And yet this small people—­so obscure and outcast in condition—­so slender in numbers and in means—­so entirely unknown to the proud and great—­so absolutely without name in contemporary records—­whose departure from the Old World took little more than the breath of their bodies—­are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the Mayflower is immortal beyond the Grecian Argo, or the stately ship of any victorious admiral.  Tho this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now how it has come to pass.  The highest greatness surviving time and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man.  Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, tho poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth, such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served.

I know not if any whom I now have the honor of addressing have thought to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as the Mayflower with her company fared forth on their adventurous voyage.  The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that he had “peppered the Puritans.”  The morose Louis XIII, through whom Richelieu ruled, was King of France.  The imbecile Philip III swayed Spain and the Indies.  The persecuting Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of Protestants, was Emperor of Germany.  Paul V, of the House of Borghese, was Pope of Rome.  In the same princely company and all contemporaries were Christian IV, King of Denmark, and his son Christian, Prince of Norway; Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; Sigmund the Third, King of Poland; Frederick, King of Bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy Elizabeth of England, progenitor of the House of Hanover; George William, Margrave of Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Prussian house that has given an emperor to Germany; Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria; Maurice, landgrave of Hesse; Christian, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg; John Frederick, Duke of Wuertemberg and Teck; John, Count of Nassau; Henry, Duke of Lorraine; Isabella, Infanta of Spain and ruler of the Low Countries; Maurice, fourth Prince of Orange; Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy and ancestor of the King of United Italy; Cosmo de Medici, third Grand Duke of Florence; Antonio Priuli, ninety-third Doge of Venice, just after the terrible tragedy commemorated on the English stage as “Venice Preserved”; Bethlehem Gabor, Prince of Unitarian Transylvania, and elected King of Hungary, with the countenance of an African; and the Sultan Mustapha, of Constantinople, twentieth ruler of the Turks.