s small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so
slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and
great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose
departure from the Old World took little more than the breath of their
bodies--are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the _Mayflower_
is immortal beyond the Grecian _Argo_, or the stately ship of any
victorious admiral. Tho this was little foreseen in their day, it is
plain now how it has come to pass. The highest greatness surviving time
and storm is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and
cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the
circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight;
but the pioneers of truth, tho poor and lowly, especially those whose
example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not
perish from the earth, such harbingers can never be forgotten, and their
renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served.

I know not if any whom I now have the honor of addressing have thought
to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as
the _Mayflower_ with her company fared forth on their adventurous
voyage. The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that
he had "peppered the Puritans." The morose Louis XIII, through whom
Richelieu ruled, was King of France. The imbecile Philip III swayed
Spain and the Indies. The persecuting Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of
Protestants, was Emperor of Germany. Paul V, of the House of Borghese,
was Pope of Rome. In the same princely company and all contemporaries
were Christian IV, King of Denmark, and his son Christian, Prince of
Norway; Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; Sigmund the Third, King of
Poland; Frederick, King of Bohemia, with his wife, the unhappy Elizabeth
of England, progenitor of the House of Hanover; George William, Margrave
of Brandenburg, and ancestor of the Prussian house that has given an
emperor to Germany; Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria; Maurice, landgrave of
Hesse; Christian, Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburg; John Frederick, Duke
of Wuertemberg and Teck; John, Count of Nassau; Henry, Duke of Lorraine;
Isabella, Infanta of Spain and ruler of the Low Countries; Maurice,
fourth Prince of Orange; Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy and ancestor of
the King of United Italy; Cosmo de Medici