[Speech of Charles Emory Smith at the thirteenth annual dinner of
the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22,
1893. Mr. Smith, then President of the Society, delivered the usual
introductory address of the presiding officer, immediately after
ex-President Benjamin F. Harrison had spoken.]
HONORED GUESTS AND FELLOW-MEMBERS:--I am sure that you have
greatly enjoyed the brilliant and witty speech to which you have just
listened--a speech which shows that our distinguished guest is as
felicitous at the dinner-table as he is signally successful in other
fields of oratory. But if you have deluded yourself with the idea that
because of this change in the programme you are to escape the infliction
of the usual address by the President of the Society, it is now my duty
to undeceive you. [Laughter.] Even the keen reflections of General
Harrison respecting the prepared impromptu speeches shall not deter us.
The rest of us who are not as gifted as he is have expended too much
midnight oil and sacrificed too much of the gray matter of the brain to
lose our opportunity. You will see that we have anticipated his
impromptu observations by carefully premeditating our impromptu reply.
[Laughter.] Lord Beaconsfield said that Carlyle had reasons to speak
civilly of Cromwell, for Cromwell would have hanged him. [Laughter.]
General Harrison has been hanging the rest of us--yes, hanging and
quartering us--though this is far from being the only reason for
speaking civilly of him, and yet we must go on with the exhibition.
You have observed that on the programme, as arranged by the Committee,
the first number is a prelude by the President and the last a hymn by
the Society. The Committee evidently intended to begin and end with
music. What particular solo they expect me to perform I am somewhat
uncertain. But the truth is you have already had a part of the music and
you will have the rest when I am done. For my part is only that of the
leader in the old Puritan choir--to take up the tuning fork and pitch
the key; and I do this when I say that we are assembled for the two
hundred and seventy-third time [laughter] to commemorate the landing of
the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. If any one doubts the correctness of that
chronology, let him consult Brothers Shortridge and Lewis and Clark and
Cornish, who have been with us from the beginning. [Laughter.] We have
met to celebrate these fourfathers [laughter], as well as some others,
and to glorify ourselves. If we had any doubts about the duty we owe our
ancestors, we have no scruples about the satisfaction we take in their
posterity. "My idea of first-rate poetry," said Josh Billings, "is the
kind of poetry that I would have writ." So our idea of first-rate
posterity is the kind of posterity we are. [Laughter.]
But while not forgetting the posterity, it is not forbidden at these
dinners to make an occasional and casual allusion to the Pilgrim
Fathers. Thackeray tells us of an ardent young lady who had a devotion
of the same sort to "Nicholas Nickleby." When she wanted instruction,
she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she wanted amusement, she read
"Nicholas Nickleby." When she had leisure, she read "Nicholas Nickleby."
When she was busy, she read "Nicholas Nickleby." When she was sick, she
read "Nicholas Nickleby," and when she got well, she read "Nicholas
Nickleby" over again. [Laughter.] We return with the same infrequent,
inconstant and uncertain fidelity to the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers.
If we seek the light persiflage and airy humor of the after-dinner
spirit, we find an inexhaustible fountain in the quaint customs and odd
conceits of the Pilgrim Fathers. If we seek the enkindling fire and the
moral elevation of high principle and profound conviction and resolute
courage, we find a never-ceasing inspiration in the unfaltering
earnestness and imperishable deeds of the Pilgrim Fathers. [Applause.]
After praying for all the rest of mankind, the good colored preacher
closed up with the invocation "And, finally, O Lord! bless the people of
the uninhabited portions of the globe." [Laughter.] We are sometimes as
comprehensive in our good-will as the colored brother; but to-night we
fix our thoughts upon that more limited portion of mankind which belongs
in nativity or ancestry to that more restricted part of the globe known
as New England.
We are here to sing the praises of these sturdy people. They, too,
sang--and sang with a fervor that was celebrated in the memorable
inscription on one of the pews of old Salem Church:--
"Could poor King David but for once
To Salem Church repair,
And hear his Psalms thus warbled out,
Good Lord! how he would swear."
And it was not in Salem Church, either, that the Psalms were sung with
the peculiar variations of which we have record. An enterprising
establishment proposed to furnish all the hymn-books to a congregation
not abundantly blessed with this world's goods, provided it might insert
a little advertisement. The thrifty congregation in turn thought there
would be no harm in binding up any proper announcement with Watt and
Doddridge; but when they assembled on Christmas morning, they started
back aghast as they found themselves singing--
"Hark! The herald angels sing,
Beecham's Pills are just the thing;
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
Two for man and one for child."
But if the Pilgrim Fathers were not the sweetest warblers, they at least
never wobbled. They always went direct to their mark. As Emerson said of
Napoleon, they would shorten a straight line to get at a point. They
faced the terrors of the New England northeast blast and starved in the
wilderness in order that we might live in freedom. We have literally
turned the tables on them and patiently endure the trying hardships of
this festive board in order that their memories may not die in
forgetfulness.
We can never forget the hardships which they were forced to endure, but
at the same time we must recognize that they had some advantages over
us. They escaped some of the inflictions to which we have been compelled
to submit. They braved the wintry blast of Plymouth, but they never knew
the everlasting wind of the United States Senate. [Laughter.] They
slumbered under the long sermons of Cotton Mather, but they never
dreamed of the fourteen consecutive hours of Nebraska Allen or Nevada
Stewart. They battled with Armenian dogmas and Antinomian heresies, but
they never experienced the exhilarating delights of the Silver debate
or throbbed under the rapturous and tumultuous emotions of a Tariff
Schedule. [Laughter.]
They had their days of festivity. They observed the annual day of
Thanksgiving with a reverent, and not infrequently with a jocund,
spirit; but advanced as they were in many respects, they never reached
that sublime moral elevation and that high state of civilization which
enable us in our day to see that the only true way to observe
Thanksgiving is to shut up the churches and revel in the spiritual
glories of the flying wedge and the triumphant touchdown. [Laughter.]
Their calendar had three great red-letter days of celebration:
Commencement day, which expressed and emphasized the foremost place they
gave to education in their civil and religious polity; Training or
Muster day, which illustrated the spirit and the skill that gave them
victory over the Indians and made them stand undaunted on Bunker Hill
under Warren and Putnam until above the gleaming column of red-coats
they could look into the whites of the enemies' eyes; and Election day,
upon which, with its election sermon and its solemn choice of rulers,
they acted out their high sense of patriotic duty to the Commonwealth.
We are deeply concerned in these days about the debasement of the
ballot-box. Perhaps we could find a panacea in the practice of our
Pilgrim Fathers. They enacted a law that the right of suffrage should be
limited to church members in good standing. Suppose we had such a law
now, what a mighty revolution it would work either in exterminating
fraud or in promoting piety! "Men and Brethren!" said the colored
parson, "two ways are open before you, the broad and narrow way which
leads to perdition, and the straight and crooked way which leads to
damnation." [Laughter.] We have before us now the two ways of stuffed
ballot-boxes and empty pews, and our problem is to change the stuffing
from the ballot-boxes to the pews. I am not altogether sure which result
would be accomplished; but it is quite clear that if the law of our
Fathers did not destroy corruption in politics, it would at least kindle
a fresh interest in the church. [Laughter.]
Gentlemen, it is with honest pride and fresh inspiration that we gather
once a year to revive our enkindling story. The Santa Maria, with its
antique form and its flying pennant, contrasting the past with the
present, amid the dazzling and now vanishing splendors of the wondrous
White City, has this year recalled the discovery of America. But the
jewel is more precious than the casket. The speaking picture appeals to
us more than its stately setting. And heroic as was the voyage of the
Santa Maria across a trackless sea to an unknown continent, it was the
nobler mission of the Mayflower to bring the priceless seeds of
principle and liberty which have blossomed in the resplendent
development and progress of our great free Republic. Conscience
incarnate in Brewster and Bradford, in Winthrop and Winslow, smote
Plymouth Rock; and from that hour there has poured forth from its rich
fountain a perennial stream of intellectual and moral force which has
flooded and fertilized a broad continent. The Puritan spirit was duty;
the Puritan creed was conscience; the Puritan principle was individual
freedom; the Puritan demand was organized liberty, guaranteed and
regulated by law. [Applause.] That spirit is for to-day as much as for
two centuries ago. It fired at Lexington the shot heard round the world,
and it thundered down the ages in the Emancipation Proclamation. It
lives for no narrow section and it is limited to no single class. The
soul that accepts God and conscience and equal manhood has the Puritan
spirit, whether he comes from Massachusetts or Virginia, from Vermont or
Indiana; whether you call him Quaker or Catholic, disciple of Saint
Nicholas or follower of Saint George. [Applause.] The Puritan did not
pass away with his early struggles. He has changed his garb and his
speech; he has advanced with the progress of the age; but in his
fidelity to principle and his devotion to duty he lives to-day as truly
as he lived in the days of the Puritan Revolution and the Puritan
Pilgrimage. His spirit shines in the lofty teachings of Channing and in
the unbending principles of Sumner, in the ripened wisdom of Emerson and
in the rhythmical lessons of Longfellow. The courageous John Pym was not
more resolute and penetrating in leading the great struggle in the Long
Parliament than was George F. Edmunds in the Senate of the United
States. And the intrepid and sagacious John Hampden, heroic in battle
and supreme in council, wise, steadfast, and true, was but a prototype
of Benjamin Harrison.