Photogravure after a photograph

The corner-stone of the National Monument to the Forefathers at Plymouth, Mass., was laid August 2, 1859.  The monument was completed in October, 1888, and dedicated with appropriate ceremonies, August 1, 1889.  It is built entirely of granite.  The plan of the principal pedestal is octagonal, with four small, and four large faces; from the small faces project four buttresses.  On the main pedestal stands the heroic figure of Faith, said to be the largest and finest piece of granite statuary in the world.  The sculptor was Joseph Archie, a Spaniard.  Upon the four buttresses are seated figures emblematical of the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth—­Morality, Education, Law, and Freedom.  Each was wrought from a solid block of granite.  On the face of the buttresses, beneath these figures are alto-reliefs in marble, representing scenes from Pilgrim history.  Upon the four faces of the main pedestal are large panels for records.  The right and left panels contain the names of those who came over in the Mayflower.  The rear panel is plain, being reserved for an inscription at some future day.  The front panel is inscribed as follows:  “National Monument to the Forefathers.  Erected by a grateful people in remembrance of their labors, sacrifices and sufferings for the cause of civil and religious liberty.”]

Thanks to Almighty God, who from that distressed, early condition of our fathers, has raised us to a height of prosperity and of happiness, which they neither enjoyed, nor could have anticipated!  We have learned much of them; they could have foreseen little of us.  Would to God, my friends, would to God, that when we carry our affections and our recollections back to that period, we could arm ourselves with something of the stern virtues which supported them, in that hour of peril, and exposure, and suffering.  Would to God that we possessed that unconquerable resolution, stronger than bars of brass or iron, which nerved their hearts; that patience, “sovereign o’er transmuted ill,” and, above all, that faith, that religious faith, which, with eyes fast fixed upon Heaven, tramples all things earthly beneath her triumphant feet! [Applause.]

Gentlemen, the scenes of this world change.  What our ancestors saw and felt, we shall not see nor feel.  What they achieved, it is denied to us even to attempt.  The severer duties of life, requiring the exercise of the stern and unbending virtues, were theirs.  They were called upon for the exhibition of those austere qualities, which, before they came to the Western wilderness, had made them what they were.  Things have changed.  In the progress of society, the fashions, the habits of life, and all its conditions, have changed.  Their rigid sentiments, and their tenets, apparently harsh and exclusive, we are not called on, in every respect, to imitate or commend; or rather to imitate, for we should commend them always,