Mr. President, with these thoughts, which I imperfectly express, I confess my obligations to the forefathers of New England, and offer to them the homage of a grateful heart.  But not in thanksgiving only would I celebrate their memory.  I would if I could make their example a universal lesson, and stamp it upon the land.  The conscience which directed them should be the guide for our public councils.  The just and equal laws which they required should be ordained by us, and the hospitality to truth which was their rule should be ours.  Nor would I forget their courage and stedfastness.  Had they turned back or wavered, I know not what would have been the record of this continent, but I see clearly that a great example would have been lost.  Had Columbus yielded to his mutinous crew and returned to Spain without his great discovery; had Washington shrunk away disheartened by British power and the snows of New Jersey, these great instances would have been wanting for the encouragement of men.  But our Pilgrims belong to the same heroic company, and their example is not less precious.

Only a short time after the landing on Plymouth Rock, the great republican poet, John Milton, wrote his “Comus,” so wonderful for beauty and truth.  His nature was more refined than that of the Pilgrims, and yet it requires little effort of imagination to catch from one of them, or at least from their beloved pastor, the exquisite, almost angelic words at the close—­

     “Mortals, who would follow me,
     Love Virtue; she alone is free;
     She can teach ye how to climb
     Higher than the sphery chime. 
     Or if Virtue feeble were,
     Heaven itself would stoop to her.”

THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACE

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce:—­I rise with some trepidation to respond to this toast, because we have been assured upon high authority, altho after what we have heard this evening we can not believe it, that the English-speaking race speaks altogether too much.  Our eloquent Minister in England recently congratulated the Mechanics’ Institute at Nottingham that it had abolished its debating club, and said that he gladly anticipated the establishment in all great institutions of education of a professorship of Silence.  I confess that the proposal never seemed to me so timely and wise as at this moment.  If I had only taken a high degree in silence, Mr. Chairman, how cordially you would congratulate me and this cheerful company!

When Mr. Phelps proceeded to say that Americans are not allowed to talk all the time, and that our orators are turned loose upon the public only once in four years, I was lost in admiration of the boundless sweep of his imagination.  But when he said that the result of this quadrennial outburst was to make the country grateful that it did not come oftener, I saw that his case required heroic treatment, and must be turned over to Dr. Depew.