ciety at Rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the
same delicate irony with which Mr. Disraeli has described a part of
English society in "Lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be
devoured with more avidity and interest. [Loud cheers.] Thus, sir, we
are an anomalous body, with very ill-defined limits. But, such as we
are, we are heartily obliged to you for wishing us well, and I give you
our most sincere thanks. [Cheers.]

MELVILLE WESTON FULLER

THE SUPREME COURT

[Speech of Melville W. Fuller at the fifth annual dinner of the New
England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22, 1888. The
President, Heman L. Wayland, D.D., said in introducing Justice
Fuller:--"The reverence of New England for law and her readiness to
make law (a readiness, perhaps our enemies will say, to make them for
other people) naturally suggests the topic which is first on the
programme--'New England in the Supreme Court.' I shall not enlarge
upon the sentiment, lest I should only mar the canvas which will
shortly be illumined by the hand of a master. The case of New England
versus The World has long been in court; the evidence is in; the
learned counsel have been heard; and now, before the case is finally
given to the intelligent jury of the human race, it remains only that
we hear a charge from his honor, the Chief Justice of the United
States."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:--I
thank you sincerely for the courtesy which has afforded me the
opportunity of being with you this evening, and am deeply sensible of
the compliment paid in the request to respond to the sentiment just
given.

We all know--we have heard over and over again--that the "Day We
Celebrate" commemorates an emigration peculiar in its causes. It was not
the desire to acquire wealth or power, nor even the spirit of adventure,
that sent these colonists forth. They did not go to return, but to
abide; and while they sought to make another country theirs, primarily
to enjoy religious independence, they were much too sagacious not to
know that emancipation from the ecclesiastical thraldom, of which they
complained, involved the attainment of political rights and immunities
as well. And so this day commemorates not simply the heroism of struggle
and endurance in silence and apart, for a great cause, not simply the
unfeigned faith which rendered such heroism possible, but the planting
of that germ o