["Behold the little Mayflower, rounding now the southern Cape of England, filled with husbands, and wives, and children, families of righteous men, under 'covenant with God and each other,' to 'lay some good foundation for religion,' engaged both to make and to keep their own laws, expecting to supply their own wants, and bear their own burdens, assisted by none but the God in whom they trusted. Here are the hands of industry! the germs of liberty! the dear pledges of order! and the sacred beginnings of a home!"- Dr. Bushnell's Address, at New York, Dec. 22, 1849.]

TRIBUTE TO THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

England Society Committee at Washington, declining their invitation to a dinner on the anniversary of Fore causes has so inconsiderable a beginning, under such formfather's Day, thus speaks of the Pilgrims:-"By what idable, and apparently almost insurmountable difficulties, resulted in so brief a period in such mighty consequences? They are to be found in the high moral and intellectual qualities of the Pilgrims. Their faith, piety, and confident trust in a Superintending Providence; their stern virtues; their patriotic love of liberty and order; their devotion to learning; and their indomitable courage and perseverance. These are the causes which have surmounted every obstacle, and led to such mighty results."

The late Hon. John C. Calhoun, in his letter to the New

The first stone of the foundation of the tower, the great feature of the church, was laid upon the Monday after the Feast of St. John the Baptist, in the year 1309, being the third year of the reign of Edward II., by Dame Margery Tilney, who gave, at that time, £5 sterling to the work. The church was completed in the reign of Henry VII., and is considered the finest parish church in England. The tower is about two hundred and sixty-three feet high, terminated by a very beautiful octagon lantern.

This lantern was formerly lighted at night, and served not only as a landmark at sea, but to enable travellers crossing the fens and marshes of Lincolnshire to guide their courses aright, as the original steeple of Bow Church in Cheapside, was "furnished nightly with five lanterns, that those approaching London might the better find their way."

The interior of the church is vast and imposing, but it has in the progress of time been shorn of much of its original beauty. The windows were originally filled with stained glass, of which none now remains, and all the more delicate ornaments throughout the church have been defaced or entirely destroyed.

and

The old town of Boston, Lincolnshire, has many claims In August, 1856, was commenced the work of restoring to the remembrance of the sons of the Pilgrims. Here a portion of the church, and especially the South-west they came first to take passage to Holland, and met with Chapel, which had become very much dilapidated, their first misadventure,- here, notwithstanding the en- the citizens of Boston, New England, in grateful rememmity of king and bishops, they found many sympathizing brance of the connection of the Rev. John Cotton with St. friends, even the magistrates feeling and acting in their Botolph's, of which he was Vicar previous to his emigrabehalf; in the old Town Hall, Brewster, Bradford, and tion to America, contributed £670 towards the expenses of their companions, were examined before the magistrates, restoration. An interesting account of the ceremonies at and bound over to the assizes, probably to permit them to the inauguration of the restored chapel, with a description escape;-and here they left at their departure the seeds of the work itself, appeared at the time in the "Illustrated of the colony which was to follow them in a few years, London News," from which is copied below the address of and found at the head of Massachusetts Bay the new Bos- the Vicar to the Hon. G. M. Dallas, then American Minton, which has now so far outstripped in population, and ister to England, with a portion of his remarks in reply:fame, its ancient mother town.

At the time of the flight of the Pilgrims to Holland, To the Hon. G. M. Dallas, Minister of the United States: Boston was the most important seaport on the eastern May it please your Excellency,- We, the Mayor, clergy, coast of England, and the most convenient point of and church-wardens of Boston, and the committee engaged embarkation for that country. It had been for four cen- in conducting the ceremonies of this day, desire to express turies a place of great wealth and commerce, paying in to you, and through you to those fellow-citizens whom you 1204 a tax upon land and goods second only to London, and, in 1359, furnishing seventeen ships and 361 men to which has restored completely a portion of this edifice, represent, our deep appreciation of the munificent gift Edward III., for the invasion of Brittany. In the reign" our holy and beautiful house," in which our common of Elizabeth, it was fast declining in wealth and import- fathers worshipped God. ance, and it is now a mere market town for the rich agri- We receive, also, with much pleasure, within these an

cultural district in which it is situated.

cient walls, the memorial of a former Vicar of this parish, The Town Hall is a quaint building, in the last style of who, in the Providence of God, became one of the settlers Gothic architecture, now rapidly going to decay: Num- of New England, and the founders of a city which bears bers of old buildings, some of wood, others of brick with our name; and we gratefully recognize, in this generous stone dressings, quaint high-pointed gables, and steep compliment which has been paid to us by his descendants roofs, show the influence of Dutch trade and taste, and and countrymen, proof of that kindly affection which has so suggest the appearance of the town when our forefathers, long existed between the two Bostons, and a renewed pledge with their wives and families, were marched through the (as we believe) of that international friendship which our streets, the victims of the Court of High Commission,common parentage binds us to maintain. "exposed as a spectacle to the multitude who came from all sides to behold them."

That such affection may be increased a hundredfold, and

descent from this magnificent pile was to the humble mud The fact that a large portion of the pilgrims were young and straw enclosure of his meeting-shed. His fervid and men and women, with their children, and young people unfearless genius made of that little lecture room a focus married, should not be overlooked. A number of them whence radiated the glowing beams of spiritual freedom. were under twenty, and few only had more than reached Indeed, the rapid growth of the whole region attests the the meridian of life. Ardent, full of hope, they led the power and purity of the seed first sown, and irresistibly way, the forlorn-hope that storms the fortress, and perproves the virtuous zeal and energy with which he and his ishes in the attempt. They opened the gates to this broad associates worked at the foundation of an empire.-I and rich domain. They saw the land of promise, but fell touch on this without going further, and only as explana- as their feet touched its borders, or ere any of them had tory why Ishmut relinquished its Indian name, preferring long been permitted to enjoy those civil and religious inyours, and why the citizens of that now opulent and re-stitutions of which they planted the seed, while over their fined metropolis naturally press forward, as soon as per- neglected dust a crowding population has gone up to take mitted, with the tributes of a just and honorable gratitude." possession of every valley and hill-top. An elegant brass tablet is affixed to the wall beneath the eastern arch, bearing a Latin inscription from the classical pen of the Hon. Edward Everett.

THE PILGRIMS OF THE MAY-FLOWER.

Have these men and women, that thus periled all, and thus fell in the very flower of their life, no claim on our grateful remembrance? Have they no claim on the young men and young women of this day? Is it not fitting that some monumental pile should be placed where they landed,

mouth to feel much interest in this monument enterprise ?" Does any one say, "I am too far removed from PlyBut are you removed beyond the benefits- the inestimable privileges, civil and religious, which are daily flowing and spreading wider and wider through the land, from the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth? What has distance to do with the question?

where, too, they fell, and where their dust still reposes, In the opinion of not a few persons, they were a set of -a structure worthy of such men-of such women, and stern, bigoted, and intolerant men, who fled from persecu- of such sacrifices, and on which shall be inscribed their tion in their native land to become the persecutors of others names? Is it not fitting that the young men and young weaker than themselves. But nothing can be farther from women of this age should place their names within this the truth. The pilgrims of the May-Flower were a com- structure, that coming generations may know who willingpany of men and gentle women, with their children,-aly contributed to this end, in grateful remembrance of the large portion of them young men and women, between the sacrifices and sufferings, and to commemorate the early twenty and thirty years of age when they left England for death of those Pilgrims of the May-Flower?" Holland, where they remained some twelve years, and then embarked for the New World. In number about one hundred, they left Delfthaven, August 1, 1620, and, after several delays on the coast of England, they reached that of New England (then known as Northern Virginia), near the beginning of winter. The work of exploring the coast for a suitable landing place was attended with peril, from the climate and the Indians, and occupied many days. A company sent out for this purpose in an open boat found themselves in a storm of snow and rain, the sea rough, their rudder gone, their mast broken in three parts, overtaken by one of the darkest of December nights, under the lee of a small island in Plymouth harbor. Here the Sabbath found them, but they were not the men to pursue their explorations on that day. They rested, and for the first time the silence of the New England wilderness was broken by the voice of Christian worship and a Christian Sabbath. At length the landing was effected on the 21st of December, 1620. That EVENT is the parent of all the other events in our national history, which we commemorate by monumental structures or by annual festivities. In cherishing and honoring the children, then, let us not be unmindful of so worthy a parent.

It is not merely for the people of Plymouth, of Massasachusetts, of New England, but of the Nation, without distinction of sect or party, to be interested in this great work, and to aid in bringing it to its completion. Wherever intelligent Faith, with her open Bible, and pointing heavenward; wherever Morality, Education, Law, and Liberty are recognized and cherished in this land, there should be found liberal contributors to the erection of a structure which shall be an honor to the Pilgrims, an honor to the contributors, and an honor to the age and nation.

us now these twelve years, and yet we never had any suit or accusa

tion against any of them."- Bradford, vol. 3, p. 20.
refer the reader to an able article in the "Congregational Quarterly "for

On the question, "Did the Pilgrims wrong the Indians?" we would

April, 1859, from which we make a single extract:

Having landed, the work of preparing some means of shelter was at once commenced. The privations and sufferings of almost shelterless women and children, without sufficient food, and even what they had, injured by the long voyage,-scanty clothing, colds and sickness from exposure, of these things we can but faintly conceive in our luxuriously-furnished dwellings, by our comfortable fire-sides, and in our expensive garments. As a result of their privations and exposure, within the first four months after the landing, forty-four of their number had passed away, and their graves were carefully concealed and leveled, and sown with grain, that the keen-eyed and hos-cessfully employed in converting them. tile Indian might not learn their decreasing number and consequent weakness. And before the first anniversary of their landing six others had increased the number of the dead, thus leaving but half the orignal number; and nearly all of those self-sacrificing men and women had gone from the scene of their privations aud sufferings before that period of persecution on which some persons persist in fixing their minds.*

Individuals among the early settlers may have trespassed upon the rights of the Indians, and done them wrong, but The fact that the first attempts in modern times to evangelize the heathen were made by the Pilgrims on the natives of New England; that the first missionary organization in Protestant Christendom-the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians in North America, was formed solely to aid these attempts; that, previously to the breaking out of Philip's War, these missionary labors had resulted in the translation of the entire Bible into the Indian tongue; the gathering of six Indian churches out of thirty-six villages of praying Indians, and the actual employment of nearly fifty teachers and catechists, English and Indian, in the religiors and educational training of those children of the forest, at an annual expense of between seven and eight hundred pounds sterling, these authentic and world-known facts might indeed be set in triumphant array against the rumors of wrong and outrage inflicted on these poor heathen by the very men who were so laboriously and suc

*It may be proper to cite, in this connection, a small portion of the testimony at hand in regard to the character of the Pilgrims,-remarking in the first place, however, that we are not to judge men of their day by present light and present standards. We live in a more tolerant age, and cannot but feel that many, at least, of the faults of that period, were faults of the times, rather than of the men, whatever may have been the particular religious communion in which they were found. Cheerfully do we allow the force of this remark to apply to those whom history records as the persecutors of the early Puritans, and of the Pilgrims immediately preceding their departure from their native land. May equal liberality of sentiment be entertained toward the Pilgrims and the early Fathers of New England, though we feel that there is but little, if any occasion, for apology in their behalf.

There are at least two sorts of people to whom the world owe most of their misconceptions in this matter; and it so happens that they are persons with whom historical facts have little or no weight. One is the sentimentalist, whose interest in the children of the forest,' and their feather-cinctured chief,' is merely a poetic fancy or fervor, which cannot endure the idea of turning an Indian hunting-grou d'into a corninto a steamboat (and a squalid wigwam into a refined and Christian field, a stone-mortar and pestle into a grist-mill, and a birch-bark canoe dwelling.] Another is the ultra-philanthropist, whose humanity is of a texture to be less shocked at seeing a neighbor murdered, than at seeing the murderer hung: and who must, therefore, from principle and conscience and consistency, condemn the man-especially the Christian man who shoots down a savage, when he might avoid the necessity by permitting himself to be tomahawked first. Historical facts, whatever their bearing, can have no influence on either of these classes, so long as it still remains an admitted fact that the white man has actually supplanted the red."

James Otis used the following language to Governor Barnard, in 1767. "The Indians had perfect confidence in our Fathers, and applied to them in all their difficulties. Nothing has been omitted which justice or humanity required. We glory in their conduct; we boast of it as unexampled."

To the above may be added the following from John Quincy Adams, on the New England Confederacy:-"The whole territory of New England was thus purchased, for valuable consideration, by the newcomers, and the Indian title was extinguished by compact, fulfilling the law of justice between man and man. The most eminent writer on the respect to our forefathers, for their rigid observance, in this respect, of the natural right of the indigenous natives of the country. It is from the example of the New England Puritans that he draws the preceptive rule, and he awards to them merited honors for having established it."

"While, therefore, it would doubtless be unwise to claim for them an exemption from the common infirmities of our nature, the opposite ex-law of nations, of modern times (Vattel), has paid a worthy tribute of treme, which withholds a just recognition of their high achievements, is liable to far greater condemnat' on."

The testimony of the Dutch nagistrates as to the character of the Pilgrims at their embarkation for America, is," They have lived among