that no one ever sneered at the Puritans who had met them in halls of debate or crossed swords with them on the field of battle. [Applause.] They are sometimes defamed for their rigorous Sabbaths, but our danger is in the opposite direction of no Sabbaths at all.  It is said that they destroyed witches.  I wish that they had cleared them all out, for the world is full of witches yet, and if at all these tables there is a man who has not sometimes been bewitched, let him hold up his glass of ice-water. [Laughter.] It is said that these Forefathers carried religion into everything, and before a man kissed his wife he asked a blessing, and afterward said:  “Having received another favor from the Lord, let us return thanks.” [Laughter.] But our great need now is more religion in every-day life.

I think their plain diet had much to do with their ruggedness of nature.  They had not as many good things to eat as we have, and they had better digestion.  Now, all the evening some of our best men sit with an awful bad feeling at the pit of their stomach, and the food taken fails to assimilate, and in the agitated digestive organs the lamb and the cow lie down together and get up just as they have a mind to. [Laughter.] After dinner I sat down with my friend to talk.  He had for many years been troubled with indigestion.  I felt guilty when I insisted on his taking that last piece of lemon pie.  I knew that pastry always made him crusty.  I said to him:  “I never felt better in all my life; how do you feel?” And putting one hand over one piece of lemon pie and the other hand over the other piece of lemon pie, he said:  “I feel miserable.”  Smaller varieties of food had the old Fathers, but it did them more good.

Still, take it all in all, I think the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are as good as their ancestors, and in many ways better.  Children are apt to be an echo of their ancestors.  We are apt to put a halo around the Forefathers, but I expect that at our age they were very much like ourselves.  People are not wise when they long for the good old days.  They say:  “Just think of the pride of people at this day!  Just look at the ladies’ hats!” [Laughter.] Why, there is nothing in the ladies’ hats of to-day equal to the coal-scuttle hats a hundred years ago.  They say:  “Just look at the way people dress their hair!” Why, the extremest style of to-day will not equal the top-knots which our great-grandmothers wore, put up with high combs that we would have thought would have made our great-grandfathers die with laughter.  The hair was lifted into a pyramid a foot high.  On the top of that tower lay a white rose.  Shoes of bespangled white kid, and heels two or three inches high.  Grandfather went out to meet her on the floor with a coat of sky-blue silk and vest of white satin embroidered with gold lace, lace ruffles around his wrist and his hair flung in a queue.  The great George Washington had his horse’s hoofs blackened when about to appear on a parade, and writes to Europe ordering sent for the use of himself and family, one silver-lace hat, one pair of silver shoe-buckles, a coat made of fashionable silk, one pair of gold sleeve-buttons, six pairs of kid gloves, one dozen most fashionable cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, besides ruffles and tucker.  That was George. [Laughter.]