ean, now rivals the
ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their
philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their
bards. Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud
and potent as she appears, may not, one day, be what Athens is, and the
young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, that, when
the European column shall have moldered, and the night of barbarism
obscured its very ruins, that mighty continent may not emerge from the
horizon to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant!

FOOTNOTE:

[52] By permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

THE PILGRIMS[53]

WENDELL PHILLIPS

When we undertake to criticise the Pilgrims, we ought first to ask
ourselves the question, where would they be to-day? Indeed, to be as
good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship.
Thee and thou, a stationary hat, bad grammar and worse manners, with an
ugly coat, are not George Fox to-day. You will recognize him in any one
who rises from the lap of artificial life, flings away its softness, and
startles you with the sight of a man. Neither do I acknowledge the right
of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America; it
only crops out here. It has cropped out a great many times in our
history. You may recognize it always. Old Putnam stood upon it at
Bunker Hill, when he said to the Yankee boys: "Don't fire till you see
the whites of their eyes." Ingraham had it for ballast when he put his
little sloop between two Austrian frigates, and threatened to blow them
out of the water if they did not respect the flag of the United States
in the case of Martin Koozta. Jefferson had it for a writing-desk when
he drafted the Declaration of Independence and the "Statute of Religious
Liberty" for Virginia. Lovejoy rested his musket upon it when they would
not let him print his paper at Alton, and he said: "Death or free
speech!" Ay! it cropped out again. Garrison had it for an imposing-stone
when he looked into the faces of seventeen millions of angry men, and
printed his sublime pledge, "I will not retreat a single inch, and I
will be heard."

If I were going to raise a monument to the Pilgrims, I know where I
should place it. I should place one corner-stone on the rock, and the
other on that level spot where fifty of the one hundred were buried
before the winter was over; but the remainder closed up