There was not much money, there was not much popularity then, in being a Puritan, in being a Pilgrim; there is not much profit, there is not much applause, in being to-day a son of the Puritans, in standing as they did for great ideas and convictions, for liberty and righteousness, in holding the same relation to our age that they held to theirs.  But let us be satisfied if, through unpopularity and loneliness and obloquy, we shall have done our duty as they did theirs, and let us hope that when another hundred years have passed, and when the ideal of to-day has become the commonplace of to-morrow, another generation may write over your grave and mine, “A Son of the Puritans.”

DANIEL WEBSTER

THE CONSTITUTION AND THE UNION

[Speech of Daniel Webster at the dinner of the New England Society in the City of New York, December 23, 1850.  The early published form of this address is very rare.  It bears the following title-page:  “Speech of Mr. Webster at the Celebration of the New York New England Society, December 23, 1850.  Washington:  printed by Gideon & Co., 1851.”  The presiding officer of the celebration, Moses H. Grinnell, asked attention of the company to a toast not on the catalogue.  He gave, “The Constitution and the Union, and their Chief Defender.”  This sentiment was received with great applause, which became most tumultuous when Mr. Webster rose to respond.]

MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW YORK NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:—­Ye sons of New England!  Ye brethren of the kindred tie!  I have come hither to-night, not without some inconvenience, that I might behold a congregation whose faces bear lineaments of a New England origin, and whose hearts beat with full New England pulsations. [Cheers.] I willingly make the sacrifice.  I am here, to meet this assembly of the great off-shoot of the Pilgrim Society of Massachusetts, the Pilgrim Society of New York.  And, gentlemen, I shall begin what I have to say, which is but little, by tendering to you my thanks for the invitation extended to me, and by wishing you, one and all, every kind of happiness and prosperity.

Gentlemen, this has been a stormy, a cold, a boisterous and inclement day.  The winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe; and if we had no houses over our heads; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the Heavens, and that God who sits above the Heavens; if we had distressed wives on our arms, and hungry and shivering children clinging to our skirts, we should see something, and feel something, of that scene, which, in the providence of God, was enacted at Plymouth on December 22, 1620.

[Illustration:  THE NATIONAL MONUMENT TO THE FOREFATHERS