and the ores from the earth, shall have been weighed, counted, and valued, we will turn from all to crown with the highest honor the State that has most promoted education, virtue, justice, and patriotism among its people.

THE PILGRIMS 1

W. C. P. BRECKENRIDGE

(1889)

WILLIAM CAMPBELL PRESTON BRECKENRIDGE (1837-1904), statesman, was born near Baltimore, Maryland. He was educated at Centre College, Kentucky, and in the Law Department of the University of Louisville. He served in the Confederate army from 1861 to the close of the Civil War, with rank of captain and colonel. For two years after the close of the war he was an editor at Lexington, Kentucky. Later, he was appointed professor of history in the Law Department of Kentucky University. He served ten years in Congress.

My countrymen: In the midst of fierce disputations, of trials and perils, there never was a moment when the heroic sacrifices, the devotion to truth, the fidelity to conviction, of those who landed not only at Plymouth, but at all points in New England, did not receive my hearty gratitude and cordial praise.

We are the children of exiles and emigrants. We spring from the same common root, and are of the same blood. Our fathers came for the same general purpose, and together won a common independence; and to-day,

1 This is an extract from an oration delivered by W. C. P. Breckenridge, in 1869, at the dedication of the National Monument to the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

standing near where Elder Brewster and William Bradford, John Carver, and Miles Standish 1 landed, I am as much at home as under the shadow of the monument which Massachusetts helped to build to Henry Clay. And when I project myself into the mighty and ever widening future with the ever increasing application of truth to human institutions, I never attempt to separate what the sons of New England will do from that which Virginia's and Kentucky's sons may also do.

"In the name of God, Amen!"

On the 21st day of November, 1620, in the cabin of the Mayflower, as she lay at anchor in Provincetown Harbor, the compact signed by the adult males of that immortal ship's company of exiles began with this solemn phrase — the formal, technical, habitual beginning of solemn instruments; and to-day, amid such different conditions, we repeat with intense and loving emphasis the old phrase, and load each word with gratitude and praise. As we gather to dedicate this monument to the memory of those illustrious forefathers, to the honor of their principles and convictions, to the grateful applause of all freemen for their labors and sacrifices, and ourselves and the future to the preservation and amplification of true liberty, we reverently - like unto the statue of faith-uplift our faces and raise our hands to the unchanged heavens and the

1 Elder Brewster was the spiritual head of the Pilgrims. John Carver and William Bradford were successively governors of the colony founded at Plymouth. Miles or Myles Standish was the military commander at Plymouth.

2 See biographical note, page 67.

changeless Father, and solemnly repeat-"In the name of God, Amen!"

even so now

It is not a mere fanciful conception that in this phrase lies the power which produced, and the seed from which sprung, the action of that company and the results thereof. It is, perhaps, true that he who drafted that instrument somewhat unconsciously and as a matter of common habit used that formal phrase with which it was then customary to open solemn instruments; and it may be further true that those who subscribed their names may not have felt any special thrill as these words were read aloud to them in the little cabin; and yet it is further true that this purposeto do and to live "in the name of God" — is the only possible, as it is the amply sufficient, explanation of all which had preceded and all which has followed that act. It has been plausibly and eloquently urged that one of the honors to be given to these revered men is that they were “at the beginning" of our institutions; and that they left behind them the old forms and institutions, based on new principles and protected by new and original government modes. This is a captivating picture and attracts the heart.

That in this new and virgin continent, on this seabeaten coast, in the august presence of Jehovah, these few pious, loving, and heroic souls laid in prayer and trust the foundations of a new and puissant nation, unsoiled with the corruptions, unstained with the vices, untrammeled with the traditions, unperplexed with the problems, of the Old World; that in the very act of laying the corner stone they also buried all of the past that was not of good to man and from God; that thus

freed from the slavery of tradition and the thralldom of institutions, their hearts filled with sincere love of God and earnest love for man, they were divinely led to reject the evil and select only the good in the formation of a new society thus fabricated by themis indeed a picture, which, when drawn by the hand of a master, enchains the eye and enchants the heart. But this is not the historic nor the philosophical truth, and does injustice to the forefathers and to those who were coworkers with them, and the more truthful is the picture of them and their work, the greater honor do we render unto them.

HUMANITY AND GOD1

FRANCES E. WILLARD

(1890)

FRANCES E. WILLARD (1839-1898) was born at Churchville, near Rochester, New York. She was educated at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. For a time she taught in her alma mater, later traveling and studying in Europe and the East. She early became a leader in the temperance reform movement, and for sixteen years traveled almost constantly in this interest. For seventeen years she was president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, until 1897, when ill health compelled her to relinquish her work.

I wish we were all more thoroughly students of the mighty past, for we should thus be rendered braver prophets of the

future, and more cheerful workers in the present. History shows us with what tenacity the human race survives. Earthquake, famine, and pestilence have done their worst, but over them rolls a healing tide of years and they are lost to view; on sweeps the great procession, and hardly shows a scar. Rulers around whom clustered new forms of civilization pass away; but greater men succeed them. Nations are rooted up; great hopes seem blighted; revolutions rise, and

1 From an address before a Convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, at Atlanta, Georgia. This selection is taken from the version in "The World's Famous Orations," by permission of Funk & Wagnalls Company.