our
Pilgrim Fathers. They enacted a law that the right of suffrage should be
limited to church members in good standing. Suppose we had such a law
now, what a mighty revolution it would work either in exterminating
fraud or in promoting piety! "Men and Brethren!" said the colored
parson, "two ways are open before you, the broad and narrow way which
leads to perdition, and the straight and crooked way which leads to
damnation." [Laughter.] We have before us now the two ways of stuffed
ballot-boxes and empty pews, and our problem is to change the stuffing
from the ballot-boxes to the pews. I am not altogether sure which result
would be accomplished; but it is quite clear that if the law of our
Fathers did not destroy corruption in politics, it would at least kindle
a fresh interest in the church. [Laughter.]

Gentlemen, it is with honest pride and fresh inspiration that we gather
once a year to revive our enkindling story. The Santa Maria, with its
antique form and its flying pennant, contrasting the past with the
present, amid the dazzling and now vanishing splendors of the wondrous
White City, has this year recalled the discovery of America. But the
jewel is more precious than the casket. The speaking picture appeals to
us more than its stately setting. And heroic as was the voyage of the
Santa Maria across a trackless sea to an unknown continent, it was the
nobler mission of the Mayflower to bring the priceless seeds of
principle and liberty which have blossomed in the resplendent
development and progress of our great free Republic. Conscience
incarnate in Brewster and Bradford, in Winthrop and Winslow, smote
Plymouth Rock; and from that hour there has poured forth from its rich
fountain a perennial stream of intellectual and moral force which has
flooded and fertilized a broad continent. The Puritan spirit was duty;
the Puritan creed was conscience; the Puritan principle was individual
freedom; the Puritan demand was organized liberty, guaranteed and
regulated by law. [Applause.] That spirit is for to-day as much as for
two centuries ago. It fired at Lexington the shot heard round the world,
and it thundered down the ages in the Emancipation Proclamation. It
lives for no narrow section and it is limited to no single class. The
soul that accepts God and conscience and equal manhood has the Puritan
spirit, whether he comes from Massachusetts or Virginia, from Vermont or
Indiana; whether you call him Quaker or Catholic,