If more were needed to illustrate the new epoch, it would be found in the parting words of the venerable pastor, John Robinson, addressed to the Pilgrims, as they were about to sail from Delfshaven—­words often quoted, yet never enough.  How sweetly and beautifully he says:  “And if God should reveal anything to you by any other instrument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; but I am confident that the Lord hath more light and truth yet to break forth out of his holy word.”  And then how justly the good preacher rebukes those who close their souls to truth!  “The Lutherans, for example, cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw, and whatever part of God’s will he hath further imparted to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace, and so the Calvinists stick where he left them.  This is a misery much to be lamented, for though they were precious, shining lights in their times, God hath not revealed his whole will to them.”  Beyond the merited rebuke, here is a plain recognition of the law of human progress little discerned at the time, which teaches the sure advance of the human family, and opens the vista of the ever-broadening, never-ending future on earth.

Our Pilgrims were few and poor.  The whole outfit of this historic voyage, including L1,700 of trading stock, was only L2,400, and how little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the soldier Captain Miles Standish, who, being sent to England for assistance—­not military, but financial—­(God save the mark!) succeeded in borrowing—­how much do you suppose?—­L150 sterling. [Laughter.] Something in the way of help; and the historian adds, “though at fifty per cent. interest.”  So much for a valiant soldier on a financial expedition. [Laughter, in which General Sherman and the company joined.] A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony L200 at a reduced interest of thirty per cent.  Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants. [Laughter.] But I know not if any son of New England, oppressed by exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the Pilgrims paid the same.

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.  Though 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. [Applause.] 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, though 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 [great applause], such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads coextensive with the cause they served.