The New England sire was a stern man on duty and determined to administer discipline totally regardless of previous acquaintance.  He detested all revolutions in which he had taken no part.  If he possessed too much piety, it was tempered by religion; while always seeking out new virtues, he never lost his grip on his vices. [Laughter.] He was always ambitious to acquire a reputation that would extend into the next world.  But in his own individual case he manifested a decided preference for the doctrine of damnation without representation.

When he landed at Plymouth he boldly set about the appalling task of cultivating the alleged soil.  His labors were largely lightened by the fact that there were no agricultural newspapers to direct his efforts.  By a fiction of speech which could not have been conceived by a less ingenious mind, he founded a government based upon a common poverty and called it a commonwealth.  He was prompt and eminently practical in his worldly methods.  In the rigors of a New England winter when he found a witch suffering he brought her in to the fire; when he found an Indian suffering he went out and covered him with a shotgun. [Laughter.]

The discipline of the race, however, is chiefly due to the New England mother.  She could be seen going to church of a Sabbath with the Bible under one arm and a small boy under the other, and her mind equally harassed by the tortures of maternity and eternity.  When her offspring were found suffering from spring fever and the laziness which accompanies it, she braced them up with a heroic dose of brimstone and molasses.  The brimstone given here was a reminder of the discipline hereafter; the molasses has doubtless been chiefly responsible for the tendency of the race to stick to everything, especially their opinions. [Laughter.]

The New Englanders always take the initiative in great national movements.  At Lexington and Concord they marched out alone without waiting for the rest of the Colonies, to have their fling at the red-coats, and a number of the colonists on that occasion succeeded in interfering with British bullets.  It was soon after observed that their afternoon excursion had attracted the attention of England.  They acted in the spirit of the fly who bit the elephant on the tail.  When the fly was asked whether he expected to kill him he said:  “No, but I notice I made him look round.” [Laughter.]

[Illustration:  THE MINUTE MAN

Photogravure after a photograph

In commemoration of the famous Revolutionary struggle of the farmers of Concord, Mass., April 19, 1775, this statue was erected.  The sculptor was Daniel Chester French, a native of Concord.  The statue was unveiled at the centennial celebration of the battle, 1875.  It is of bronze, heroic size, and stands near the town of Concord, by the battlefield, on the side of the Concord River occupied by the Americans.  The position is described by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his lines which are graven in the pedestal of the statue: