchy. Their tyrant was the law which enforced con- formity. But they were ready for self- government. During the first twelve years they exercised all those functions of government which are now performed in towns, counties and commonwealths. The Pilgrim had seen in Holland the best example ever seen in his time or be- fore of municipal Republican govern- ment. The compact signed on board the Mayflower was the necessary and natural result of what he had learned in the Low Countries. So far as I know there is no allusion to political freedom from the lips or the pen of any of the foundera of Plymouth. The compact begins with a declaration that they " are the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign, Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain and France and Ireland — King, defender of the faith," etc., and that they have undertaken their voyage for the glory of God and the ad- vancement of the Christian faith, and honor of their King and country. And yet the present necessity led them to make what has been called the original social compact, in the form of as pure a Repub- lic as was ever known on earth before or since. Indeed the doctrine on which the Revolution was fought afterward, of ab- solute independence of the British Par- liament, is clearly implied from their original constitution. In De Rassiere's exceedingly spirited letter describing Plymouth, in the 7th year after the landing, is the whole statement of the contention of our Revolutionary fathers in one pregnant sentence, " Whereby they have their freedom without ren- dering an account to anyone, only if the King should choose to send a Gov- ernor-General they would be obliged to acknowledge him as Sovereign Chief." On the other hand, the Puritans of Mass- achusetts were impelled to their emigra- tion largely by the thirst for political freedom. They dreaded schism. Yet they were speedily compelled to sever the tie with the established Church, that Mother to whom Winthrop and Higgin- sou had uttered their despairing and lov- ing cry. When religious libeity set her foot on the rock at Plymouth, her insep- arable sister, political freedom, came with her. And when political liberty landed at Salem, there could be no long separa- tion. The other sisteriustantly followed. The Puritan, it is true, was a religious enthusiast. But it is also true that his history belongs to the political and not to the religious history of the race. His work was the defence of civil liberty, the framing of constitutions and statutes, re- sistance to tyrants, diplomacy, conquest, the stern conflict and the stern triumph of battle. The founders of Massachu- setts, and the men with whom they took counsel and agreed, were busy, sagacious, influential, and active politicians, intent on political reforms in England and on carrying out their principles in both countries The influence of the Pilgrim is a spirit- ual influence. His soul thirsted for God, for the living God. Civil liberty came to him as an incident. Mr. Webster says that although many of them were Republicans in principle, we have no evidence that our New Eug land ancestors would have emigrated merely from their dislike of the political 10 system of Europe. "They fled not so much from English Government as from the hierarchy and the laws which en- forced confoimity to its establishment." He adds that loleraiion was a virtue be- yond the coucepliou of Queen Elizabeth, and beyond her fige and that of her suc- cessor. Both these statements are doubt less true. But the Pilgrim Fathers brought with them the desire for absolute civil and religious liberty for themselves, and they brought with them an absolute pur pose to conform to the will of God as de- clared in the scriptures and as interpreted by the individual conscience. Especially they brought with them the Golden Rule. The logical consequence of these two principles, taken together, must be inevi- tably the establishment of a perfect civil and religious liberty. The Pilgrim had none of the Puritan's harshness, intolerance or religious big- otry. He was like him in the absolute submission of his own will to the will of the Creator, both in personal conduct and the conduct of the State, in deeming this world as of little account but in its rela- tion to another. The Pilgrim had the Puritan's faith in a personal immortality and in a living God. Like the Puritan, he demanded absolute obedience to the voice of con- science in the soul. He was like the Puritan in believing in a future life where just men were to enjoy immortality with those whom they had loved here; He was like the Puritan in that he was comforted and supported by that belief in every sorrow and suffering which he encountered; He was like the Puritan also in believ- ing in the coming of God's Kingdom in this world, and that the State he had builded was to abide and to grow, a com- munity dwelling together in the practice of virtue, in the worship of God, in the pursuit of truth. There was no church membership, as in Massachusetts, required in Plymouth for political franchise. They had nothousht of Republicanism till the compact. But they learned to think of Republican gov- ernment, without being startled, from their brethren who had been at Geneva, and chietiy from their own sojourn in Holland The Pilgrims had seen in Holland the oldest and best system of common schools in Europe. Indeed their answer to the charges sent from London in 1622 gives ample evidence that from the very begin- ning they deemed universal education a necessary of life. Thev had seen in Holland the constant reading of the Bible in all households. There had been twenty-four editions of the New Testament and tifteeu of the Bible printed in the vernacular before they left Leyden. They had lived under the shadow of the foremost unversity in Europe, which had set them an example of a large liber- ality, to which Oxford was a stranger till nearly 250 years afterward. They had seen a people living under a written constitution, expounded by an independent judiciary. They liad seen, and Brewster had wielded, the strength of that irresistible engine, a free press. They had seen the practical working of that equal division of inheritance among all the children, of which Mr. Webster said here, "Republican govern- ment must inevitably be the result." They had learned in Holland the im- portance and convenience of a public registration of deeds. They had seen the security to individ ual freedom of a written ballot. All tliese things America owes to the Pilgrim of Plymouth, and the Pilgrim of Plymouth owes them to Holland. Tliere landed on P.ymouth Rock on the 21st day of December, 1621: a State, free-born and full grown, ex ■ ercising all local, municipal and national functions through the voice of the whole people, in simple democratic majesty; ready, as its bounds grew and its indi- vidual communities multiplied, for the mechanism of a perfect representative government; an independent Church, having a di- rect connection with Christ, as did the Church in the beginning, without human link or mediation; a people mild both in government and private conduct, tolerant, peaceful, affectionate, lovers of home, of kindred and friends, apt for social delights, fond of sound learning and the refinements of domestic life, without the greed of gain or the lust of conquest; but possessing a rare public spirit, and the high courage and aptness for command ami for success which belong to the English race; made up of gentlemen and gentle- women to whom refinement, education, learning, and a noble behavior were ne- cessities of their nature; accustomed to toil, privation and hard- ship; observing the operation of a written ballot, and of a public registration of deed.s, and an equal distribution of inherit- ance among the children. 11 This iiulc Slate )iad existed lor 7;i years. It enacted the mildest code of laws on the face of the earth. There were but eight capital offences in Plymouth. There were thirty one in England at the end of the reign of Eliza beth. Sir James Mackintosh held in his band a list of two hundred and twenty- three wtien he addressed the House of Commons at the beginning of the pres- ent century. They established trial by jury. They treated the Indians with jus- tice and good faith, setting an example wliich Vattel, the foremost writer on the law of nations, commends to mankind. Their good sense kept them free from the witchcraft delusions. They were not un- prepared for aspiri ted self-defence, as wit- ness Miles Standish's answer to the chal- lenge of the Narragansett, and his stern summary justice at Weymouth. They held no foot of land not fairly obtained by honest purchase. No witch was ever hung there. In their earlier days their tolerance was an example to Roger Wil- liams himself. He has left on record his gratitude for the generous friendship of Winslow. Gov. Bradford's courtesy en- tertained the Catholic Priest, who was bis guest, with a fish dinner on Friday. If, like Roger Williams himself, they failed somewhat, as in the case of the Quakers, in the practical application of a principle for which the world was not ready, their practice and their principles soon came to be in accord. When we re- member that our Baptist friends wanted the term "damnable heretics" to include Unitarians and to have them banished, that within a year from the beginning of the Revolution New York shut out Catholic Priests from her limits under the penalty of death, and that in Mary- land it was a capital crime to be a Unitarian as late as 1770, you will hardly care te devote much space to this blemish on tlie Fathers of Plymouth. And when at last, in 1692, Plymouth was blended with Massachusetts, the days of bigotry and intolerance and superstition, as a controlling force in Massachusetts, were over. The past ia not secure unless it be fol- lowed by a worthy future. The Pilgrim will fail unless his posterity be fit to keep his fame. Has the experience of two hundred and seventy-five years strengthened or weakened the influence of the Pilgrim's character, or the power in human history of the faith, the prin- ciples, and the institutions which he brought with him when he landed upon the rock? Do they vindicate their authority in personal conduct, and the conduct of the States? Are they stronger or weaker now tban then? How far have we kept the faith of the Fathers? Are we to transmit it unimpaired to our chil dren ? What have we of rational hope that our children will transmit it in turn unimpaired to their heirs? It is well, 1 think, that at no infrequent periods this account should be taken. Are the devout religious faith, obedi ence to the voice of conscience in the sou! as a guide to the individual and the State, civil liberty, civil government, liberty iu religion, the quality of the English race, and the free institutions brought by the Fathers from England and Holland and established here, blended and in harmony in the character of a great people, living and strong to-day as they were in the first generation? Do we leave them unini paired to our children? Are they to abide ? One thing we must not fail to observe. It is quite clear that when we cansider the elements I haveimperlectlydescril)ed, which gave the Pilgrim Slate its dis- tinctive character, that no one of them could be spared, if that distinctive charac ter is to be maintained. Probably as bright examples of each could be found elsewhere. It is the fact that these shin- ing qualities were united and blended in the Pilgrim that gives him his dis- tinction. The Pilgrim was possessed by an in- tense religious faith, and for it he was ready to encounter suffering and death. But there are plenty of examples in his- tory of a religious faith as intense, to which its votaries have been ready to make as absolute a surrender of self, which the Pilgrim would have accounted as a gross superstition. Gerald, the assas- sin of William the Silent, was as sure he was doing the will of God as was his victim, lie met his death and the terri- ble torture which preceded it with a courage as undaunted as that of any hero in history. He fortified himself for his crime by reading the Bible, by fastinLV and prayer, and then, full of religious exaltation, dreaming of angels and of Paradise, he departed for Delft, and com- pleted his duly as a good Catholic and faithful subject. When his judges ques- tioned him, when they condemned him to have his hand enclosed in a tube, seared with a red hot iron, to have his arms and legs and thighs torn to pieces with burning pincers, his heart to be torn out and thrown into his face, his head to be dissevered from his trunk and placed on a pike, his body to be cut into four pieces, and every piece to be hung on a gibbet over one of the principal gates of the city, he showed no sign of 12 terrov, no sorrow, or surprise. Fixing his dauntless eye on his judges, he repeated with steady voice liis customary words, " Ecce homo! " The Moslem, the Indian, the Hindoo meet torture and deatli with a courage as dauntless as that of the Pilgrim The subjection of the individual will to the law of duty, whether in personal conduct or the conduct of states, is as manifest in tbe Spartan as in the Puritan, and has had many examples since the day when tlie epitaph of the 300 was inscribed at Thermopylae : Stranger ! tell it to Lacedaemon, That we lie here in obedience to her laws. The love of freedom appears and has burned brightly in the bosoms of men of all races and of ail ages. We have no right to make a claim for the Pilgrim which we cannot allow to the Athenian or the Swiss, or the Swede, or the Scotsman. The institutions which the Pilgrim brought from Holland, he left in Holland. The institutions lie brought from England, lie left in England. The English aptness for command and habit of success, indomitable courage, unconquerable perseverance belonged to this race before the movement for reli gious freedom, and exist in the English race to-day wherever it is found. The English language and literature are possessions shared by the whole English-speaking race. Yet the Dutch or the Swedish or the Scotch character- istics differ widely from those of the men who settled Plymouth. To ask, therefore, whether the Pilgrim character is to abide, is to ask whether the great qualities we have ascribed to the Pilgrim are to remain blended, united, living, though perhaps softened, in the lapse of years. I suppose we must admit it to be true that with men of thoughtful, instructed, conscientious natures, the authority of the statement of religious faith that satis- fied the Pilgrim, has been shaken in recent times chiefly by two causes : Isl. The researches of modern science have occasioned disbelief in the scripture narrative of the creation, and in the miraculous suspension of natural laws which the scripture records, and on which the claim of Christianity was largely rested in their day. 3d. The modern knowledge of the phy- sical frame of man seems to establish the existence of physical causes for what our fathers were wont to consider purely spiritual manifestations, and so to make it seem more likely that the soul depends for its own existence and capacity for action upon tbe continued existence of the body. The religious faith of mankind, de- clared in different periods, always makes use of the framework, the setting, the im agery, the illustration, which is furnished by the accepted scientific knowledge of the time when it is uttered. Certainly to this the teaching of our Bible, both in tlie Old Testament and in the New, is no ex- ception. These beliefs, taught from very imperfect scientilic information, seem to be inseparably and inextricably blended with the moral and religious truths which they have been u^ed to illustrate, and to render conceivable. At every forward step of science, as she makes some new revelation to her students, she seems to overthrow the religion of which she has been the handmaid. So every great dis- coverer in science, from Galileo to Dar- win, from the discovery of gravitation and the slow geologic processes of the planting of the coal and the formation of he rocks to the discovery of the cvolu tion and kindred of all animate nature, appears to the teacher of the accepted re- ligion of the time as a skeptic if not as an infidel. No astonishment could exceed tiiat of John Robinson if lie could hear the scientific illustrations by which the most conservative and orthodox of his Calvinist successors undertake to make plain the counsel of God to a congrega- tion of most obedient and docile disciples to-day. So every period of scientific pro- gress seems to a superficial observer to be a period of religious and spiritual retro- gression. Does the faith that supported the Pil- grims, the faith in a personal immortality, in a conscious and benevolent Creator of tbe world who watches its affairs with a personal intelligence, and directs them with a loving purpose, as a father guideth his children, abide unimpaired as an in fluence in the government of States and of personal conduct to-day ? This is the theme of all themes, the question of all questions. It cannot be passed by on any solemn public occasion which is devoted to the memory of the Pilgrims. I think, speaking for myself, that when the new law which science has shown to us be- comes clear, not only to the genius which lias first perceived it, but to the common apprehension of mankind, the eternal verities of a conscious and benevolent Creator, and a personal, human immor- tality reappear cleare- and stronger. Even the skepticism of modern thought will at least agree to this, that the faith in righteousness, the willingness of man kind to obey a law higher than their own desire, grows stronger from age to age. 13 It was never stronger than today. The belief in what has been called the power in this world that makes for righteous nesa is stronger than ever, even in the minds of men who reject a miraculous or a religious sanction of its commands. The faith in miracles may have abated. The miracle may have been consigned to a place among the lower and grosser ar- guments which enforce obedience to the divine behest of duty. It is at best but milk for babes. But the faith drawn from the history of the constant law which pre- vails in the ordinary government of the universe has more than taken its place. The scientific inquirer makes his in- quiry from a love of truth; and the lover of truth will never be other than an obeyer of duty. Science traces the inperceptible steps by which inorganic matter reaches life, sensation, consciousness, will, conscience. She tells us, if we understand her, that in uncountetl, perhaps unimaginable ages the atoms of dead dust have stirred and quickened into vegetable life. The vege- table has become conscious of an animal nature. The animal acquires human in- telligence. But the voice of duty was full and clear in the morning of creation. The voice which Adam disobeyed, to which Abel and Abram listened, to which the Prophets and Pilgrims gave their lives was heard in fullest strengih when the human intelligence first became conscious of itself. Ever it overcomes and masters all the forces which science discovers or comprehends. Groping science lays bare the cells and brings under its microscope the minute powder in whose gray globules are held in store all thoughts and memories. But the will, lord of tho\ight, summoning memory from its cell with sovereign power, still dwells in its cloud, mysteri- ous, unapproachable, inaccessible. Science from age to age tells us more and more of the pliysical instrument by which the mind — the will — enforces its commands. It lays bare the mechanism, the secret spring by which the physical frame is set in motion. But it has added nothing to our knowledge of the mind itself, of the spiritual being which is con- scious of itself, which in its sublime free- dom chooses for itself the law which will obey, and even when it pays its homage to its Creator, or to His mandate of duty, I)«ys only a free and voluntary homage. If any man doubt that the faith in jus tice and righteousness, and their power as a practical force in the government of the world is increasing from ajre to age, whatever may be the sanction, let him rettd the lives of the men who for the past generation have been chosen by Great Britain for the government of her 250 million subjects in the East. An almost unlimited power, gained without scruple used for generations as a provision for the children of her upper classes, has be- come steadily and surely an example of moderation, humanity and justice. There can be found few finer examples of the character of the great race from which we are so proud to be descended, than Lord Lawrence, or Lord Mayo, or Sir James Stephen. "The Sahibs do not understand or like us," said the Indian scholar to Mr. Monier Williams. " But they try to be just and do not Fear the face of man." The belief in miracles may have dimin- ished in strength. But reliijio\is faith is only a sanction of the moral law. The belief in a prevalence of that law as a controlling force in the world has not abated. It abides. The sanction of God's law by miracles has given place to a sanc- tion by His constant and eternal provi- dence. There is doubtless to-day great impa- tience of ecclesiastical authority, of creeds — the devices by which men seek to nar- row and limit the infinite truth of God, or to thrust their weak and fallible power between the soul and its Creator. But the faith that there came to this world, nineteen hundred years ago, a majestic Being, divinely commissioned, announc- ing a perfect rule, and Himself a perfect example, for human conduct, was never so powerful as at this moment. Is the principle of self-government in civil liberty as strong to-day with us as with the Fathers at Plymouth? John Cotton wrote to Lord Say in 1636: " Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did ordain as a fit government, either in Church or commonwealth. If the people be Governors, who shall be governed ? ' ' John Cotton's question is the great question of all history and of all destiny. The American answer to it is that if the people be the governors, the people shall be the governed. The human will volun- tarily and in freedom subjecting itself to a law higher than its own desire, is the sublimest thing in the universe, except its Creator. We have 45 sovereign States united in an imperial Republic, each one of which has written in its constitution that those things which are forbidden by the moral law and the law of justice shall not be enacted in the government of the State by any human authority or accom- plished by any human desire. They have created a mechanism perfect as the lot of humanity will admit for securing ttits re- 14 straint. Every generation has had and will have its own temptations, and has committed and will commit its own offences. But you will all agree with me that, not only the love of liburty but the strength of those constitutional restraints on the present desires of an impatient people grows stronger from generadon to generation and from age to age. I think our generation understands better than it was ever understood before that there is something far more than the love of free- dom, something far liigher than freedom itself, essential to a great State or to a great soul. Freedom is but the removal of obstacles. Freedom may be for the savage as for the Christian, forthehyeua as for the dove. When the fetlcr has been stricken from the limbs, when the caged or chained eagle soars into the sky, the time has come for labor, for discipline, for obedience. The freest people must submit to the severest and most strenuous sense of obligation, if it would lift itself to its own ideals. It must listen to a voice of higher author- ity than its own. The voice of the | people is not the voice of God. That i sentiment is alike false and impious. ! The principles of the American con- stitutions pervade the entire continent. As the child who goes out, poor and ob- scure from his birthplace to seek his fortune, comes back again successful and honored and strong to enrich the par- ental dwelling, so the principles of civil liberty in constitutional restraints which have possessed the American continent from Hudson Bay to Cape Horn, have crossed the Atlantic again to possess the countries of their origin. England is almost a Republic in everything but name. France, after two failures, has become a permanent member of the family of free states, while in Southern and Oriental seas where the adventurous ships of our fathers, long after the American Constitution was framed, found nothing but barbarism and savagery, the great Australasian commonwealths are rising in splendor and in glory to take, at no distant day, a place perhaps fore- most in the family of self-governing na- tions. There is to-day no monarchy on American soil, unless we except the loose hanging power still retained by^her Majesty Queen Victoria over the British possessions on the north. If there be one thing more than another which is the settled purpose of intelligent and educated men and women who are, are to be, and ought to be the governing forces in all Christian nations, it is that the relation of man to his Creator shall be a question for the individual soul, and shall not be used as an instrument by any human power or authority. Our Fathers dreaded the power of theCatholic Church. But I think we are quite apt to forget that the "fury of the Bishops" from which John Milton says they fled, was the fury of Protestant Bishops. Reli- gious intolerance was the error and crime of past ages, universal but with few excep- tions, aud belonged to all churches alike. The witchcraft delusion prevailed in Protestant England and in Puritan Mass- achusetts, as well as among the Catholic nations of the continent. It was a Prot- estant monarch by whose orders the body of Oliver Cromwell was disinterred from its resting-place in Westminster Abbey, and the head — nobler and more august than any in the long line of English sovereigns since the day of Alfred — was exposed to public indignity on Temple Bar. Today Catholic Prance is as toler- ant as Protestant Massachusetts. Cath- olic Italy has thrown off the temporal power of the Papacy. There has been no nobler tribute in recent years to the mem- ory of the Pilgrim, and to civil and re- ligious freedom than that uttered in Ply- mouth ten years ago by a Catholic poet. I know of no more eloquent and stirring statement anywhere of a lofty American patriotism than that by Father Conaty, an Irish Catholic priest in my own cit}' of Worcester, when the portrait of our Irish hero, Sergeant Plunkett, was hung on the walls of Mechanics' Hall. In Massachusetts alone at least 56 per cent of her people are of foreign parent- age Probably 30 per cent of her people are of the Catholic faith. They came here, most of them, driven by an extreme )>overty from homes where for centuries they had been the victims of an almost intolerable oppression. They have grave faults, which it is not part of a true friendship or a true respect to attempt to bide or to gloss over. But I hold it one of the most remarkable and one of the most encouraging facts in our history tiiat this great stream which has poured into our State within the memory of liv- ing men wlio are not yet old has changed so little the character of Massachusetts and has had, on the whole, so favorable an influence upon her history and causes so little reasonable apprehension for the future. Massachusetts has educated the foreigner. She is making an American of him. She is surely, and not very slowly, when we consider the great peri- ods that constitute the life of a State, im- IDressing upon him what is best of the Pilgrim and the Puritan quality and the Pilgrim and the Puritan conception of a State. I look with an unquestioning hope 15 upon the future of Massachusetts. Noth- ing can stay her in her great career, un- less evil and low ambition shall stir up strife where there should be peace, hatred where there should be sympathy, and the conflict of religious sect and creed where there should be nothing but common Christian faith and common Christian love. There is a story of an Irish traveler who touched his hat to the statue of Jupiter in Rome. He said in explanation that he was afraid the old fellow might come into power again. The old Giants Pope and Pagan had become harmless in their caverns so long ago as the time when Bunyan's Pilgrim passed by on his way to the holy city. They are no more dangerous now. Timorous and Mistrust, Mr. Ready-to-halt and 3Ir. Feeble-mind may turn pale and their knees may trem- ble with dread of these ancient spectres. They may hide themselves in cavei'ns of their own to take counsel for mutual pro- tection. They cannot frighten the Amer- ican people. Still less will the sons of the Pilgrims be disturbed. We do not meet tyranny or bigotry or despotism or priestcraft with weapons like theirs. We have learned other lessons from the Pil- grim Fathers. Leave liberty to encounter despotism. Leave freedom to deal with slavery. Leave tolerance to meet intol- erance. Set the eagle to deal with the bat. Let in upon the marsh and upon the swamp the pure air and the fresh breeze. Open the windows into the cold dungeon and dark cellar and let In the sun's light and the sun's warmth. The Pilgrims were Englishmen. Their children are, in the essentials of national character, Englishmen still. We have a great admixture of other races. But it is anadmixture chiefly from those North- ern races of which England herself was composed. In spite of past conflicts and present rivalry England is the nation closest to us in affection and sympathy. The English language is ours. English literature is perhaps more familiar to the bulk of our people than to Englishmen themselves. The English Bible is still our standard of speech, our inspiration, our rule of faith and practice. We look to English authority in the admin- istration of our system of law and equity. English aptness for command, habit of success, indomitable courage, unconquer- able perseverance have been, are, and are to remain the American quality. The men of other blood who come here acquire and are penetrated with the English, or perhaps without boasting or van ty we may say, the American spirit. The great bulk of our people are of English blood. But by the spirit, which has its own pad- igree, its own ancestry, its own law of descent and of inheritance, we are English even more than by any lie of physical kinship, li is of this pedigree of the spirit, governed by forces of which science lias as yet given us no account that we are taking account to-day. It is by virtue of its laws tliat John Winthrop counts George Washington among his posterity. James Otis transmits his quality to Charles Sumner. Emerson may well be reckoned the spiritual child of Bradford; Channing the spiritual child of John Robinson; and Miles Stand- ish the progenitor of Grant. The great- hearted Hebrew prophet has many a de- scendant among the great-hearted Puri- tans. In this genealogy the men of Thermop3rlge are no aliens to the men of Bunker Ilill. When the boy who went out from a New England dwelling to meet death at Gettysburg or Antietam with no motive but tlie love of country and the sense of duty, shall meet, where he is gone, the men who fought the livelong day with Wellington or obeyed Nelson's immortal signal, he shall "Claim kindred there, and have the claim allowed." What I said just now was written more than ten days ago. Let it stand. Let it stand. It is well that these two great na- tions should know something of each other that they don't get from their metropolitan press whether in London or in New York. Each of them should know that if it enter into a quarrel with the other it is to be a contest with that people on the face of the earth which is most like to itself. The quarrel will be maintained on both sides until Anglo-Saxon, until English, until American endurance is exhausted. For that reason, if for no other, such a conflict should never begin. This whole thing is very simple. We cannot permit any weak power on this continent to be despoiled of its territory, or to be crowded out of its rights, by any strong power anywhere. England would not permit us to do that to Belgium or to Denmark. On the other hand, we have no title to interfere with the estab- lished boundaries of English territory, whether we like them or do not like them. All between those two limits is subject for discussion and for arbitration; sub- ject for that international arbitration which a delegation of English members of Parliamentcame to Boston a few years atro to impress \ipon us, snying that in their desire for its establishment they rep- resented llie opinions of a large majority of the English House of Commons. The settlement of pending differences 16 upon these principles will be compelled by the business men and the religious sen- timent of these two nations, influences always irresistible when they are united and when they are brought to bear upon large matters of national and interna- tional import. But you have not gathered here for phil- osophical, or political, or historical disqui- sition. This day is for the expression of filial love. The thoughts which are never strangers to the bosoms of the sons and daughters of the Pilgrims are to be stim- ulated and intensified under the operation of that mysterious law by which in a large assembly, or when a whole people unite in a common observance, the emo- tion in each individual heart is increased and multiplied by the emotion of every other. This is a larger Thanksgiving Day. To-day the children of the Pilgrims, wherever on the continent or on the face of the earth they dwell, are thinking of their Fathers. They are thinking of the holy men, of the sweet and comely ma- trons, of the brave youths and beautiful maidens to whom this coast and these forest glades were familiar in the infancy of Plymouth. Their hearts are full of the lofty tragedy and lofty triumph. We think of the death of Carver, of Dorothy Bradford, of the sweet Rose Standish, as if they had happened in our own house- holds; as if our Mothers had told us the story of some other children who had died under our Father's roof before we could i-emember. It is as real as if it had happened yesterday. It shall be as real as if it happened yesterday until time shall be no more. What presence looks over the Bay to day more living than the warrior figure of Miles Standish ? What household memory is dearer to us than that of John Carver, of whom it has been so well said: "The column of smoke from the volley fired at his grave was his only monument." There is no tragedy in all fiction, not the death of Hector, not the sorrow of CEdipus, not the guilt of Macbeth, not the wounded heart of Lear, like this true and simple story. The Atlantic between these men and women and their homes in beautiful England, the horrors of the stormy passage, the landing in December, the terrible suffering of the first winter, but six or seven men able to tend the sick or bury the dead, when the spring came seveti times as many graves as dwellings, strong men staggering at their work at noonday by reason of fainting for want of food, the challenge of the savage, the hO'^^ling of the wild beast, and yet there is nothing in it of sorrow, nothing in it except lofty triumph. The Pilgrims had no regrets. There is no gloom in their fiH- nals. The tragedies of history, ia.fte'r aU, are its richest blessings and most pvecioUs memories. We mourn for those whom the fate of war has bereaved of their kin- dred, or whose life has been made a bur- den by the loss of health or limb. Yet would the mother have her son back again at the price of having the brave deed undone? Would the widow clasp her husband's form a^ain, if she could buy him back at the pnce of striking his name from the list of heroes ? Does the crippled and wounded veteran wish he had stayed at home, if in that Way he could get back his health or his linlb? Bradford's history is a brave andeheer- ful story. Think, too, of this story of the founding of a great nation With no fable in it. The Pilgrims were followed by a generation incapable of boaisting, and quite otherwise occupied. One hun- dred and fifty years passed before any- body celebrated anything they had done. There is the loving tribute of friendship. But the praise was iot God. There is surely, as I said in the begin- ning, no statelier or loftier presence in human history than the Pilgrims Of Plymouth. What belongs to & high behavior, to a simple, severe but delicate laste in dress, in architecture, in hotise- furnishing, in the decoration and adorn- ment of daily life, they discerned with unerring taste. The satire of Hudibras, the caricature of Hogarth, the scortt of the courtier, the pride of the rtiffling gallant, have exhausted themselves to ridicule the figure of the Fathers of New England, and their contemporaries who sat in council with Cromwell or marched to victory under his banner. But these scoffers have had their day. The dfess of the cavalier has now been remitted to the butler or the footman. The fashion- able lovelocks ornament the head of the fiddler or the buffoon. But the dress of the Puritan is now the dress of all gentlemen in Europe. The architects of our dwellings are studyitig the secret of his simple and noble architecture. The serious dignity of demeanor Which marked the intercourse of Bradford and Brewster is a pattern for the imitation of any Ambassador, though he represeftl seventy million freemen at wrhatever court, or before whatever Sovereign he may stand. Can you find anywhere kfHaer type of a noble and accomplished sreutleman than William Bradford ? You may search Europe fot his peer. Into what stalely eloquence he rises when he speaks of the higher thihgS 6f the spirit, and the grave cbtirerhs 6f theCom- hiouwealth. What an atJCompllAhed scholar he was. Look at his haiulwrit- ing, a matter by which you can ofllimus disceru the genllemau as you can iu the step, or tone of the voice, or carriage of the person, or glance of the eye. When Bradford, and Brewster, and Carver, and liobinsou, and Miles Slandish, and Rich- ard Warren, and Edward Winslow, and Samuel Fuller were taking counsel to- tfelber in Leydeu, they could have set a pattern of stalely dignity to any society on earth. Brewster had a library of two hundred and seventy live volumes. His principal estate consisted of sixty four volumes in the learned languages. What noble and lofty and exquisite sentences are founil iu the writings of Robinson. The passage iu one ot his letters to the little exiled flock from whom he was separated, — " Iu a battle it is not looked for but that divers should die," is in the highest strain of Paul. " God forbid that I should need to exhort you to peace, which is the bond of perfection, ami by which all good is tied together, and with- out which it is scattered. Have peace unto God first, by faith in His promise, good conscience kept iu all things, and oft renewed by repentance ; and so one with another for His sake who is, though three, one ; and for Christ's sake, who is one, and as you are called by one spirit to one hope." Is not this the very spirit of John the Beloved Disciple? Is not this the very spirit of Grace, Mercy and Peace ? I do not find the battle and the march and the gaudium certaminis any- where in our Pilgrim. His longing was ever for peace. Lcyden street in Plymouth, with its cluster of seven humble dwellings, wit- nessed a high behavior to which there could not be found a parallel in any court in Europe. There was no employment so homely or menial that it could debase the simple dignity of these men, a dignity born of daily spiritual communion with heavenly contemplations, of constant meditating on the things which concern eternal life, and the things which con- cern the foundation of empire. It was like an encampment of a company of crusaders on their journey to the Holy City, where every companion was a prince or a noble. DeRassiere describes the little procession as it marched to wor- ship God on Sunday morning summoned by the beat of the drum. Was there ever a statelier ceremonial at an emperor's coro- nation? There can be no better touch- stone of the genuineness and sincerity of a lofty religious faith than its creation of a lofty behavior, such as comports with daily meditation and conversation on celestial and eternal interests. This is the one stoty to which for us, or for our children, nothing in human annals may he cited for parallel or com- parison, save the story of Bethlehem, rhere is none other told iu Heaven or among men like the story ot the Pilgrim. Upon this rock is founded our house. Let the rains de-ceud, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon that house, it shall not fall. The saying of our Prophet — our Daniel — is fulfilled. The sous of the Pilgrim have crossed the Mississippi and possess the shores of the Pacific. The tree our Fathers set cover- ed at first a little space by the seaside. It has planted its banyan branches in the ground. It has spread along the lakes. It has girdled the Gulf. It has spanned the Mississippi. It has covered the prairie and the plain. The sweep of its lof ly arches rises over the Rocky Moun- tains, and the Cascades, and the Nevada.H. Its hardy growth shelters the frozen region of the far Northwest. Its boughs hang over the Pacific. And in good time — in good time — it will send its roots be- neath the waves and receive under its vast canopy the islands of the sea. "BraDchiugr so broad and long, that iu the ground The bended twiga take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillared shade High overarched, and echoing walks be- tween." Wherever the son of the Pilgrim goes, he will carry with him what the Pil- grim brought from Leyden— the love of liberty, reverence for law, trust in God — a living God — belief in a per- sonal immortality, the voice of con- science in the soul, a heart open to the new truth which ever breaketh fi-om the bosom of the Word. His inherited instinct for the building of States will be as sure as that of the bee for building her cell or the eagle his nest. The gentle spirit of Bradford, the stern courage of Standish, the lofty faith of Brewster, mellowed and broadened as the centuries come and go, shall be his. It may be that the Power that was with his Fathers will not doom him to the severe discipline and the stern trial that was theirs. We may hope for him the bless- ings of existence to which Webster sum- moned him — of "life in pleasant lands, in verdant fields, and under healthful skies. He may hope for the enjoyment of the great inheritance wo transmit to him. the blessings of good government and re- ligious liberty, the treasures of science, the delights of learning, the transcendent sweets of domestic life," shared with kindred and parents and children. But he must enjoy and hold these things as 18 ready to put with them at the summons of Him who bestowed them. They are never to be bought or to be held at the sacrifice of freedom, of truth, or of duty. Whatever temptation come to him, let the memory of tbe nieu who landed here rise in his soul, to be his shield and safety. Whenever in coming centuries men govern themselves in freedom, let him still be found foremost, taking the honest and the brave part. If cowardice dissuade him from the peril and sacrifice, without which noth- ing can be gained in the great crises of National life, lei him auswer: I am of the blood of them who crossed the ocean in the Mayflower and encountered the wil- derness and the savage in the winter of 1620. If luxury and ease come with their se- ductive whisper, he will reply: I am de- scended from thelittlecompany of whom more than half died before spring, and of wliom none went bacjs to England. Bigotry and superstition will in vain utter their hoarse and discordant counsel to him who is of God's free people. Let him never forget his ancestry. In his halls is hung Armory ot the iuviiicible Knights ot old. In everything he is sprung Of earth's llrst blood, hath titles manifold. If the hearts of other men fail them, he will still turn for inspiration to the rock where Aldeu landed, to the walls where Brewster preached, to the hill where Bradford lies buried. Let this day forevermore bo devoted to filial alfection. Let it be given to tlie ut- terance of children's love. The beauti- ful shadows of the Pilgrim Father and the Pilgrim Mother hover over us now. In that spiritual presence it cannot be that cur hearts sliall be cold or that our thoughts should be unworthy of our high lineage. Let every return of the Pilgrim anniversary witness a new con secratiou of his children to the Pil- grim's cause in the Pilgrim's spirit. If it shall be our fortune to enjoy tlie blessings of civiliaalion, of order, of retinement, of happy homes, of wealth, of letters, of art, of the transcendent sweets of domestic life, of safety, of good fame, of honor, let us enjoy them, faith- ful to the God who has given them and to tlie ancestors whom he vouchsafed to make His instruments to win them. Not unto us; not unto us, but unto Him and to them be the praise. I'ut if we are called on in His Providence to give up all these, let us remember that it is not for these things that human life on this earth is given. Let us slill remember the Pil- grim's life, and the Pilgrim's lesson. Above all. Liberty! Above all. Faith ! Above all. Duty 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS