We must not forget that our fathers were exiles from their dearly loved native land, driven by causes which no longer exist.  “Freedom to worship God” is found in England as fully as in America, in our day.  In placing the Atlantic between themselves and the Old World civilizations they made an enormous sacrifice.  It is true that the wonderful advance of our people in all the arts and accomplishments which make life agreeable has transformed the wilderness into a home where men and women can live comfortably, elegantly, happily, if they are of contented disposition; and without that they can be happy nowhere.  What better provision can be made for a mortal man than such as our own Boston can afford its wealthy children?  A palace on Commonwealth Avenue or on Beacon Street; a country-place at Framingham or Lenox; a seaside residence at Nahant, Beverly Farms, Newport, or Bar Harbor; a pew at Trinity or King’s Chapel; a tomb at Mount Auburn or Forest Hills; with the prospect of a memorial stained window after his lamented demise,—­is not this a pretty programme to offer a candidate for human existence?

Give him all these advantages, and he will still be longing to cross the water, to get back to that old home of his fathers, so delightful in itself, so infinitely desirable on account of its nearness to Paris, to Geneva, to Rome, to all that is most interesting in Europe.  The less wealthy, less cultivated, less fastidious class of Americans are not so much haunted by these longings.  But the convenience of living in the Old World is so great, and it is such a trial and such a risk to keep crossing the ocean, that it seems altogether likely that a considerable current of re-migration will gradually develop itself among our people.

Some find the climate of the other side of the Atlantic suits them better than their own.  As the New England characteristics are gradually superseded by those of other races, other forms of belief, and other associations, the time may come when a New Englander will feel more as if he were among his own people in London than in one of our seaboard cities.  The vast majority of our people love their country too well and are too proud of it to be willing to expatriate themselves.  But going back to our old home, to find ourselves among the relatives from whom we have been separated for a few generations, is not like transferring ourselves to a land where another language is spoken, and where there are no ties of blood and no common religious or political traditions.  I, for one, being myself as inveterately rooted an American of the Bostonian variety as ever saw himself mirrored in the Frog Pond, hope that the exchanges of emigrants and re-migrants will be much more evenly balanced by and by than at present.  I hope that more Englishmen like James Smithson will help to build up our scientific and literary institutions.  I hope that more Americans like George Peabody will call down the blessings of the English people by noble