om home. I have not been
interfered with as were some gentlemen that I heard of at a public
dinner some years ago. A greenhorn, who had never seen a great banquet,
came to the city, and, looking through the door, said to his friends who
were showing him the sights: "Who are those gentlemen who are eating so
heartily?" The answer was: "They are the men who pay for the dinner."
"And who are those gentlemen up there on the elevation looking so pale
and frightened and eating nothing?" "Oh," said his friend, "those are
the fellows who make the speeches."

It is very appropriate that we should celebrate the Hollanders by hearty
eating, for you know the royal house that the Hollanders admire above
any other royal house, is named after one of the most delicious fruits
on this table--the house of Orange. I feel that I have a right to be
here. While I have in my arteries the blood of many nationalities, so
that I am a cosmopolitan and feel at home anywhere, there is in my veins
a strong tide of Dutch blood. My mother was a Van Nest, and I was
baptized in a Dutch church and named after a Dutch Domini, graduated at
a Dutch theological seminary, and was ordained by a Dutch minister,
married a Dutch girl, preached thirteen years in a Dutch church, and
always took a Dutch newspaper; and though I have got off into another
denomination, I am thankful to say that, while nearly all of our
denominations are in hot water, each one of them having on a big
ecclesiastical fight--and you know when ministers do fight, they fight
like sin--I am glad that the old Dutch Church sails on over unruffled
seas, and the flag at her masthead is still inscribed with "Peace and
good-will to men." Departed spirits of John Livingston and Gabriel
Ludlow, and Dr. Van Draken and magnificent Thomas de Witt, from your
thrones witness!

Gentlemen here to-night have spoken much already in regard to what
Holland did on the other side of the sea; and neither historian's pen,
nor poet's canto, nor painter's pencil nor sculptor's chisel, nor
orator's tongue, can ever tell the full story of the prowess of those
people. Isn't it strange that two of the smallest sections of the earth
should have produced most of the grandest history of the world?
Palestine, only a little over 100 miles in length, yet yielding the most
glorious event of all history; and little Holland, only about one
quarter of the size of the State of New Jersey, achieving wonderful
history and wonderful