nd honors a sentiment that in turn honors you, but
in which my personality is lost, and the compliment to my people made
plain.

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night. I am not
troubled about those from whom I come. You remember the man whose wife
sent him to a neighbor with a pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the
top step, fell, with such casual interruptions as the landing afforded,
into the basement; and while picking himself up had the pleasure of
hearing his wife call out: "John, did you break the pitcher?" "No, I
didn't," said John, "but I be dinged if I don't!"

So, while those who call to me from behind may inspire me with energy if
not with courage, I ask an indulgent hearing from you. I beg that you
will bring your full faith in American fairness and frankness to
judgment upon what I shall say. There was an old preacher once who told
some boys of the Bible lesson he was going to read in the morning. The
boys finding the place, glued together the connecting pages. The next
morning he read on the bottom of one page: "When Noah was one hundred
and twenty years old he took unto himself a wife, who was"--then turning
the page--"one hundred and forty cubits long, forty cubits wide, built
of gopher wood, and covered with pitch inside and out." He was naturally
puzzled at this. He read it again, verified it, and then said: "My
friends, this is the first time I ever met this in the Bible, but I
accept it as an evidence of the assertion that we are fearfully and
wonderfully made." If I could get you to hold such faith to-night I
could proceed cheerfully to the task I otherwise approach with a sense
of consecration.

Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for the sole purpose of
getting into the volumes that go out annually freighted with the rich
eloquence of your speakers--the fact that the Cavalier as well as the
Puritan was on the continent in its early days, and that he was "up and
able to be about." I have read your books carefully and I find no
mention of that fact, which seems to me an important one for preserving
a sort of historical equilibrium if for nothing else. Let me remind you
the Virginia Cavalier first challenged France on this continent--that
Cavalier John Smith gave New England its very name, and was so pleased
with the job that he has been handing his own name around ever
since--and that while Miles Standish was cutting off men's ears for
courting a girl without her parents