I have already dwelt on the significance of the way in which the
Pilgrim Fathers, driven out of England, begin this compact, with
which they begin their life in this new world, with warm
professions of allegiance to England's King.
Old England, whose King and bishops drove them out, is proud of
them to-day, and counts them as truly her children as Shakespeare
and Milton and Vane.
As the American walks the corridors and halls of the Parliament
House at Westminster, he pays no great heed to the painted kings
upon the painted windows, and cares little for the gilded throne
in the gilded House of Lords. The Speaker's chair in the Commons
does not stir him most, nor the white form of Hampden that stands
silent at the door; but his heart beats fastest where, among
great scenes from English triumphs of the days of Puritanism and
the revolution, he sees the departure of the Pilgim Fathers to
found New England.
England will not let that scene go as a part of American history
only, but claims it now as one of the proudest scenes in her own
history, too.
It is a bud of promise, I said, when I first saw it there. Shall
not its full unfolding be some great reunion of the English race,
a prelude to the federation of the world?
Let that picture there in the Parliament House at Westminster
stay always in your mind, to remind you of the England in you.
Let the picture of the signing of the compact on the "Mayflower"
stay with it, to remind you of progress and greater freedom.
That, I take it, is what America--New England, now tempered by
New Germany, New Ireland, New France--that, I take it, is what
America stands for.--Edwin D. Mead.