(1896) An Address at Forefathers' Convocation: New Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts)

8/9/2019 (1896) An Address at Forefathers' Convocation: New Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts)

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS).ST OFKICKS -CHAMI'AKIN AND t'KHANA.

AN ADDRESS

Forefathers' Convocation,

SUNDAY, DECEMBHR 13, 1896.

The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life,

PRESIDENT DRAPER.

(lAZICTTE PKINT. CIIAMPAKiN. ILL


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The Pilgrim and His Share in American Life."Yea, when the frownhig- bulwarksThat g-uard this holy strandHave sunk beneath the trampling- surgreIn beds of sparkling- sand.

While in the waste of OceanOne hoar3- rock shall stand.

Be this its latest leg-end:HERE, WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND."'The Pilgrim literature of recent years lias beenmarked by a discussion of the question whether Eng-

land or Holland contributed most to the formation ofPilgrim character, and through that character to theinstitutional life of the New World. That discussion isa fascinating and not a fruitless one. The averagecitizen finds interest in it though he still refuses togrant that there is much question about it. The his-torical student enters into it with enthusiasm and seessome new light. It seems strange, indeed, that thatdiscussion has been so long delayed. The delay indi-cates how long it takes for a people to put away itsdesires and its prejudices and study history with anunbiased disposition to elucidate the truth.

It is not too much to say ihat out of this discussionit is gradually becoming apparent that English thoughthas done but scant justice to the decided impulseswhich the heroism and the progress of the people ofthe "Low Countries" contributed at the very beginningto the trend and tone of organized society in America,and that some part of this contribution came by theway of Cape Cod, even if the greater part did enter bythe way of Sandy Hook.We will, however, avoid being drawn into that dis-cussion today. We will go back to "1620," that talis-manic date in the life of the Old World as well as of theNew, and recount the simple and pathetic story whichit brings up to us. The facts which are neither con-troverted nor involved are all-sufficient for us, and thehonor which their repetition pays to the plain men andwomen who made that date great in human history is


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but a slight indication of the feelings which come toall true Americans at the annual recurrence of Fore-fathers' Day.The greater part of the eastern Massachusetts coastis shaped not unlike the outer rim of the externalhuman ear. From Cape Ann at the north and front ofthis rim to Cape Cod at the south, it is an air-line dis-tance of forty-five miles. Many capacious and mag-nificent harbors lie within these capes. Boston ex-tends her great, strong arms nearly around Massachu-setts Bay, well up at the northern part of the largeenclosure of the ocean. Plymouth, the oldest of NewEngland towns, with a thrifty and cultured populationof nine thousand people, looks out to the eastward uponPlymouth Harbor which is well down to the southwest-ern part of the enclosure. From Boston to Plymouth itis an air-line distance of thirty-seven miles. The shoreis traversed by both steam and electric roads. FromCape Cod to Plymouth, across the water, it istwenty-five miles. One is better prepared to enter intothe spirit of things at the old town if he goes downfrom Boston by steamer, or enters from the open ocean,notes the contour of the coast, studies the settlementsand objects upon the shore, floats over the wide ex-panse of water and follows the path which the May-flower took into the harbor of Plymouth. It willrequire more hours to do this, but one will not see the'blue hills of Milton," get the bracing sea air. pass theGurnet twin lights, look upon the Plymouth and Stand-ish monuments, and contemplate the great occurrenceswhich that shore has witnessed, without being thank-ful that he took the time to enter the harbor throughthe narrow winding channel, much in the form of theletter "S," from the same direction and in about thesame way that the Forefathers did.Let us try to go back to their time and look at thesepeople in their far-away homes, so much fartherthen than now, and follow them in their courageousjourney, so full of sorrow yet so full of enduring tri--umph, over the sea.


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History first finds them, but not until more than twohundred years after the fact, in the northern part of Not-tinghamshire, about forty miles from the eastern coastof Old England. Here they, and a few like them, hadseparated from the rest of the world upon religiousmatters and, gathering together a few kindred spiritsfrom several neighboring villages, had, at Scrooby,organized a small congregation of Christians calledSeparatists, or Brownists, and known later as Inde-pendents in England and as Congregationalists inAmerica.They were the small third party of English Protest-antism and of the English politics of that day. Prot-estantism had very naturally and appropriately takenits name from the protests of its people against theauthority as well as against many of the doctrines andmuch of the practice of the Old Mother Church ofRome. English Protestants had become divided intothree classes. We must distinguish between them ifwe would gain any understanding of the conditionswhich induced, and the motives which actuated themigration, first to Holland and then to America: or,indeed, if we would comprehend the early religiousand political history of our own land. The first classwere Conformists; that is, rigid and cheerful adherentsof the ritual, and forms and ceremonies of the Gov-ernmental Church of England. Indeed, they were goingfarther than following the ritual and observing theceremonies of the Established Church: they were com-ing to look upon the King as not only the earthly headof the State Church, but as the infallible representa-tive of the Living God, with divine authority over alltemporal and political matters, which it would be hightreason to call in question. The second class wereNon-Conformists, Purists or Puritans. They were"reformers"' within the English Church. They wereopposed to the showy vestments which were worn, andto many of the practices and ceremonies which wereobserved in the services of the Church. They deniedand repudiated the divine authority of the King. But


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while they were for purifying they had no thought ofleaving the Church. The Puritans were wrestlingwith the Ritualists or Conformists for the control ofthe English Protestant Church, and there is no greatdearth of reason for believing that ambition was aspotent as principle in determining their course. Itsurely is not too much to say that when they gainedthe power to control they commonly fell into the sameways of which tiiey complained so bitterly when theywere in the minority. The Separatists were so calledbecause they i


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acute under his reign. The Puritan minority had norights which the monarch recognized or the majority-respected. They were subjected to fines and exactions,to subtle annoyances and open persecutions until, ofnecessity, their religious movement became a politicalmovement. In time they grew to be the majority innumbers. It was then that their religious fortitudenerved the arm that struck off Charles' head. If thePuritans who adhered to the Church were harrassed,the Separatists who left the Church were hunted, im-prisoned, burned and hanged, until all must flee thecountry if they would keep their lives and worshipGod in their own independent way. In large numbersthey went to Holland, where the good cause of relig-ious freedom and toleration was fighting its first andbloodiest battle and winning its most signal triumphin the history of the world.The little congregation of Separatists at Scrooby isof great interest to us, for out of its numbers came theleading Pilgrims at Plymouth in New England. Thepatriot and the student will study every particle oforiginal material bearing upon the careers of the mem-bers of this congregation, as well as upon the acts ofthe collective body. But we must, unfortunately, becontent today with the merest glance at the most sig-nificant steps in its progress from obscurity to thehighest pinacle of world-fame and a most consequentialfactor in the development of nations.In 1(307 persecution had become so dreadful that it

was determined to seek refuge in the Netherlands.Elizabeth had consented to these migrations during herreign, but James was intent upon preventing and pun-ishing them. As Bradford says: "Though they couldnot stay yet were they not suffered to go." In theirefforts to get out of England and reach a land wherethought could be free and worship untrarameled, theirmembers were robbed of their money, despoiled oftheir goods, thrown into prison in the name of Englishjustice, and scattered in all directions by ecclesiasticalhate assuming to act in the name of the Living God.


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It was almost a year before neighbors and friends.Imsbands and wives, parents and children were re-united on the banks of the Zuyder Zee, bound togethermore closely than ever by the common perils they hadsuffered, the common separation from old homes andall the associations of their lives, and the commonloneliness in a country where the land, the houses, thepeople and the language were all new and strange tothem.Here for twelve years they received welcome and

protection by a people who had just laid down ahundred thousand lives to establish intellectual andspiritual freedom as the sure basis of political liberty,and who had celebrated the triumphs of their arms bysetting up free schools and academies, as well as fivenational universities.When they made applications to the Burgomastersand Court of Leyden for leave to take up their resi-

denc(> in that city, it was granted with the followingendoisement upon the petition, viz: "The Court inmaking a disposition of this present memorial, declarethat ihey refuse no honest persons free ingress to comeand have residence in this city, provided thatsuch persons behave themselves, and submit to the lawsand ordinances: and therefore the coming of the Me-morialists ivill he aijreeable and welcome. This is donein their Council House, 12th February 1699." Surelythis action tells a very large story.

It is a little significant, but not strange, that the timeof their sojourn in Holland is almost identical with thetwelve years' truce agreed upon with Philip which fol-lowed the first Spanish recognition of the NetherlandRepublic. With the prospect of renewed hostilitiesthey were forced to elect whether they would engagein the common defense, with the practical certainty ofbeing absorbed into the Dutch life, and of losing theiridentity as an English society, or would migrate to afar-away land where they could retain the language,the customs and the common law, and fly the flag of oldEngland, and yet secure the freedom of thought and


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manner of worship which religious and politicalfrenzy denied them in the Mother-land. They hadlived peaceably with the Dutch, and their new homehad given them better advantages, aside from religiousfreedom, than they had previously enjoyed. Theywere hard-by the first commercial city of the world.They had lived under the shadow of a national univer-sity. They were among a people more largely engagedin maritime pursuits and enterprises, and in manufac-tures involving skilled labor, than any other people up-on the globe The war had sharpened intelligence,leveled classes, and worked a marvelous material de-velopment. Education had flourished and the masseswere beginning to get a good foot-hold in aflPairs. ThePilgrims were profited by these things, and they en-gaged in the vocations of the people, rendered honora-ble service, paid their debts, and avoided controversy.They were self-respecting, and public officials have leftrecords which show that they were much respected.They welcomed to their circle strangers of any shadeof religious faith who could fall in with their mannerof worship. For reasons which were obvious, theywere exclusive in their social and religious life Butchildren were growing up, and growing up with feel-ings not altogether akin to those which had come withtheir fathers from their old homes, and, what seemedworse to them, they persisted in falling in love with thechildren of the Dutch. Their business relations withthe people all around them necessarily became moreand more intimate. The renewal of the war would callevery man into the service. If the war should goagainst them Holland would become a Spanish prov-ince, and they dreaded Spain even more than England-Their exclusiveness and their identity as an Englishsociety were in danger. They must soon become a partof the Dutch people or they must move to a moreisolated home. They discussed long and earnestly;they could not agree: they separated into two verynearly equal parts; but they disagreed in love. Thenatural affection for their native land, their mother-


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10tongue, and for the traditions and aspirations of theEnglish nation, led one party to decide that they mustgo. But others, even including John Robinson, theirgreat pastor, would stay behind: perhaps, if all wentwell, they would follow in later time.That party which would go bargained with a com-

pany of English adventurers to transport them toAmerica, ihe new, the unknown world. This companywas to procure them chartered rights in lands thatwere without market value and hardly worth the ask-ing. For this they agreed to give the company half ofall the profits in traffic, fishing, tilling the ground, andother labor of all kinds, in their new home, for theperiod of seven years. They were to have goods incommon; four days in the week they were to labor forthe joint account, and two for themselves. At the endof seven years each planter was to have the house hehad built and the garden he had tilled. They were tosail from the nearest port, Delft Haven, in the "Speed-well" for Southampton, and there gather up a fewEnglish friends, and then in the "SpeedwelT" and the"^Mayflower"* start on their long journey.Things being ready a day of fasting was observedand then, in the evening, both sections of the congre-gation set out for Delft Haven, fourteen miles distant,spending the whole night together in song and prayer,with ' friendly entertainment and Christian discourse."The time for parting came in the morning. That part-ing must separate friends and neighbors who were toeach other more than friends and neighbors, and inmany cases it must break families for life. Theyrealized it and " for the abundance of sorrow theycould not speak." Falling upon their knees, Robinsonentreated God's protection, they silently embraced eachother, then one part turned back to lose its identity intwenty-five years among the Dutch, and the other partpassed over the gang-plank and under the English flag,to gain unparalleled fame as the fathers and mothersof a great new State of worldwide significance, and to


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ngive inspiration to the brightest and broadest and mostbeneficent new civilization in world history.Bradford says: "So they left that goodly and pleas-ant city which had been their resting plac(^ near twelveyears: but they knew tliat they were Pihirims."They were hardly on their way before they began to

be subjected to a system of robbery and treacherywhich was to continue through many years and towhich they were to submit in patience until they hadmany times paid the pound of flesh nominated in thebond, and until they were strong enough to put an endto the disreputable cupidity of their task masters. Itwas more than twenty-five years before the little Pil-grim Republic could say it owed no man anything.First they were forced to sell provisions to raise 60 topay certain port charges before they could sail, andwhich did not properly devolve upon them. Settingsail, they were out four days when the " Speedwellwas reported to be leaking dangerously All bore upfor Dartmouth and ten days were spent in unloadingand repairing her from stem to stern, when she waspronounced entirely sea-worthy. Starting again, theywere three hundred miles upon their journey when thecaptain of the "Speedwell"' again reported her leakingand insisted upon putting back to the English Ply-mouth, and then, although no leak was found, refusedto again undertake the journey. He was resorting totreachery to avoid his agreement to carry them toAmerica and remain with them a year. Time wasvital, however, and so it was arranged that the "Speed-well" should be abandoned and return to London.Eighteen of her passengers returned with her, the re-mainder crowding into the "Mayflower." Fully sixweeks after the departure from Leyden the " May-flower," with her precious freight, made her third andfinal start, and it was to be more than two, long, bittermonths before she was to sight the shores of the NewWorld.While she is slowly making her way amid sunshine

and storm over the great deep, let us study her pas-


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13sengers a little more closely. How they had been win-nowed by repeated separations from the common herdAt old Scrooby they had separated from all the worldaround them; going from there, the less daring stayedbehind; they had left fnlly half their number, andsurely not the most courageous half, at Leyden; thosewho started and became discouraged had returned atthe last moment with the captain of the " Speedwell;"the remaining ones were surely cast in an heroic mould,and the blood of an hundred kings was not more royalthan was theirs.There were ooe hundred and two passengers upon

the vessel, seventy-three males and twenty-ninefemales. There were fifty-nine adults, eleven hiredemployes or apprentices, and thirty -two children.Nearly all were blessed with plain, old-fashionedEnglish names. One-tifth of the males bore the simplename of John, and almost as many more had that ofWilliam or Edward. Catherine, Elizabeth, Dorothy,Mary, and Ann predominated among the other sex.There were no Lizzies or Bessies or Mollies amongthem. They were very commonly below middle life,and but one couple, so far as is known, was above fiftyyears of age.Concerning the individuals, the chief interest centers

in the names of Carver, Brewster, Bradford, Standish,Fuller, Howland, Hopkins and Alden. Would that wecould stop to speak a word of each one of them! Theydo not need it, for history and literature will keep themgreen in the grateful memory of a mighty nationand of the world through all generations, but perhapswe might be profited thereby.On Saturday, November 20, 1620, the Indians on theouter shore of Cape Cod were able to discern a sailpiercing the rim of the eastern horizon, for that morn-ing the long-deferred, magnetic cry of "Land, hoi"rang out from the masthead of the "Mayflower." TheEnglish company had secured certain land rights forthem from the Virginia Company, whose territory wasto the south, but of very uncertain limitations. The


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13vessel was at once put S. S. E., for it was the purposeto go to the mouth of the Hudson, or below. Encoun-tering shoals at evening, the vessel put back for clearwater, and passed the night. It was represented nowthat it was dangerous to attempt the southern passage.The coast was well known to mariners however, andthe captain was a veteran. In any event, it was deter-mined to put into Cape Cod Harbor and continue in theship until they could construct habitations upon theshore. A month was now passed in exploring theshores and journeying upon the land in quest of a safeharbor and a suitable situation for a town. Theycoasted in the shallop of the ship over the waters andjourneyed upon the land for days together, seeking thebest location for their future home. The safe harbor,the eastern outlook from a sloping back-ground, thenatural advantages for defense, the quality of the soiland the "very sweet brook" and the "many delicatesprings'" as Bradford called them, decided the matter,and they brought the Mayflower upon the last twenty-five miles of her great voyage, past the point where thetwin Gurnet lights now stand, and where it is said thatThorwald the old Norse chieftain found his grave, witha Christian cross at the head and foot, six hundredyears before, past Saquish Point and in full view ofCaptain's Hill, around the most wonderful naturalbreakwater on the Atlantic coast, and made her fast intne harbor of Plymouth.

It was Thursday, December 31, the shortest day inthe year. It had been five long months since the startat Leyden. They had been transplanted from brightSlimmer in the Old World to stern winter in the New.Too well they knew that.

"The breaking- waves dashed hig-hOn a stern and rock-bound coast.*"Undaunted, they marked out "The Street" just north

of the brook and running from the shore back to theabrupt hill. They decided assignments of land by lot.They waited for the Sabbath to pass, and on the fol-lowing Monday morning began the building of the rude


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14cabins which marked the first town of Plymouth. Whatwonder that that street is "Leyden Street." Nearestthe shore and on the left was the "Common House,"and then beyond, on the same side, were six humblen^sidences. Across the street were five more, includ-ing the governor's more roomy if not more statelyhome. At the end of the street, on the hill, stood thestructure which served for fort and church together,and nearest it, for obvious reasons, was the abode ofStandish.The accommodations seemed meager indeed and closeplanning was necessary. The company was separatedinto households so that all were measurably providedfor. But, in a way they knew not, there would soon bemore room. Four had died upon the vessel after shereached the harbor. The fair young wife of Bradford,only twenty-one, had been drowned while lie was awaysearching the site of their new home. Before the warmdays of another summer nine husbands and wives hadfound burial together. Five husbands had been leftwidowers and one wife a widow. But three couplesI'emained unbroken, and but two were not called uponto mourn some member of their families gone. Fivechildren lost both parents, three others were fatherlessand three more were motherless. The first year fifty-onepersons, exactly half their number, went to final restand were laid together on Cole's Hill close by theirhomes, and their graves were obliterated lest theIndians should learn how weak the colony was andshould fall upon and utterly destroy it. Yet, when theMayflower returned to Old England in the w^armerApril days, while they doubtless went to the hill topsand with breaking hearts and tearful eyes, as Bough-ton's famous picture portrays to us, watched her whitesails sink below the eastern horizon, not one of themreturned in her. Feebly, but heroically and surely, thespirit of American institutions had gained foothold inthe New World, and the march of empire was not to bebackward and over the sea, but to the westward.When this little company came sailing into the har-


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15bur of Plymouth, they had a new nation with them.They had established it in the cabin of the Mayflower.Disappointed in not reaching the Hudson or the Dela-ware, wliere they assumed their patent from the Vir-ginia Company would confer landed rights and imposeEnglish law. some of them reasoned that there wouldbe no authority and no rights upon the soil of NewEngland, and that they must at once establish a gov-ernment for themselves. Therefore they called all ofthe adult males to the cabin and adopted and sub-scribed to a compact to "solemnly and mutually, in thepresence of God and one of another, covenant and com-bine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for ourbest ordering and preservation and the furtherance ofthe ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, con-stitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances,acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, asshall be thought most meet and convenient for the gen-eral good of the colony, unto which we promise all duesubmission and obedience." Then they made JohnCarver governor for a determinate time, to end withtheir calendar year.Here was a pure democracy with a written constitu-

tion, upon the basis of manhood suffrage. It was thefirst known instance of the kind in human history.Bancroft says it was the birth of popular constitutional liberty.The limitations of the hour forbid that we shall fol-low the narrative longer, and perhaps reveal the factthat I have already yielded too much to my own inter-est in the details of the fascinating story. But thereare some suggestions of a general character which seempertinent to the occasion, for which I must ask yourkindly patience.In the first ten years the colony had, speaking rough-

ly, increased to five hundred souls, and in the followingten years as many more had been added. But in thelast ten years a settlement of the highest importancehad been llioroughly established on MassachusettsBay, forty miles to the north of it. In that time


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more than twenty thousand English people had madenew homes in Boston. They came in the eleven yearswhen Charles governed England without a parliament,only to make the tyranny of the king sharpen religioushate, stir the mind and nerve the arm of the commons,and clear the road to his prison and his doom. Theyceased coming when the long parliament had gathered,taken up gov8rnment in the name of the people, de-veloped Cromwell and the Ironsides, and brought cabi-net minister and bishop, and finally the king himself,to the bar, and then sent them to the block. Thesenew neighbors were old acquaintances in a way, forthey were Puritans, representatives of one of the twoleading parties in English Protestantism and Englishpolitics.No word of ours can, even by implication, be made todo otherwise than yield honor to the spirit of English

Pui'itanism. No greater or more heroic spirit everbreathed among men. Without intending it, and al-most in spite of itself, it has been the most potent fac-tor in the growth of individuality, in the upbuilding ofcharacter, and in the evolution of popular liberty. Itscoldly logical creed sharpened the faith of men andmade of the faithful the best fightei's the world hasever seen. For the cause they espoused they couldcheerfully die, but never yield. Sincere, undoubting,dreadfully in earnest, singing and praying and preach-ing and fighting together, they made the fields ofNaseby and Dunbar and Marston Moor grounds whichinspire the progress of the human race, for upon themthey taught the Stuart kings and all the world togetherthe grim lesson that if there are divine rights amongmen they are inherent in the people and not in thekingsAnd so the Puritan stock was a good one to enter

into the composition of a new nation, but the Puritanspirit must be chastened and moderated before it couldgive the artist touch to the spirit of liberty across thesea. It was to be a softened Puritan character, asexemplified in the Pilgrim at Plymouth, rather than


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the austere typ(% unchanged and unadapted, as seen inthe Ironsides at the Bay, which was to breathe notonly the spirit of Christianity as they interpreted it,but also of independence, of equality, of liberty, and ofnationality into American life, and by these greatmarks to distinguish it to all the people of the world.The Puritan was in a very large sense a Dependent.He was a devout adherent of the English State Church.Independence from it was sacrilege to him. Its doc-trine was his law and gospel. He diflfered with someof its practices, but when he could control its action hewas content. And, truth to tell, when he was in themajority his way was not so very different from theway of the Conformists when they were in the ma-jority. No other man was ever so fond of having hisown way as this Puritan father of ours, and when hecould be in charge of the procession he was not muchdiscomfited by vestments and ceremonies. He wasan unquestioning supporter of the English State aswell as of the English Church. His opposition to theHouse of Stuart was religious, but it was political aswell as religious. But his opposition to the king neverled him into opposition to the State. It was in hismind to control and not separate from the State. Hewas an excellent leader, but not so good a follower.He liked to lead and he expected to control the peopleabout him. He never thought of seceding until afterhe had taken his next degree. It never occurred tohim to permit his opposition to bishop or king to leadhim beyond the advantages the state or the church couldbestow, and frequently he had ideas of getting to bebishop or king himself.The Pilgrim was an Independent. He had longbefore gone out of the English Church. He loved thelanguage and the common law, and of course he lovedthe hills and the valleys, the high-ways and the struc-tures of Old England. But he was not allowed to lookupon the hills and follow the highways without sur-rendering his freedom, and that he would not do.Long ago he had left the English Church and State


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18behind. Of late he had crossed the wide sea to keepthe language and retain the law of the Mother-land,while he organized a Church without asking leave ofany one, and set up an English State all by himself.In thought and act the Pilgrim was thoroughly anIndependent himself, and the rightful founder of anIndependent State.The Puritan had no understanding and no conceptionof equality of all men before the law. He had beenfamiliar with class distinctions and he did not dislikethem. Indeed, he had never known any other way.There were many men and women at the Baywho belonged to the gentry. They brought with themto the New World the English passion for landed pos-sessions. Each man of them wanted a domain forhimself and his descendants. I am not saying that hewas the worse for this, but only that he was not cryingfor the corner-stone principle of


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19the suffrage upon the basis of manhood. He had seenwhat his Puritan brother had never seen, the equaldivision of estates among all the children. He putfaith in the mass and, after untrammeled discussion, hesteered his course by the will of the greater number.He was the best early representative 6f that Americanspirit which puts all native-born or adopted children ofthe Republic upon a common plane and bestows thehighest rewards upon the most assiduous and the mostdeserving.The Puritan was a bigot. He was an exceedinglyinteresting bigot, it is true He was a timely bigot andhe had a very salutary influence upon individual andnational life, both in England and America. But hewas a bigot all the same. The Puritan did not cotne toMassachusetts to establish religious liberty. That wasthe last thing he wanted for any but himself, and hisdemands were moderate in his own direction He came toestablish a theocratic State, and for a considerabletime he accomplished what he undertook. Citizenshipwas limited to church membership. In discipline hewas unreasonably severe. He taxed his ingenuity, andit was great, to make Hell dreadful and scare peopleinto Heaven. He was not uneducated, but he washighly superstitious. He saw omens for good or evilin the most ordinary occurrenc^^s. Capital offenceswere numerous in his State and he would punish whenhe was so disposed, law or no law. His will was law.He knew no such thing as toleration. All who werenot Puritans were of Satan, and he would have none ofthem. He was not over-charged with pity. His fearof witchcraft, comets, and the visitation of a materialdevil was consuming His theology was logical andsevere, and for it he crucified the flesh. His mannerswere strained and his life steady and exact, his spiritunyielding, his worship altogether sincere and entirelyuninterrupted, and, withal, his doings made for char-acter, for intellectual activity and for progress.The Pilgrim was a Puritan, but he had taken a postgraduate degree. He was in advance of Puritan


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20thought. He was a Puritan in character, but he was aPuritan subdued. He had been chastened by his sor-rows. He had lived for twelve years in a land wherethere was intellectual freedom and complete religioustoleration The laws which he made in his new Statewere more liberal than in any other State upon theearth. He made but eight capital crimes. There weremore than two hundred in England at the beginning ofthis century. He executed his laws fearlessly and withcertainty. When it was necessary to show the savageshis strength and teach them a lesson his retributionwas appalling. In personal morality he was no lessexacting than his neighbor forty miles away. He wel-comed all sects if they would earn their own living andconform to his civil law, and he not only welcomedthem but he gave them a part with him in making andadministering the law they were expected to obey.Standish, the strong right arm of his little State, wasnot of his Church, and there is some reason to think hewas a child of the old Mother Church of Rome. ThePilgrim hung no witches and was remarkably freefrom superstition, for his day and age. He had mademuch progress in courtesy and in generosity. FatherDruillette, a French Jesuit, in his journal refers to hispleasant entertainment by Bradford, when he visitedPlymouth,^ nd speaks of his thoughtfulness in providinga fish dinner because it was Friday. The ears of theBaptist were safe at Plymouth. Roger Williams says:"That great and pious soul, Mr. Winslow, melted andkindly visited me and put a purse of gold into thehands of my wife for our support." The Puritan wasnot given to liberality and toleration, but the Pilgrimwas, and to a degree in advance of his timeThe conditions at the Bay did not permit the buildingof an independent nation. The traditions and thought,the alliances and sympathies, the interests of the officialsand the preaching of the clergy were all against it.This was emphatically true after the Puritan partygot the upper hand in English politics. But the windnever ceased to blow the other way at Plymouth. The


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Pilgrim had no relations to divert his thought from anultimate nationality of his own, and upon the lineswhich he had been following: since the old days whenhe was cheated and robbed and imprisoned and scat-tered abroad, by English power, even in his attempts togain refuge across the North Sea.The Puritan theocracy served its time and its pur-

pose in the plan of the Almighty and then broke doA^n,and we are glad of it. American air would not sustainit. The trend of life in the New World was against it.When, seventy years after the landing, the two coloniesbecame one they moved forward on lines projected atPlymouth, and steadily and surely towards indepen-dence and nationality. Time and exigencies madeSeparatists of the American Puritans. They all movedtogether toward a great climax, that climax an Englishnation substantially upon the plan started in the cabinof the "Mayflower"' and established upon the rock atPlymouth.There was never any alliance of State and Church in

tlie Old Colony. The civil and military organizationswere always separate there. All who led well-orderedlives were welcomed and the suffrage was univer.^al.Piety was common and the reign of the law was su-preme. They had been the first to combine sovereigntyand liberty in one plan. This was the plan upon whicha new nation would grow. It was incompatible withthe religious and political conditions which prevailedover the sea, and it was out of joint with the plan ofgovernment in the Mother-land. Separation was log-ical and inevitable. Brewster and Bradford and Win-slow and Standish were the men whose spirits inspiredOtis and Franklin and the Adamses and Henry andWashington and Jefferson and Hamilton and JohnMarshall and all the other patriots of the Revolutionand fathers of the Constitution. The famous declara-tion by w^hich the American people became a nation,assumed sovereignty and attained independence, wasthe logical and imperative sequence of Separatism


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germinated at old Scrooby, nourished in the Nether-lands and matured at Plymouth.We should never cease to congratulate ourselves andthank God that we live in a great and happy day. Forlis, at lea.st, the old conditions, the old troubles, and theold questions have passed away. We speak of themnow only to illumine the present. The divine rights ofkings have given place to the divine rights of the peo-ple. We make and administer our own laws and weall stand equal before the law. Church and State arecompletely dissociated. Thought and speech are un-hampered. Worship, in whatever form, in the greatCathedral or by the Salvation Army on thecold pavement of a great city, is not onlyunquestioned but always respected. The old RomanChurch and the younger Protestant Church, Reform-ists, Conformists, Non-Conformists, Puritans and Sep-aratists, Presbyterians and Quakers, the disciples ofLuther and of Wesley, of Ignatius Loyola and of Henryof Navarre,Jews and Gentiles, follow their own religiousideas while they gather in peace under one great flag.Better than that, they find plenty of room and they stim-ulate each other to better thinking and to good works.They rejoice in each other's progress and they grow infraternal regard. And so the common intelligence ad-vances and the spirit of the Living God marches on tothe redemption of mankind.And what scene so typical of all this as this mixedcompany, discussing and approving these things, on aSunday afternoon, under the roof of an American StateUniversity?No matter from whence we come, we are all glad thatwe live in this day and in this fair land. Humanevents have been divinely directed. As we witness theheroism and feel the pathos of the past, we place ahigher value upon the heritage which the fathershanded down to us. As we value our inheritancesurely we will not forget the men and women gonebefore. We will see that manhood is above nationality^that the touch of nature which makes all the world

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kin is above dogma, and tliat oneness with tlie (xod ofthe Universe is above the artificial works of men. Wewill recall contributions to our American institutionsand our national life by men and women representingmany nations, speaking many languages and devotedto many creeds. We will revere them all. Surely wewill not forget the Dutch. We will respect and honorEnglish Puritanism and, perhaps above all the rest,we will lavish our gratitude upon those past-mastersof English Puritanism, the sturdy yet gentle men andwomen, who were Pilgrims in the "Mayflower"' andour National Forefathers at Plvmouth

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(1896) An Address at Forefathers' Convocation: New Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts)

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Transcript of (1896) An Address at Forefathers' Convocation: New Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts)