Opis: Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 21, 1895 - Hoar George F.

Excerpt from Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 21, 1895: At the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims

Surely that people is happy to whom the noblest story in history has come down through father and mother by the unbroken traditions of their own firesides. If there be one thing more than another for which we have to thank God on this anniversary, it is that the tale we have to tell is a familiar household story. The thoughts which are appropriate to the day are commonplaces. Every generation since the Pilgrim landed here has held his memory dear. The light of later days, that has dispelled the intellectual darkness of his time, gives new luster and added nobility to his simple and reverend figure.

So far as honor can be paid by the utterance of the lips, or by the tender affection of the heart, his descendants have never failed in what is due to the Pilgrim. The faults of other founders of States have not been forgotten. They have been kept alive in human memory, not only by the jealous criticism of men of other blood, but by the severe judgment of history. The founder of Rome, the Norman Conqueror of England, the Spaniard in the South, the Cavalier of Jamestown, the settler of the far West - even the Puritan of Massachusetts - is known in history quite as much by his faults, or by his crimes, as by his virtues. Puritan and Cavalier, Royalist and Roundhead may be terms of honor or terms of reproach. But the word Pilgrim is everywhere a word of tenderest association. There is no blot on the memory of the Pilgrim of Plymouth. No word of reproach is uttered when he is mentioned. The fame of the passenger of the Mayflower is as pure and fragrant as its little namesake, sweetest of the flowers of spring. He is the stateliest figure in all history. He passes before is like some holy shade seen in the Paradiso in the vision of Dante.

Certainly you have not failed in due honor to the Pilgrim's memory. You have given him, in every generation, of your best. No incense, no pageant, no annual procession, no statue - though Phidias were the sculptor - no temple - though the dome were rounded by the hand of Angelo - can equal as a votive offering the imperishable oration of Webster. It is the one best offering which could be laid on the Pilgrim's shrine. That majestic eloquence, if not equaled, has been worthily followed by the consummate grace of Everett, the more than oriental imagination of Choate, the stately dignity of Winthrop. Here, too, has stood Sumner - Sumner of the white soul - to lay his wreath on the Pilgrims' altar in right of a martyr spirit, lofty and undaunted as their own. You may well believe that if a competition with these masters were expected to day, I might - as might any living man - shrink from the comparison. But it is not from human, it is not from living lips that you are expecting the lesson of this occasion. You are here to listen to the voices of the dead; to meditate anew the eternal truths on which your fathers founded the State. This imperial people, if it is to bear rule over a continent, must listen to the voice of which David spake with dying lips -

"The Rock spake to me."

You are here to hearken to the voice of the rock.

The most precious earthly reward of a well-spent life is the gratitude and love of children. Surely the Pilgrim has had that. But he looked to no earthly reward, however precious.

"They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and so quieted their spirits."

How few of them there were. There were but forty-eight men who landed upon the rock. But forty-one names are signed to the compact. Of the twenty men who survived the first winter, there are, according to Dr. Palfrey's estimate, not more than eleven - one less than the number of the Apostles - who are favorably known. The rest are eit

Szczegóły: Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 21, 1895 - Hoar George F.

Nazwa: Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 21, 1895 At the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims (Classic Reprint)
Autor: Hoar George F.
Wydawnictwo: FB &c Ltd
Kod paskowy: 9781331863052
Języki: angielski
Ilość stron: 24
Format: 15.2x22.9cm
Oprawa: Miękka

Recenzje: Oration Delivered at Plymouth, December 21, 1895 - Hoar George F.